If I touch your rosen cheek,
if I pour your golden hair
upon my face to bury it in
brilliant glow, if I place the lips
of yours upon my own and
leave them there forevermore,
if I press my finger now to
your neck of silk to begin
an endless journey down your side
unbridling all to bare beauty
to behold, if I told you what I
see, if I told how it makes me feel,
you would think me crazed and
amazingly your thoughts be true,
so lean your head on pillow blue
and I shall make love to all of you,
then afterwards again and again.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

You're my muse
I think
When all I can hear is the buzz of the AC
And the echo of my fingers on a keyboard
You're my muse
You fill my head with lovely things
And scary things
Kisses and fingertips
Brushing against my scalp
Your tears sinking into my t-shirt
My tears staining my pillows black
I'm scared sometimes
By how much I want you
I daydream of driving to Chicago
And seeing your old house
Looking at the flakes of crumbling paint
Looking at the forgotten or perhaps repressed parts of you
I crave knowing you like that
You're guarded
And I don't blame you
But I wish I could lick your wounds
The ones that still ache when it gets cold at night
Long closed up but never quite healed
You're guarded
I want you to let it down
Let me see the side of you I saw by the river that night
The side I see in your pictures online
Like the one of you laying on your back on a rock
I remember the story of that one
Is it so bad
To want to know you so well
I could crawl inside your skin
Walk around as you for a day
And no one would notice the difference
I don't think it's so bad
Do you?

Nothing tastes right.

I can hear people talking around me
but their voices never quite touch me.
I’m alone in here
In this empty room
I watch a tv screen
It’s the only light in here
It’s what I see through the eyes of this body.
They’re all watching me walk
Watching how I move
but it’s not me. The person walking through the world is not me. It’s a prison. It’s a life sentence.

I can laugh
when I forget about my body
When it’s just me and a screen
Seen through a screen

Is this what I wished for
the end I can’t escape from?
are my prayers finally answered?
Will this be the end?
I don’t know if I’m ready
If I ever even was
Maybe I really did want to get better

Your soft lips
A wet caress
Tinged with sweet mint and cigarettes
And something faintly spiced
The softness of your hands on my hips
Your stomach and chest pressed against mine
Breathing into each other
Your heartbeat the only sound I can hear
Domestically in love

Realizing that pursuing comfort in the form of abuse
is not some inherent part of me
but a behavior I developed as a result of trauma
changed the game.

I do not inherently seek and attract abusive men and unhealthy relationships.
I seek them because I was taught
by men I thought I loved
in my formative years
that abuse is love.
That sexually traumatizing behaviors
are what I want,
what I'm attracted to.
I have always known that this was not normal
but I thought it was my fault.
I thought this was who I am.

Realizing that I am a product of my environment,
an environment of cruel, **** addicted men
who provided me with my first impression
of a thing called love,
reminded me that that was my "nurture".
And that my "nurture" shaped such an integral part of me
That I thought it -was- me.
But it wasn't.

I'm not broken, actually.
The associations
my young brain has formed
between intimacy and violence
are not final,
nor are they true.
They've led me to seek
out the worst of men
the worst of everyone,
but
I have a choice in this.

I am not responsible for the men who thought they loved me
and thought that showing it through ****** violence was acceptable.
Their guilt is their own.
Their "nurture" is their cross to bear.
I do not have to tolerate their behavior,
I do not have to seek it out.
I do not have to tell myself that I enjoy it,
that I deserve it,
that I want or need it.
I do not have to center myself or my happiness
around being in a relationship
with an abusive man,
a relationship that distresses me
to the point of suicidal ideation.
I am the master of the universe
that is my mind
I can create my own nurture,
true nurture,
and discover what love actually is to me.

Realizing I was ***** and sexually abused
made me realize I did not choose for that to happen
or for the resulting trauma to develop.
But I do choose this.
I choose to heal.