it repeats and returns and i run in circles around it
i'm faster now my legs are stronger but i still get tired

always repeating and repetitive and returning to rewrite the same words
over and over and over and over
broken out of cycles
of blood/ of hurt/ of being hurt/ of allowing hurt/ of scrubbing toilets/ of closed lips/ of poison

blame my lack of creativity on my meds
saw one comment on a forum saying that happened to them, just running with it
i think i'm just out of practice and don't want to admit it doesn't come easily anymore
but it can if i want it to

still repeating, still repetitive, still running in circles
waiting for the day i can slow down again
don't have to run as fast
because i'm not being chased anymore

wrote about the way the ghosts that used to haunt me convinced me to carve into my legs and purge my stomach of everything rotten
years later, i read it again. and again.
in every word i see you.
i see you and what you did to me and how you treated me.
you tried to ruin my soul, dehumanize every bit of me,
and i tried my best to help you with it by cutting it into smaller and smaller pieces.

was i complicit in my own destruction?
i made my decisions.
you dug my grave but i chose to lay in it

i took the drugs you supplied me and i thought that it gave me love.
you let xanax do the talking when you told me you loved.
you didn't you didn't you didn't.
and honestly! i didn't either! i tried to but i didn't.
but i cared when you didn't.

i'm tired of thinking about you.
i'm tired of trying to figure this out.
i didn't deserve that.

i was complicit in my own destruction
you dug my grave but i chose to lay in it
until i didn’t

i will never forgive you for what you did to me.
you blossomed weeds of anger and self-loathing inside of my lungs.
the flowers grew and grew until they infected my heart and my throat and my hands.

from this hatred, i have forged rivers and gorges into my legs.
forcing ***** in hopes that the memories would purge with the bile.
i shaved my head and cut my hair and sliced my soul into smaller pieces.
your hands linger and the scars still shine bright where you burned me.

i spent years trying to find a way to expel the vines slowly choking me,
poisoning myself and praying that it would be a sufficient **** killer.

it never was.

i didn't stop bleeding for a long time.

i gave away my blood to the tub more times than i remember
countless trickles soaked into cotton ***** and band-aids and pant-legs
i watched my life swirl down the drain in the form of pale pink water

i gave these pieces of myself away
and now as some sort of punishment, or maybe blessing
i have to keep these silvery lines across my skin as a reminder
to never take my blood and my life for granted again.

did you know that when you took your hands and ripped me apart that it would lead others to follow the trail of blood and prey upon me as well.
these wounds you opened never healed and my flesh has been rotting for many years and it's too late to lob it off and bandage myself up.

this disease is living in my bones in my heart in my brain it the core of who i am and to extricate it would mean to extricate my own identity
you cannot **** it without killing my mind

i can't understand why the world looked at me and decided that i didn't deserve the happiness she so willingly gave everyone else.
she chose me to be one of the rotten people that exist solely to be hurt by those who are evil.
the rot and the evil are bound and stuck together. always always always we will find each other and the rot grow again and again and again.
it's what we were born to do.

rats and poisons and rot sat in my stomach for years/body distended and painful/until it became too painful to bear/choking on the *****/holding tight in my mouth/lips shut/finally e xpl ode and i spill/onto the floor/
the consequences i dealt with/cleaned the mess/scrubbed the tile / tub / carpet clean/and i am clean/clean/clean/stand from the ground/shakey legs/i feel clean/

a glimpse of the brightness i once saw radiate from you
shined for me one last time
as you laid on my floor
and told me how much you loved
your nine year-old brother.

after you left that night, i dreamt of you.

i was walking alone
and saw you standing in a snow covered field.
the real you.
in your purest form
you manifested as your father.
covered in gashes
bones piercing through skin
oozing with blood and pus and venom

you opened your mouth as if to speak
but anything you might've had to say
was drowned out as the poison poured
onto the sneakers
your mother bought you for christmas.