It's 4 am
And the term "exposed nerve"
Has never described me
So well before.

The last three hours
Spent utilizing every
Relaxation method I've
Ever been taught.

I'm so tired.
Tuck me back beneath
Warm skin and let me
Sleep.

Once, an old friend asked me; what would my soul look like, if others could see it?

"A bug," I replied.

To crickets, the mantis is terror incarnate--a fierce behemoth, with knives for hands and without mercy. It is to be respected and feared, it is mighty and dignified.

To a human? A mantis is...

"A bug."

It is the debris among the mud between the treads of your sneakers. It is the gross infatuation, the scientific fascination--it is weak. It is small. It is inconsequential.

I yearn for a life of primitive needs and void of wants.

I yearn for the mantis, seeking only to destroy enough to line his stomach, all in a day's work, back to the safe spot where the "bigger and badder" can't reach you.

Life would be eat, sleep, repeat,

and I detest my self-awareness. I'd rather fail the simple life of a mantis and die without need of fulfillment,

Than to realize I'll no sooner discover what "fulfillment" is to myself than reach it--and to be torturously aware of that,

So very, very, existentially aware.

"My soul would look like a bug."

"I love you."

It feels like;
Last week,
Everything in your house
moved--
Inexplicably--
Two inches left.

You still haven't yet found
Why your hip is
Permanently purple
From kissing the desk
You've never collided with before.

The words I'm looking for
Are two inches to the right;
But if I took that phrase and
Shifted it it,

All that would leave my throat
Was the sound of
Bruised skin;
Permanently purple
From hitting the words
I've never felt were less than satisfactory before

Because the words I need don't
Actually exist.

I am on a journey, back in time;

When you're meant to be the one
With experience,
You don't tell him "yes"
When he tells you to come
Home with him.

When you haven't spoken
In months
You don't stay
Five days
Four nights
In a time capsule;

Look! The walls are right
Where I left them
Look!
And I am right
Where he left me

And I have made this room
Home.
And I would gladly travel back
To this moment in history;

Yes, even amongst the
Sobbing--
To make this memory
The space I return to
After a long day of
Reality.

It always comes
Back to
Reality.

I throw myself down the stairs
in my mind.

I curl my toes over the top stair,
Imperceptible sways toward
the ragged drop

I close my eyes and tuck,
knees to heart,
hands to elbows
to face to
feet
to
toes
to

Tumbling, and
screaming and
bruising for days.

I throw myself down the stairs
in my mind.

Outside, I sleep
a little deeper
and stairs are for
reaching the kitchen,

If I threw myself down
them, I would
disappoint
everyone.

"I kissed a feminist once",
he says, face flushed blotchy, something heavy resting on his shoulders
maybe
“I kissed a feminist once,”
and everybody laughs
“she was cold as ice,” he says
and he doesn’t mention how I turned
warm beneath his fingers,
heated up like embers
and reduced his bed to flame and ashes
“God was she mean,” he says
but he hasn’t forgotten the time
I told him to be kind to himself, to
purge the poison from his veins and
scrape the smoke from his lungs
“I love you I love you I love you”
I said,
“please love yourself too”
“I kissed a feminist once,”
he says, to loud guffaws,
an elbow in his side
and he doesn’t say “her lips
were the softest thing to ever brush
my collar bone”
he doesn’t say “she made playlists in my mind”
or “she covered me like a blanket”
or “her teeth on my earlobe ripped me open and scattered me across the sheets of her twin bed”
he doesn’t say “I loved that
storm of a girl,
I loved her heavy at 4am I loved
her like pennies
at the bottom of a fountain
like memorized freckles
I loved her like depth perception
like opposable thumbs
I loved her I loved her I loved her”
and instead he shrugs
that heavy thing off his shoulders
and shrugs the feel of my lips
off his chest and he says,
“she was a crazy ***** anyway”
- Lily Cigale

When I talk about you, my voice gets strained.
It's squeezing it's way through my teeth,
The abuse and the fear squeaking along the unoiled hinges of my jaw--
my voice breaks.

I am every teen novel, I am every TV special
on complex systems of abuse
I am victim.
I am girl, sitting in his car and relaying the details
of my youth, the day I lost all trust in you.

The memory of your finger, clammy,
tracing a line down the center of my *******
threatens to pull me under, and I am screaming--
Why? Why did you have to make this so difficult?
Drowning myself was an inevitability,
so why did you have to hold my head under
and add your name to the list of
"who's to blame?"

And to this day, I have this innate need to
please you, I've learned
the intricacies of language for no truer reason
than to string you (happily) along;

Always emotionally available, but never
for you.
Is this part of me that wants you
A product of your manipulation?
Or am I only telling myself that,
so I can remain,
victim?