I am out
throwing breadcrumbs
to help me find
my way back
to you

you are out
with torches
burning down
the trees that line
the pathways

home

You see scars
instead of stories,
histories weaved and stitched
half healed, still tingling with shame,

fragile ribbons tied together by my teeth,
pulled tight against the darkest night,
when midnight was a threat, and sunrise
an aching promise that I might forget,

so, see scars if that’s all
you can see,
but I now honour the stories
within me

You murdered me
yet I survived,
in a sleep where death
is my only dream,

my heart was stolen,
yet I hold it in my hand,
broken and scarred,
why does it still
beat?

I feel your fingers on every
inch of my flesh,
flies that get under my skin
and infect my insides
with fear, guilt and shame,

I hold every breath in
the purgatory of my
throat ,

to be sent to the
Heaven of forgetting
or the Hell of regretting

You held a promise
over my head like a guillotine,

I'd be safe as long as I did
what you asked,

I'd survive so long as I
gave you what you wanted,

I saw God in the face of Satan,
because there was no other
way for it to be,

and you want my thanks
and gratitude for being
my saviour that
night?

when you would put me
in a prison, for the rest of my life...

Can it not be enough
for your skin to tingle,

when it gets too close
to the open fire you are
curled in front of,

reading books that take
you to places that even
your dreams don't reach...

To exist in a moment of
contentment without waiting,
wanting, wishing for
the next one..

There was a time when I would run
into a burning building
to save you,

until I released that you were,
in fact, the arsonist,

setting light to whatever you touched,
(for the Hell of it)
and I was in that
(Hell)

my flesh burning as your fingers
pressed their prints on it

but you didn’t realise,
that you had turned me into evidence

and I would drag my body through
a thousand fires, and roll in the ashes,
of what’s left of my life

to help them catch you

When I close my eyes
I see the beach where we once sat,
drinking wine and sharing cigarettes,
we watched the waves crash over
the sand, imagining that one day,
we would own a cottage on the coast,
we were could listen to
the ocean each night,
as we snuggled warm under blankets,
now we are cold and distant,
and no amount of dreaming
will bring the fire back into
our hearts, we are over
and it hurts to remember
those careless, wasted days,
where we could have done
so much instead of just
waiting