I am angry.
I am angry that my body fought to fill my flesh, to be enough for you.
My heart - it knew.
It knew in the way it sank, heavy in my stomach,
Weighted by every critical word.
And when I told you, stop, please stop, it hurts,
You mocked me. You made me the victim.
Told me I wasn’t strong enough,
That your words were not sticks and stones,
That they could not break my bones.
But they broke.

I look back at every time I begged -
Please, just see me.
Don’t compare me to others.
Don’t talk down to me.
Don’t make me small.
Don’t use words you wouldn’t say to a friend.
But they spilled like chemicals,
and they burned.
I pleaded - Please stop, it hurts,
and you refused.
Even as I whispered I’m sorry when I wasn’t wrong and you weren’t right,
Even when my feelings were real,
You twisted my words until I doubted what I knew.

Now, I lay in bed, restless.
Your voice still lingers, gnawing at the edges of my thoughts.
Why did I have to fight just to be?
Did you ever even love me?

I want to lock my body away, never let a man touch me again.
I fight because I can still feel your hands on my skin.
And when I kissed your lips, I betrayed my own.
Your lips scorned and scolded,
Spat profanities, but I forgave.
I forgave, and I moved with you in love.
I placed my hands in yours,
Caressed your palms,
Shared breaths with breaths,
Rose and fell with you.
And how we rose.
And how we fell.

And I let you come inside.
I let you come inside.

I dusted off my corners,
Showed you my trinkets and knickknacks,
Pieces I saved for special moments -
Like falling in love.

I trusted you.
I pulled the box from beneath my bed,
Let you see the things I kept hid,
The imperfect parts you didn’t want to know.
I showed them to you because I needed you to see me - whole.

I saw more scorn in your eyes,
Transforming into my protected inner child,
The familiar way you looked down on me,
As if I was something rotting, covered in flies.
I had laid myself bare -
All my beauty, all my brokenness -
And you judged.

So I gathered those pieces, swept them away,
Let them fall into the dustpan,
Tossed them out, one by one,
Until there was nothing left to critique.
Until there was nothing left of me.

Except the one I protect inside,
Who felt the trembling as his mother cried.
Who heard your words in screaming rage,
That pierced through like knives.

And I am angry.

Silence—
like plunging my body into freezing waters,
sinking to the ocean floor,
where the dark, murky current swirls around me,
blinding, suffocating.
I scream—scream so loud—
but all you hear is silence.

Silence—
a concrete room with chained steel doors,
hidden in the belly of an abandoned building.
I pound on the walls,
scratch at the floor until my nails bleed,
screaming—begging—
Please, find me. Please, find me.
But there’s no one left to listen,
and all you hear is silence.

Silence—
a grave I dug trying to love you in all the wrong ways.
Buried alive beneath the weight of my own faults,
lungs filling with dirt,
mouth muddied with the taste of regret.
I gasp for breath,
screaming help, screaming I’m sorry—
until there’s nothing left but surrender,
and all you hear is silence.

Silence—
settling into my bones,
seeping into my flesh until it no longer feels my own.
I recognize the walls around me,
but this is not my life, not my home.
This is everything I know, yet do not know.
Every bone aches with a hollow pain—
too fragile to move.
If I do, I break.

Silent tears fall into my sheets,
pooling into the mattress where you never sleep.
What is this darkness in the space you used to hold?
A hollow cave inside my chest that echoes your screaming words—
I hate you. I hate you.
But I can still feel my love.

So I lay here in silence,
under covers that are too thin,
but heavy, weighed down by you.
Paralyzed.
Mute.
Words screaming in my head—silent, unheard—
words you will never hear.

And you will sleep soundly,
while my broken heart shatters deafening my ears,
and all you hear is silence.

You wanted me to speak your name
And so i did
I spoke it soft, i spoke it sweet, i spoke it
In love
But it was never yours to give
Yet, you did
In the fragments you could
Pry away that needed safe keeping
And I cradled them each
Individually like
Infants without mothers
Needing the warmth of flesh upon flesh

I miss you
Before i knew all of your broken parts
Before you took me apart piece by piece
And analyzed my heart

I miss you
Before I lost the kindness in your eyes
Before words that cut through me
Sharp & jagged twisting knives

I miss you

What is a night but a place to get lost? Lost somewhere in the dark. The darkest dark. You know the kind. (You do.) The kind where everything you’ve loved is no more, the last ember has burned out, the final flame is gone—a power surge that knocked an entire city out, the bottom of a well, sitting on a freshly dug grave and screaming until your lungs give out. That kind of dark.

Will they find me? Will he find me? Will he look for me? Has he looked for me? Has he even thought of me? Was he even real? Was he? Was I? Were we?

If he was, he is a ghost now. And he harbors all of the light. He holds it selfishly—a thief—who showed me his face, the one I could trace with my eyes closed. But I dare not touch. I dare not touch. I dare not touch.

We touched. I melted into him like a fallen candle, pieces of me everywhere.

His eyes—green, kind, nervously intense. The way his lips tightly spread across his face, with two exaggerated peaks. The softness of his pale skin. His pretentiously ******* parted hair. The hair he fiddled with, over and over, creating a part he was supposed to not part.

Can I fall asleep now and pretend his hands have interlaced with mine, one last time?

A solace sleep.

Dream sweet, my dear.

Dream sweet.

She held her breath
And held her breath
And thought of him,
Left to gasp
For the thick, heavy air—
Air that sat still
Between them.

The short distance,
Within minutes,
But hours,
Days,
Weeks,
So far apart
From where we were,
Where we are,
Who you were.

I don’t know,
But you’re holding all
These pieces of the
Heart that I had taken
All of this time to piece back,
Back together.

And you hold it
In a scummy pawn shop,
Collecting the interest,
The interest I scrape together,
Just enough
To keep you holding them—
On a shelf in the clutter
Of your garage,
Mixed with everything you
Hold onto to discard
But can’t seem to part with.

She’s got your heart
With so much disdain,
Silencing your pain,
The subtle breaks
Behind music and sound
That drown the cracking out—
Like you did with me.

Still, I paint,
And in my visions,
On this blank canvas,
You’re all I see.

So I hold my breath
And gasp to breathe.

Let me go.
Let me free.

I stood there humbly with my head down
looking at my feet
I felt as you took me apart piece by piece
I patiently waited as you analyzed me.
I listened quietly while you told me all of the reasons I wasn’t good enough.
I listened when you told me you couldn’t respect me, my love.
I let you compare me to your ideas,
to the people you know.
I carried that hurt and I didn’t let it show.
I ****** up my pride and convinced myself that this is just what you need to do,
And one day you will see that I really was enough for you.

I realized I’m doing it again.
Holding hands with my childhood friend.
Every time I see you I am filled with anxiety.
As long as I love you, I will always bleed.