My abusers are doing fantastic
I know what they did
I know what I became
under pressure, to save myself
I became
ten times as fantastic as them
as they'll ever be
I could carry their burdens
walking on razor blades
and I have,
and
I'll do it again

How much do I have to
waste away
until I'm enough for you?
Fried hair and
a talc mask.
How thoroughly
do I have to hide
my face,
and swallow my pain,
and say only the right things
at the right time,
and play the right games,
before you can love
what I've been all along?

Spring to fall and
winter to summer;
I taste the ash
and I feel the hunger.
I taste the salt
and I'm put under--
always possessed
I've learned to make peace
or close to it;
there is no release
for those I love
when I taste pure high
and for myself
when I choke pure low.

Could I go after you
when so much is here
waiting for me?

This terrible freedom
pulls me;
the comfort of shackles
holds me
no longer am I trapped,
so where,
then, will I go now?

I knew in two months
I would love you.
I find it easier to write poems about pain;
but I've made up my mind
about you,
so I have
no choice.
And I was scared, but I chose,
and I was scared, but I chose
to love the uncertainties
and all the years that led to now.
And I'll choose you until
you stop choosing me;
and I can't spend my life
fearing when and if this would be
if I want this moment--
if I want to feel more important to
someone than I've ever been--
and to think no less of me,
or wonder why no one else has.

Withering yellow-white
beneath the stone
I wanted to give you
my self, my spirit,
the pain in my throat when I look at you--
to take it out and form it into
something real.
But I couldn't, and yet
a barren spot remains,
so I sprout along the edge;
too wild to be lonely,
too wounded to flourish.