don’t be defeatist
they say
as if i am not already worn to ruin
as if my fingers have not bled
all i am capable of bleeding
over their pristine paper sheets

just believe in yourself
they say
as if belief alone has ever offered salvation
as if i could will myself into being
as so many others wish they could with god

all you can do is your best
they say
but what if this is my best?
what if i am a husk of a human being
before i reach the age of 30
what if all my light was used up
in a voltage too high
squeezed out of me like a surge
in an electrical storm

what if my peak is behind me
looming above me like atlas
blotting out the sun
and leaving me to get swept up
in the wake of an overachiever
what if i am incapable of what you believed in me
because you pushed me too hard, for too long
because what you needed of me you needed immediately
you took me in your hands like goliath took his stone
wrung me out until i was bloodless
wrote out my worth and found your pen inkless before you’d reached the end

worth is relative
i say
now that i forced you to see your mistake
now that i am bedridden and useless and limp like a doll
now that my good days are not when i write 100 pages
but when i remember to drink water
when i remember to bathe and eat and wake before noon
as if all your pushing just wound me up like a coil
set me tight enough to regress unto the mean

i am doing my best
i say
now that i am barely capable of anything at all
now that the pedestal you put me on looked like a ledge
and you see it for what it was
now that it’s too late to walk back from the gallows
because i’ve already been hung like a ghost
and all i do these days is sway in the wind


i have been defeated
i say
but it was because you put me in the colosseum
with nothing but my tired self leaning on my tired self
and i lay on the floor waiting for the lions to come

i have been defeated
i say
to my defeatist self
because no one stays around to watch a losing fight.

i will be made of love again
just you wait
it will gleam like dew on my skin
spark my eyes
it will fill out my hips
pour into the gaps
between my ribs
i will be full of it
it will burst forth from me
like sunlight
i will be radiant, evergreen
my love will be in overabundance
i will not know what to do with it all
but know this
not a drop of it will be spilt on you
not a dappled ray of light
will be wasted on your skin
my brilliance will not feed you
i will not be eaten.

i think i went about this all wrong
this grief you gave me
because i skipped ahead
read the end
i fell straight through the floorboards
into bargaining
begging, anything, everything
my kingdom for your time

i brushed straight passed denial
i knew what you’d done before you did it
the forth step broke under my feet
it hit me with a vividness
it left me starving, sleepless
i laid there next to you
and felt the beast i thought i’d slain
open up it's hungry maw

my acceptance after was for my sake
a forgiveness of myself for believing you
but never forgiveness of what you did
and it was in this acceptance that i found anger
a stranger, someone who kisses my cheek
and says how tall i’ve grown but it's name i had forgotten
until now, now when it bathes me in it's fire
and i am cleansed by it, burned out of the beast’s jaw

and this cruelty i feel, it is yours alone
my pains in the past brought indifference
so often there was nothing left to fashion into hatred
but, by god, you gave me so much
so much fleshy material, patches of your selfishness
whole sheets of your betrayal, ribbons of your pettiness
/you ******* child/
i can make quilts out of your mistake
murals of this viciousness you’ve given me
i shall wrap it around my naked shoulders and sleep in it.

sometimes my first thought is still you
but it is dull now
like a toothache

sometimes my mind says your name
in the same tone it uses
for poetry

sometimes i sit in bookshops
and catch the ghost
of your lily perfume

but it is a distant thought
a faraway noise
an ephemeral scent

and it is like you are here, yet not
as if you are sharing your essence
with another plane of existence

barely here in your translucence
you sit between realms
equidistant over the edge

it is okay, my love
you can let go now
i am not where you left me.

they say you will know
when you are dreaming
hands, clocks, mirrors
they say numbers will twist
letters will distort
an ugly tear will be ripped
across the fabric of space and time
but what if i avoid mirrors
what if i struggle with clocks
what if my fingers are always
too many, or too few
what if the material is torn ragged
and no matter how many times
i run my hands along it
i can always feel the stitches?

i am just a pebble on your river bed
if i did not exist, you would have kept flowing
if you had not met me
you would have kept going
and that way, it is an honour
to have such a force of nature
stop on her way to kiss me.

oh, it hurts to talk to me?
how much?
tell me, in ounces
tell me, how many breaths can you take
before your chest feels ragged?
how many days do you go without food?
how many nights do you lie awake?
when you see my face, do you taste blood
from your bitten tongue?
do your teeth ache from how tightly clenched
you have to keep them from spitting poison?
how far does someone have to push you
to make you cruel?
because my answers go like this
weightless
none
weeks and weeks
yes and yes
too far.