My brain has been torn apart
Crumpled together
And smeared across the billboards of my timeline
My heart shredded and trampled on
My body has seen torments and tortures
That parents fear and
Don’t understand the possibility.
I was told it was my fault.
Every action had its cause.
Every act of terror had its reason.
Me.

But it was never my fault.

I wasn’t the reason I hated this thigh,
Or this skin
Or these bones.
Or this brain
This way of thinking.

Nothing was ever wrong with me.

I’ve lost track
Because that’s what happens
When the frequency of an event
Is high.
None were the same,
But all had the same ill intent.
Something along the lines of
This body is mine to use
You owe me this
I’ll get what I want.

The flashbacks come like waves,
Changing intensity with the moon.

Much of my life has held the essence of the moon.

I’d sit asking for guidance,
Relief, happiness, help.

It took some time,
My prayers had a way to travel.

Now I sit warmly with the moon,
Discussing how
This is my body to use
I owe myself this
I’ll get what I want.

And through gaining my power back,
The waves calm,
And I thank the moon.

Love doesn’t rely only on the sentence
Love in my childhood home was said
A lot
And the kids meant it.
She was the only love we had
Or knew or wanted.
Her love was diluted,
Spent across many things.
Herself mostly,
Her wants, ideas, hobbies,
Her luxuries that we could enjoy…
Sometimes.
Maybe selfish or naive
We thought it was her devotion to us.
But we only watched Nickelodeon
To satiate her longing to watch tv rather than work,
Or raise us.
Or love us.

I learnt young that love isn’t just
The sentence.

But mourning a mother daughter relationship
Is a lifelong sentence.

Sometimes I can’t imagine normal adult things happening to me
Like buying a house, a new car
Being a bride in a wedding.
Getting a “big girl career” beyond retail.
Wanting kids.
Because I haven’t had normal things happen to me.
I was robbed of many things,
A childhood,
Development.
Love.
And a lot of the time I forget I’m 26,
Wearing a made up, misplaced childhood,
Still locked into teen age.
It’s not a resurrection of the dead.
It’s a reimagined gift to myself.
I am my own body guard, protector, nurturer.
I am allowed a childhood.
And I am allowed to have adult things happen to me.
I’m 26.

I’m sorry that I don’t want kids
I’m still a kid myself.
July 2022 was my birth.
Age 25 and flung into blinding light.
Ripped from the suffocating womb that I had been shoved into
And incubated.
Squished, pushed, moulded,
Deprived of nutrients
From my mother,
From him,
And also him,
And my dad,
And the list of contributors is extensive.

I’m sorry I can’t commit to giving you the grandchild/ren
That you so desperately want.
But I’ve only just been born,
Yet I’ve already done my time.
I have two sisters.
Two kids.
Two souls I’ve grown, nurtured, sheltered, loved, taught.
But didn’t birth.
I’ve already been a parent.
And I’m sorry it’s not in the correct way.
I didn’t choose it.

Today has a weird air about it,
It’s sunny and bright and still
But it feels like mourning.

Is this preemptive?
Premonition?
Or a soft surrender to all my trauma.
A delicate laying down of flowers,
Soft cloths,
A blanket of tears
For versions of me that never survived
Or who were taken by the darknesses.

The seascape in my mind
Just became dark
Filling with morbid clouds
And fiercely black swell.
All of a sudden it switched
And the tv static that only my ear drums can conjure
Became forceful and loud.
In an instant,
Conversations I never imagined,
Spoke loud and vividly.
“I can’t leave my bed today,
Im dreaming of killing myself”
Why?
I feel intoxicated,
And nauseous.
I feel unsafe,
And I can see myself
Dipping under the waves.
Why?
Send the coast guard,
I can feel my lungs draining.