I remember screamed profanities
I remember slammed doors and cupboards
I remember walking on eggshells, slipping silently around the house, not flushing the toilet - hoping to remain unnoticed.
I remember strained car rides and feigned happiness - for the relatives' sake.
I remember the blessed gift of headphones - that drowned out the rage and replaced it with joyful music.

I remember hiding behind schoolwork
I remember 5:00 AM Saturdays, doing yardwork, to keep the peace.
I remember racing through dinners, eyes down
Being done before being done

I remember strained birthdays
Unappreciated gifts
Forced gratitude

I remember graduating
Boarding a plane
And never really going back.

***** lived on your tongue,
***** lived in her throat.

there's a hiding girl,
she's crying and she's also bleeding.
you bend down, old levi jeans
suffocating your knees.

"it's alright," you say to her, "I promise."
but you can tell she knows its a lie.

her first time riding a bike,
you push her, let her go.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1 -- blast off.
she falls and scrapes her hands.
she earns a scar on her ankle.

you kiss her,
she turns away.

you shush her in bed,
sooth the crying girl.

"don't tell a single soul"

she tells her 4th grade teacher.

13,
nicotine washed into her hair.
she blows, fogs the window,
draws a face -- its frowning
her hair is the same color as her bleeding wrist.

13,
three people are holding her down.
it takes her back to the
sinking rocks she threw in the river,
the sinking mattress she was pushed into.
the old, sad man.

"sedate her,"
make her disappear.

don't kiss her,
she doesn't want to be kissed.



*****,
beads of sweat.
an axe, a noose, and a pool of water in the tub.

she decides on none,
she goes back to the river to find the rocks.

take away the razor blade
and bury it with your old
self

take the blue hair
and drench it in
black

laugh
free, finally
free from your old prison

of skin, i am here
and you have nothing to
fear

if there isn't a chance of heaven
you claw your way up to the pearly gates
and you'll slap the saints and tell them

i never believed, and then
they'll let you in
they always let you in in the end

sing your songs
dance wherever you need to dance to feel
anything

with me, we will no longer be numb,
tongues dry, mouths dumb
in wonder at this amazing world

one day, you will be happy,
not in the body you were born with
but the body you created for yourself

i care
i care
*i care

i've never told you before
but i caught a glimpse
of your skinny wrists
two years ago

brown lined up so neatly against beige
i couldn't help but stare
and trace over the fresh red blooms
on my own arms

and scowl at the thought
that someone as beautiful as you
could be as damaged
as someone as disgusting as me

separate entities, i split apart, douse my lungs with rubbing alcohol, spread powdered bleach beneath my feet and dab my skin with the petals that you shed as October’s winds rip and whip at my soul. i hang my head high, cosmic, meta, celestial beast breathing sallow i seeth-ever phased. caught in a new kind of a daze, i dream in a haze. my words spread like ash across your lips as my mind does dips and flips. caught in a new kind of a haze, i welcome this, i welcome this, this holy hell of a day that gloom’s and blooms hungry and ready.

For the women with nightmares, bruised hips, fat lips, bodies that are turned into statistics and wrists that are put under a microscope.

For the women who have had the courage to be loud, and for those who had the courage to be quiet.

For the women who seize up when they hear a distasteful joke and for those who spent too long laughing along because its easier to say nothing than to say anything at all.

For the women who sleep with all of the lights on, who don't leave the house after sunset, the women who feel unworthy of a voice, unworthy of their own energy and time, and never mind that of others.

For the women who just want to simply be women without fear, without pain, without their guard up.

For the women who just want to simply be... Me too.

at a young age,
i learned no one’s safe
when he pulled my tiny frame close,
tugging on my hair,
and not letting go;
i ripped away,
yet failed.

his tongue slithered down my throat,
his hands were cold and hard as stone
against my exterior,
endlessly taking and taking,
and in that moment,
i was numb,
toes frozen,
the screams held within
and arms sewn to the bed
beneath his feet.

my body is stolen and
tainted with his
poisonous sins
gripped within my skin;
i am unclean.

i still feel your eyes trailing along
my abdomen,
burning into my soul,
and your lips bruising my own
as you pressed down harder whilst
fondling every inch of my figure
to no avail.

twelve years later,
with red eyes and a foggy head,
i sleep alone,
fearing that ill drown
in my own sheets.

it was “me too” whom let the devil
consume my innocence
until i was light-headed and limp.

i’ve given up struggling and surviving
for i knew that after that night
i would never be free again,
because,
why live when there’s
no more of me to own?
why fight when i can just die alone?

i’ve left and there’s no going back.