i wish i could tell you why i am this way,
why i see you and love you and still want to rip you to shreds

i look inward and backwards and beyond
and i see a young woman, a little girl, a grandma -
all of them intertwining fear and love,
sewing the edges together with stitches as they
sit by a fire and watch the quilts of their lives converge

each one beautiful, each one tragic, each one alone -
always wondering whether any outside eyes will ever
look past all of the complexities to see the simple truth -
we're all just looking for love without toxicity,
for love without contingency, for love without jealousy

i want you to look me in the eyes and see my faults
and love me regardless of the blood that drips from
my fingertips from pricking myself time and time again
with the quilting needle that's pieced together my sad story

i want you to know that my insides have been stolen
from me since before i can remember, and i may be
nothing if not afraid but i've learned that bravery is the
best mask out there, and that sometimes people are
worth trusting, and that maybe if i don't rip you to shreds
i might look into your eyes for awhile and find home

i can still feel his hands around my neck.
the fingers like words and “i don’t love you” and it stings although he wasn’t the first to say it, i can’t breathe.
she haunts our hallways, our floorboards are cracking
beneath our feet, our home is crumbling
between our fingertips and
i can feel her weight on my chest. sometimes
i think that she should just go by the way that her footsteps echo after she’s gone. i remember
a wall full of holes from where his fists
kissed ever so gently.
i think that wall is what my heart might look like but lately
i’ve had trouble finding my pulse.
i can still feel his hands around my neck.
does he know
why i can’t look him in the eye? does he
know
the blue makes me feel like I’ve swallowed too much water, does he know i can’t breathe?
i think I’m still trying to understand why
beautiful things die in my fingertips and why he stomps on every rooting bulb my wilting body tries to plant, why he ripped my roots from beneath my feet and why my hair started to fall out why
he put his hands on my throat and how i still feel them there.
has he figured it out?
does he know that lemon scented bleach would taste better than
her on his lips and the *******
they splatter?
i can still feel his hands around my neck.
i was born into light, into pain, into love and
he wasn’t the first man to leave a mark on my body and i feel like he is the works with the universe to watch me fall
things fall and shatter without you touching them, things break while you’re sleeping and
everything about him and her stings like saltwater and everything about me
bends for him like light.
i can still feel his hands around my ******* neck.
he crashed into her hips like his hands to my bones, like fists to walls, the walls
rattled, my ribcage
rattled, he was
rattled and i can still feel his hands around my neck,
pushing, like me trying to ******* make this work.
what is this?
his hands are like ghosts around my throat,
the memory of her wrapped around his body instead of me
wrapping, holding in place
icanstillfeelhisfuckinghandsaroundmyfuckingneck
i am not stupid you know.
i can only see that he moves like these words write themselves, and he
speaks like music bleeding through a closed window,
i swear, i am still cracked
though i still have tattoos left from the tips of his fingers from those heavy-handed nights,
i swear, they didn’t even sting.

Lilac winter skies
My warm skin against cold fists
Handprints left on me

Purple finger prints
Embedded into my arm
That's how you showed love

Loved you in the fall
Was scared of you by winter
Stayed until summer

Science has told me
In seven years, I'll have skin
Never touched by you

Patiently waiting
For the day filled with relief
That will never come

i used to be a perfect bundle of baby smooth
skin, unscathed and innocent, but life
has become about staying strong
through whatever tries to tear me
apart and leave me a pile of nothing

i think back and the monsters that went
bump in the night are no longer the
truly terrifying, instead it's what my
brain projects on my eyelids

the truth is that memories are
nothing but stories that we tell ourselves
to stay scared, or to get free,
and lately i'm feeling impatient
waiting for my chains to fall off

strength doesn't mean **** if i
can't put the key in and free myself,
and you're dead wrong if you think
a single other soul in this world
can do the freeing for you

trying to reframe every moment
in my existence, reveling in the
realization that i always have a choice,
that i will never be lost if i allow myself
to live for what i truly love

Two sides, one being
Completely symmetrical
Seemingly perfect

But you know you aren't
Put you on the highest shelf
Just to watch you break

My undying trust
Faltering for a moment
And you now see that

Was this worth the stress
You have to work immensely
To gain what you lost

Don't let me down twice
Giving you a second chance
Two sides, two chances

Deadliest flower
Taking life but giving death
To all who come near

You did that to me
Both of you caused me such pain
And you don't know it

You were both so drunk
I doubt you remember it
Oh but I sure do

So many questions
Do you even know my name
Did you hear my 'No's

I was lucky right
Because it wasn't extreme
Not like in movies

Tell that to my mind
Explain that to my conscience
But I won't listen

I know what happened
Everyday it's on my mind
I have been poisoned