Your beauty may birth from shaved legs
red clown lips, gaudy eyeshadow
flimsy black crumbles beneath
your eyelid
You are ****-sun-kissed;
I am opaque.
Blotches of color
Lighten my smile

cheekbones never as sharp
as your words

We repent and cry out to a distant God
Then recite apologies to all that hear
Knowing that our regrets are but a façade

Our footsteps are heard throughout the metal rod
Longing and fearing a punishment severe
We repent and cry out to a distant God

Ringing and singing, our voices sounding odd
Fumbling through early laws, trying to adhere
Knowing that our regrets are but a façade

Feeling around, we find the dark firing squad
The purpose of it shall be ever unclear
We repent and cry out to a distant God

Panicking through the grainy darkness we clawed
Seeing nothing but what is in our own sphere
Knowing that our regrets are but a façade

The reality is that we are all flawed
Is our final repentance not insincere?
We hope for our stone hearts to become unthawed
Knowing that our regrets are but a façade

You are etched on my bones
Ingrained in my soul
Locked in my mind
Still residing in my heart-
I cannot wash you
From my skin.

When will I be free of you?
Do I want to be?

I let
my nails and hair grow out
I wear black turtle neck sweatshirt
My teeth crowd in
on my words
Elizabeth Taylor divorced
I re-enter the world old and slew.

Posh boss.

I am told I carry myself well
All I carry is misogyny
under nail beds
Black flesh wounds
Scratched until they bleed
Red makes them flee

I walk fast,
stomp hard
through streets I frequent
Look him square in the face
Become rooted tree

I used to believe
A heart broke quickly.
A strayed lover,
A punch to the gut,
A truth revealed-

But it is not like that really.

A heart breaks slowly.
It bruises and strains
With each added hurt
With every small fight.
Little fractures begin to form
With every feeling of being unwanted
And every time he makes you cry.
Pieces begin to fall away
When he stops coming home
And starts sleeping on the couch.
The pieces get larger
When he stops touching you
And his actions no longer match his words.

When he breaks his promise
Of forever with you-
You realize you feel an emptiness inside.
A heart broken gradually
Until nothing is left behind.
Your only hope-
Is that maybe a small piece still remains
That you can rebuild from.

And you vow-
To protect it better next time.

I'm surrounded by these four walls,
My thoughts bouncing off of them;
Loud and clear.

I find comfort in these four walls,
Knowing that my cries for help never leave,
That when I wail at night no one can get to me.

I also feel trapped by these four walls,
They make me feel small,
The white colour blinding me when I come up for air each time.

But these four walls know me better than anyone else here,
They know the real me.
Because when I leave these four walls every morning,
I leave as a new me.

Dad, I am going to try and write this
It may be a poem
It may not
But from my heart
I miss you
I remember the last time I kissed you
Your eyes were closed
They opened wide
As I kissed your forehead
In that terrible place
So white and clean
Where people die
But you will never die
Dad
I love you so much
And you will always live on
In my heart
Forever
God, I miss you so much
It's so hard to write through the tears