I’ll never tell

I made the promise unconsciously
I closed the shutters
Nailed the doors shut
Pulled the curtains
To convince
I’m not sure who
That no one was home
So no one would hurt me anymore

I’ll never tell

Each time I tried
To dig the roots up
Pull out the rot
The thorns wrapped around my words
Bound them tight
With the shame
The anger
The fear
The pain

I’ll never tell

Rickety structures
Grew over me
Armor
Cutting the hands
Of any who
Came too close
I cut my hands
Trying to pull them down
To embrace them

I’ll never tell

It never belonged to me
Though the brand
Gleams on me
In the moonlight
When you tried to kiss me
How he did
Seems like only yesterday

Your eyes hold fear
Misunderstanding
The creature claiming me
I couldn’t stop
The roaring of my blood
The rising of the scream
I never let out
When hungrier hands
Closed on my throat

The colours the same
The smell the same
The hand on my thigh the same
The innocence of the embrace
The trust
How it all started

It’s not the same
It’s not the same
This is ma coeur
It’s not the same
It’s not him

My world shifts between
One of heaven
One of hell
I cannot find my reality
Not even to ease your fear
I could not stop my own
Rising like it did too late
On a night
So the same

I felt again
His bruising on my skin
Green and blue fingerprints
On my wrists
My collar bone
My leg
My throat
My hips

‘It’s so hot’ he’d say
As I shrank away
Not for the first time
It was our repeat routine
He’d always go too far
I’d leave him
With fear and shame

And he’d always be so sorry
‘I love you’ he’d say
‘There’s nothing wrong with this, this is normal’ he’d say
When I’d shrink from his hands
Tell him no no no
I’d tell him don’t touch me like that
And he’d say sorry
And do it again and again.
Tell me how unhappy it made him
If I didn’t let him do it

I don’t remember when I stopped trusting him
When i started to be afraid
My friends told me
It wasn’t normal
It wasn’t okay
When I’d finally share the secret
‘Get out of there!’
They’d say.
‘It’s not safe!’
But I don’t think they even knew
What was coming
What he could do.
I should have left him long before
It’s my fault you see
I taught him it was okay
To abuse me

In a way
My own nature and upbringing
Is to blame
I was born without a single desire
To fight
I’d bow my head and take the punches
Even as a child
I could not even play wrestle with my siblings
And they’d laugh and push me in front of strangers like a party trick
‘Look’ they’d say,
‘She won’t fight back’.

You see it hurt me more
To fight back
To hurt them
Than it did to be hurt
By them.

I was taught to love trust and forgive all
I was taught to be gentle
Even when the world isn’t gentle with you.

So I forgave
Over and over
Second, third, twentieth chances
Because he said he loved me
He was right wasn’t he?

Some part of me knew
My body, knew.
His lips on mine
Gave me a bitter taste in my mouth
I’d spit him out
I’d be repulsed
I stopped feeling like his touches were affectionate
And started taking them
Like punches

Everything was blue
It smelled like a new car
I was leaving him.
I couldn’t bear it any longer.
His pain was a violent thing.
I hurt with him
I couldn’t shut him out
I just wanted him to feel better
I should have known better
Than to reach for him.

I wrote it out
It still feels dishonest
So damning
Even now I cannot raise
Even a verbal hand against him
I don’t want anyone
To see the telling

I thought it’d be something
I could forget and bury
But this isn’t moving on
Sharing moments with my love
With his ghost

I’ll never tell
I promised
Because once I do
The witch hunt would start
And my life and his
Would be ruined worse
Than I am ruined
Already.

I’m sorry

You saw his branding
I saw how afraid you were.

I’m sorry
You have to share me with it.
I’m sorry,
My love, that

I’ll never tell.

my love, life is enormous

life is a creature with eight tails and six heads
life devours suns for breakfast and eats moons for desserts

you and I are the specks it feeds upon,
and at the same time it feeds us,
so life is made of people: friends, enemies,

loved ones,

so, love, life cannot be lived without people.
life cannot be lived without living all it has to offer

because life is enormous.
it is a creature
with more hearts than tails or heads

I’m still so in love with you.

Oh the hours I’ve spent
Reliving the pictures of us
I held in my mind and in my hands

I’d look so carefully
Study our smiles
Your eyes,
My eyes
Every freckle and lash

Looking for that offending something
That doomed us to fail

At work I’ve been helpless
Gazing out the window
Dreamily
Heart and mind far away
Wandering with you.
‘Oh that’s a girl in love’
The old lady said
As she chuckled and shuffled out the door
My cheeks reddening.

What do I make of it all
I had so much questions and doubt.
Why do I only grow in more love for you
The longer we are apart
Why won’t it fade
Like everything else?

How can I still want you this much
When I know so strongly we are wrong
Why can’t I even use
This violent imagination
To even imagine myself with someone new?

Everyday is worse
Than the one before it
My calling reaching deafening pitch
Ma coeur ma coeur
Come home.

I’m still so in love with you.

I want to throw my arms around you
Bury my face in your neck
Breathe you in
Oh how I crave you
Kiss every inch of you
Tracing the lines of you
Painting you with my fingers
Feel drums deep in your chest,
Under my hands
Your laugh like sun bursting
From behind clouds
And how you’d look at me
Holding my face so gently
Fires in your eyes
Fierce and gentle at the same time
The crooked smile
The nervous hands
Asking, never taking
Oh how I want you.

I live for your words
An addict I’ve become
Counting the minutes between
Each contact. Each word.
I imagine how you’d say them
The shape of your lips
Your summer eyes
Changing and folding
With the seasons of your sentences
If words were water
My darling,
Let it pour.

I’m still so in love with you

The missing is unbearable
Desperate and hollow I’ve become
Your ghost
A spectre to follow your bright futures
I never wanted to be a shadow.
I am becoming yours.

I’m still so in love with you

And for that reason
I can’t have you.
For I left you to force you forward
So how can I justify
Taking you back
Even if it is
Into my begging arms.

All things have their time

Flowers bud then bloom
In fragrant bursts of colour and life
Wilting, browning, curling and dying
Just how they should

Trees shake off the frost
Greening up skeletal branches
Till the trunk sways
Under a crown of bushy green
That slowly turn gold orange and brown
And drops
As the world cycles again.

We too, bloomed.
You made me bloom
Then we wilted
I wilted
And we ended.

My most fervent dream for us
Was always that we’d
somehow be evergreen
Despite what nature has taught me.

We lived in summer, and died just before winter.

Except I wonder if we are now
Just dead branches
Wilted petals
Fallen leaves

When since the ending
Greenery has burst from our skin
Better than the unpruned tree
Our love seemed to be.

Maybe we had to let the bad fall away
Maybe what we had was the bad
So that something better could grow

The world keeps moving
Whether I will it to or not
And gold that was not yours
Asked for me.

And I know we had our time
And this is a time for pruning
But how can I accept
Different flowers
When even as he spoke
I wished
For yours.

All things have their time
Sunflowers and deep roots,
Tell me,
Is our time truly over?

I dealt death today.

I know it’s a part of the job.
I know I’ve seen it too many times to count.
But today,
I felt it.

I left the room long after their family did.
There was no where I could go
To escape their

Roaring grief.

They were long gone.
And I was left with their precious baby.
I curled his arms and legs up
Closed his eyes
Wrapped him up gently.
With love and respect
Here he’ll sleep forever.

And oh,
They are so thankful,
That it was me
That I understood
That I was so careful
That I spent the time with them.

And you’re not supposed to take it with you.
You’re supposed to leave it
When they walk out the door
With one less goodbye.

But I took it with me today.

The way they felt before
The way they felt after
The long quiet goodbyes
The man in a suit on his knees weeping
The mother and son making a cocoon
Sheltering their dying baby.
The solemn face of the woman who plays god.
The green death.
The last breath.
The heaving of the living as he gave his last.
The waiting.
Slower rhythm.
Quieter.
‘He’s gone now’.

I watched the clock
The same way I had
An hour before
Waiting for death.

Soon as I could
I fled out the door
Ran into the street
Tried to outrun it

Instead I ran to you
I dialled your number
With shaking hands

I know I’m not supposed to
But all I wanted was you
Your voice

Ringing out
Thankfully
I wept alone.

Today I dealt death
And I found I am not strong enough
To sustain this
Alone
Or for long.

I found I still consider you my haven
Deep down
But that you are not my haven anymore
Or should be.

I listened to the silence
After the call rang out
And decided