I wish I was
something more than
what I dare to call
myself
because this body was
never hurt this much
because this mind was
never haunted this much
because those nightmares
once stopped when I
woke up
but since when I can recall
they last longer than
twenty four hours
and this is insane
am I this insane?
that doctor says I don't look that ill
the other says I should
go in the psych ward
the other says I'm in the control
while the other one says
the harm on my body means
I'm not the one in charge
any longer
am I insane yet?
I should call 911
but I'm afraid another doctor
will attempt to say what's
going on
inside myself
instead of asking me
what I'm feeling for real
or why these injuries are for
or why the empty stomach
keeps growling
won't you eat, my dear?
I say no
won't you take your meds, my dear?
I say why
won't you enjoy your life like a normal human being?
I ask why should I
since im in the border of sanity
way more on the side
of those ones
stuck between four walls
white bedsheets
and treated like kids
who forgot to take their medicines
at home
so now they need a special care
am I insane yet?
I wonder
but no one dares
to answer.

She sits on the bed and reads me
Old poetry
About ******, sadness, and loss
All synonyms
For the same affliction really
Dysfunction and despair
Captured in yellowed archival snapshots
Of a girl
With a penchant for surviving pain

Mortality leaps
From the prose as she reviews her life
In hellish imagery
A transmutation of spirit occurs
Within her
As she drifts through the years
On each page
Melancholy awareness for us both realizing
That it's all real

No one can take away the scars that
Every word cuts
No one can deny the inviolable fortitude
Required to document
The war embedded and entrenched on the front lines
Just old poetry
To me they resonate like a distant bell
Her sudden silence
Whispers that the dead still scream her name

when i told my friend that my new boyfriend loved sports and going out; partying, being loud and obnoxious, she grimaced and said she didn't know why i even liked him. i got angry with her - why did she not trust my gut?

i once told her that opposites attract, so we should be fine. we should have been.

but then came the fighting over little things, then came the mutual devaluation of each other's interests, then came the nights spent on the couch instead of in bed,  his drinking. he would always take the books from my hands and throw them across the wall - *******, he called them. he'd always say i lived in my head, that i never gave him the attention he deserved, that he would take a ******* instead of me any time. and at some point, he had me loathing him more than i did myself.

yet, at the same time, i still loved him. it was like an addiction - i knew he was bad for me, but i clung onto him like he was air and i couldn't breathe. there were nights when i really couldn't.

sometimes it felt like he still loved me, too. when he came to the locked bathroom door and cried with me; apologizing over and over again. at those moments my love for him would crawl out of its cave - my heart - covered in blood, battered, bruised, but still standing. and it would hold him, whispering false truths in his ear. i would always forgive him, because opposites attract. it was just the way he was, he couldn't do anything about it.

even if he could, i frequently thought i didn't want him to. not because i was content with his violent outbrusts and alcoholism, or what he put me through on a daily basis - no. because i loved him, regardless of all the pain he caused me. and love means to accept someone for who they are.

but i came to realize that love is quite finite when all negative things seem infinite.

i hated the way we were so different. where i would sit in one place for hours on end, he'd walk around clumsily, breaking things, screaming, slamming doors.

he drove me mad. and, don't get me wrong, i am not a saint. i'm sure i did the same to him. maybe it's my fault that he turned out the way he did - perhaps if he had chosen to live with someone else, his smiles would still be kind rather than cruel. perhaps if i had changed for him - if i was more like him, we would have been okay. but my silence was deafening. i was convinced he didn't deserve to hear my voice. and he didn't, for days. sometimes he asked if i was pretending to be a ghost of what we used to be. i started questioning my previous way of thinking. do opposites really attract?

and i came to a conclusion. they really do. opposites attract, but they are not always good for each other. i had to learn that the hard way.

and just like a ghost, i faded. i left.

He catches me in lovin--
liking
him
and it's always striking
how my body acts on whim.
He always looks the best
not wearing any clothes,
makes my ***** point west
with their ***** woes.
He makes me think in lovely
and dresses me in kisses:
purple,
black,
red and bruised up
kisses
(he never misses).
I have a necklace ringing
all around my skinny neck,
I wear his love
like a trophy,
do I look a-wreck?
I make him wreck my body
night after night after night
because I want his gaudy,
pale and beautiful might
to come down all at once
and bury me in flesh;
to fill my ears with grunts
and turn my soil threshed.
Thresh me, thresh me hard,
my beautiful man,
my body's prettier marred
with your harmattan
breezes blowing on my sands;
how I really,
really,
really
like
my
man
because he buries me in hugging
and hides me in his warmth;
he always has me shrugging
the yeses from up north
in the epicenter of all pleasure
rooted in my mind;
it's the greatest measure
of our loving time.
He spanks me 'til I moan,
I **** him 'til he's dry,
his touch turns me to stone and
his stroking makes me cry.
Though it may be sore
after a day or so
my heart is always hurting
from the constant flow
of his body's beautiful fluids,
white and clear and true;
who needs a beautiful blue
when I have my like,
my really,
really,
really
like;
it's better than number two.




(I really,
really,
really like you)