what happened to naming your first kid after me
and the cow themed kitchen of our dreams
can you explain why any of this is happening
because it never made much sense to me

i want to be mad and i have many reasons to feel jaded
but i know holding grudges serves no purpose
logic writes off every course of frustration
acting out of emotion would be a disservice

but i can't do anything right
except for walk the other way
i do it with a pain in my chest
but i did everything right at the end of the day

and all of your shortcomings
and betrayals and cruelty
one they they'll be nothing
but old ******* news to me
today it hurts
but i gotta breathe and find truth in peace
not dedicate my life and death to punishing you
for being selfish and marooning me

because one day i won't cry for you
and all of the things you wouldn't do
when fidelity fell short
the times i waited for you to never come through
in contrast with the blood that i poured
on the altar built just for you
it'll be in ruins in due time
til then i just have to make do

and i'll make do
till i'm doing well
and you'll make wrong turns
till you've confused yourself
which is none of my concern
not since the day you abjured
at least i've gained perspective
from the wrath that i've endured
and maybe one day you might change
but that's not for sure

and i'm not rewriting history
by letting new information alter my position
it's okay to be wrong
and even better to make informed decisions
praying i'll never learn this lesson again
knowing my part in how this ended
i won't ever walk on water
but my life will be more than chosen affliction
i loved you
but you're not welcome not even when you are forgiven

for one, maybe two, years
after, i play words with friends
against one of the women that
sexually assaulted me

i was seventeen, and i
******* begged for them to stop,
please stop,
you’re hurting me

no one else at the wedding
after party heard me, music too
loud and champagne flowing too
freely

and the first person i told,
before she dropped me off
in front of the wrong house,
said, ‘i’m not calling you
a liar….but’

(her ******* husband
groped me, four years later,
and let me tell you, that’s some
irony i could have done without)

and the second person i told,
looked me in the eye and said
i was making the assault into
something it wasn’t, and i
needed to forgive those two women

i stopped telling people,
after that, choosing instead to
bleed out how wrong being touched
in that way made me feel

i don’t remember what i
was wearing, and i suppose
there’s a certain kindness in that,
my brain closing off that particular
memory so securely

i don’t remember what i
was wearing the first time,
either, but why would i, after
more than twenty years?

i lose count after the third time,
telling her to stop touching me
that way, looking around at other
patrons in the restaurant, that know
both of us, begging them to
say something, to help me,
but no one does

no one does
no one does
no one does

and this is a bandage, wrapped so
tight, that i do not pick at,
nor do i lift up the edge to
see what gangrenous ruin
lies beneath

and still, some nights i find myself
standing on the knife's-edge of
that dark abyss, haunted by the
ghost of something forced upon me

but i do not rage,
i do not drink until i am unable to stand,
unable to remember how all of
those hands felt on my skin,
i do not bleed over those ghosts

i do not bleed over those ghosts,
but sometimes the noose of that
trauma is so unforgiving i can’t breathe,
and i am seventeen again,
and i am twelve,
and i am five, maybe six

and these wounds, they are
open and screaming and bleeding
and so ******* hungry and i am
just so tired of being haunted

i am just so tired of being haunted