i have survived
storms.
i have survived a father's voice like thunder;
handprint lightning flowers petal over my skin
like i am a garden to sinners-
adam and eve call my grassroots their home and hum lullabies-
i have survived
anger.
pros and cons of
clock-ticking therapy sessions where money is thrown at my gaze,
fixed on the wall,
dollar-a-second drumming fingers
screaming so loud that heaven shuts the blinds and hangs a "closed" sign on the door.
pros and cons of
stumbling home,
under a murky peerless crowd of smoke,
slurring words trail around and behind me like moths to a porchlight.
morning headaches,
angry adults
damaging drywall and breaking family portraits
exhausting search for answers
exhausting search in a silence that lengthens the disconnect from child to mother
where your mind goes red and the honest truth that stays stuck to the roof of your mouth falls out
where you become an overflowing mailbox and your hands shake
the absence of parents who never taught you to hold your tongue
i have survived
hurt.
i have survived the specific type of loss that you feel in the pit of your stomach
the one that lies next to you
when you stare at the ceiling and your face hurts from crying
tears scrub your eyelids raw and you promise,
"if i ever make it through this,
i will never be here again."
i have survived giving up,
taking it all back, throwing it all away,
parallel structures of contemplation and decision
i have survived
lonely.
angry storms of abandonment, melodies of the lonely and the hurt
i reprise to the ones that add injury to insult,
you are not the worst thing that has ever happened to me.
i echo choruses to the people that force me to grow up at sixteen
i have destruction embedded into my neurotransmitters
i have shooting post-traumatic pain in my memories
i have survived
a hell that your hands are not stained enough to touch.
i assure you,
my love,
i will survive
you as well

It was a marathon race of
timeline. The days are bound and shot.
How do I come to you to express
my grief of the country
in tumult!

In shouting and screaming,
there was no magic wand to invoke
peace. Your mouth opens
and shuts like the shell valves. The
scollops― words, swim in
sea of burials.

The seriality was unconscionable.
It falls short of a stroke.
The blood splits. A riot erupts
to wet the lips of curved razor.
The sun retreats, to let
the stars find their sky.

Uncertainty;
A nagging feeling in the pit of your belly
eating away at any remaining sanity
as you question everything constantly.

It is sweaty palms and legs that are shaky
short breaths from a chest closed tightly
as you live calamity after calamity.

It is fear of the unknown possibilities
that plague each day with negativity
as it eternally resides in me entirely;
uncertainty.

I used to go out for cigarettes before bed
with music and connection to the world,
I’ve learned to clam the
addiction to nosiness about
trump and
syria,
petitions about
dying dogs and
sensitivity,
and I just sit out there with a shovel
in my eyes digging the other way and
appreciating the sky and watching the
clothesline sway like elevator wire
and I feel more connected
by reading the stones that
shower a braille on my palms
as I tap the ground in withdrawal