You still feel like a long time ago

And the biting turned to bleeding
the fist bumps into beatings
I am awake in my nightmare at 2.am.

Beast in the bed
back of the head
take from me while I’m asleep
use my body
piece of meat
Waking
Walking back to that bad dream
of all that time I spent sleeping with the beast.

you weren't ribbons or butterflies
you were steel wool and butcher's knives

He's doing better now
number one
my first time

He sent me an email
because I saved his life

He's sober and holy
all set
all the time

He said he will pray for me
His prey, not mine.

He hopes I'm well
I'm good
I'm golden

He forgot he did the damage
I'm healing, he's broken

He thinks I meant to save him
tell mother
tell God

I only wanted space from him
let me go, get lost

His email said "hey"
as the title
as the heading

I wanted to curse him
I'm trying
I'm forgetting.

I know they say I'm allowed to feel you in ripples
It's okay to know the coming and going of that pain
And to let it go

They say that healing is thankful
My responsibility to pardon the devil

But I hope that your joy tastes like ash
That when you smile the muscles
so unused
feel tight and heavy

I hope you feel nothing in its most potent form
an empty hollow -home to ghosts

I have felt you in waves
crashing so violently in my bed
in my chair
in my head

That if i were to heal from you
feel free from you
I think I would drown instead

I hope you call misery "mom"
and ache when you crawl into bed
I hope every sip of liquor
makes you more sober

I hope you hear "I don't want you"
a thousand times over

I hope when you speak, you bite your tongue
that you bleed through your teeth and into your gums

I hope you know the kind of evil you breed
That it sneaks up on you and keeps you on your knees

I hope you know that my healing is my hating
and that I will never forgive
the devil and the visits he paid me

I hope you live long enough
to be lonely
until your very last day

And when you speak your last words
No one will be there to hear what you have to say.

my womanhood
is a loaded pistol
and many men have tried
to wrestle it
from me

When I lost my body
I was nineteen
It fell through the mattress and into the neighbors kitchen
Sloughed limp from their breakfast table

When I lost my body
everything was black
and it slipped through the floor boards
mother's back

When I lost my body
it no longer belonged to me
tags ripped
seams split
marked down to free.

There is a difference
between the normalcy of a love caught up in flames
and a love that sets your heart ablaze

I was third degree before I realized this mess
I was unrecognizable -
tender burn victim
silver melted into my chest

There is a difference between being held
and being haunted
running to your lover
and only being called on when you’re wanted

I was worn down to the bone
my ankles broken and bent
before I learned to stop showing
how little to him I meant

There is a difference
between adoration
and  clearing his name  with fearful vindication

I was blind for most of my days
running with the blindfold
pulled securely over my face

There is a difference between accepting love
and loving the acceptance you get

I was dwindling down to my foundation
all the things he never meant

There is a difference between healing
and bandaging the wounds
There is a difference between how he loved me
and how perfectly you do.

if i think too hard about the things you deserve
i am then too close to violence

I would gladly go back
as I am
to make you suffer
the things
i am still
trying
to
recover from

You loved him even after that
when the thunder came out of his body
and met you at the skin

You opened up like a shotgun
feeding the wounds with words
that never met the mirror
never came out clearer.

You loved him even after that
when the rage spilled over the rim of his cup
dousing his tongue
with the pain of you
the bitterness grew

Even after
ever after

When the nights made you hungry
and he kept you pinned under
all his lonely

You loved him even after that
You kept the scar
and swallowed the tar of his affection
opened up like a lobotomy

Even after
ever after

When he buried you
in words soaked in toxins
left you with a virus
he picked up from a married woman

You saw him even after that
even after that
never after all
never after that.

Understand that
feelings fall like fruit
rotting, sweet, and full of juice

I still hold your name at the back of my throat
like getting sick
choking on the sound

the way it feels coming out of my mouth
poison

little black drips of you
seeping- riding over the soft curve of my bottom lip

unstitched

tastes of copper and blood

Just what I needed
just when I fell
the smoke from my wounds still rising
my body unwell

Brought back to my hometown
with  misery on my back
found what the summer was mourning
loved all the things that I lacked

That place with cracks in the
earth-
ripping itself apart
that's where you are

Before things were bad
they were really good
which is why I kept waiting
just like he knew I would

I can still feel your hands reaching back
pulling my ribs apart
a meal
Somewhere from before where you still exist
sliding the meat from the bones
of the women you loath

A monster
gnashing teeth
withered down to dull stones
You have done this many times before

Had I known it was the last time
I would have had nothing to lose

you stopped the bleeding-
the pulsative nature of my heart

you cut the veins and tied them into knots
a gallon of morphine -
never enough

You made rose gardens out of marrow
and comedy shows out of love

you stopped the bleeding
I stopped the beating
we got even
and lost it all.

You are the closest thing to summer all year

and you are not here

I sit perched on hot summer high wires
swaying in warm dusty winds
watching those who cannot fly
and I pity them

I have a choice to sit or slip into the blue
I have two choices
and you only have you

to everyone i told before
i never really did

the empty glass from which i poured
i never really did

to all the  boys I begged before
you never really did

the kinds of things you had in store
a miracle i lived

to all the ones i told before
i never really did
your twisted lies your empty eyes

you never
i never
we never
really did

When she confessed,
no doubt the thing that had pulled her out of sleep
You said it made things different
and the friendship didn’t keep

You said,
as I drove in darkness
your eyes, the light on the road-
That if someone falls in love with you
You pack your things and go

My heart breaks for that girl from years ago
the times she thinks of you
and becomes uncertain because she knew

She loved you
she loved you
she thought it was right

To tell you all the ways
you kept her up at night

How am I to follow the mistakes
others have made
to tell you i love you

is to dig my own grave

There,
the place where I had wondered if I could ever leave
haunted by the memories that we had made
I tried to keep the company sweet
I did everything that I could do

only I was not me
and
He was not you