touch the steel,
cold, hard and  unforgiving,
like the life I have led,
yet in this moment of quiet contemplation
it seems strangely comforting,
sure and steadfast under my feet,
the sweat and toil of this vast construction,
lives that have given themselves to the quest,
yet I now find myself at one with this web of steel,
my only friend when no one heard my call,
cold, wet steel and the vast dark sky,
to this strange connection I must now say goodbye,
the time has come, my leap of faith.

Sharing Hate Poem
September 4, 2009 (I recently found this poem I wrote years ago)

Trigger Warning - Abuse

Sharing Hate

He keeps me locked up in this room daily.
He calls me ugly, then starts to beat me.
My bruised and battered body lays there numb.
I think, "Don't worry, help will one day come."

He took my teddy; it was my mommie's.
The other girls here look just like zombies.
Dad always said, "Find the silver lining."
But the rare ray of light's all I'm finding.

He told me, "Tomorrow you'll be famous."
I asked, "Why do you blame your hate on us?"
He said, "You don't get it... I'm just like you."
"When I was little, I got abused too."

I.
You were the blood between my legs an idol a
nightmare a meltdown a
moment between breathing & reaching for an inhaler that you never
put into my hand.

II.
You are the blood between my legs you are still
the hands I think of every time I cannot stop it but I know it's
natural & I know it's meant to be that way
most months.

III.
You are the blood between my legs both the scars it comes from and
the place it falls from the way it should if I were to
remain a girl.

IV.
You will be the blood between my legs the reason I ruin every
pair of underwear I own the reason I cannot use
a more effective method of mopping it up the reason I'm
startled every morning you are the fingernails that did it
you are what I think of you are vicious femininity you are
every kind of trauma every kind of torture you are
the reason I cannot stop being afraid of blood.

V.
You are all over me. You are hands down a skirt that I
do not want to be wearing you are hands up a dress that I never
wanted to put on you are hands across a chest that I want
to mutilate you are hands hands hands and you are
too sharp too fast too forceful and I am looking at the blood
between my legs and you are that and yet you never
let it touch you
nor did you help me clean it up.

I.
You don't use the word ****.
It's overly strong, you don't deserve validation like that.

II.
You talk about hands a lot.
There is not much else to talk about.

III.
You want to talk about surroundings,
but there are several different scenarios in which it happened,
and
you are not sure if it was multiple times
or a faulty memory.

IV.
You try hard not to talk about names.
You're supposed to know that, want some kind of vengeance or something;
you have two or three good guesses.
Hands feel like hands , faulty memory looks & sounds like
the smoke in the summer time when the wildfires
grow large enough to keep you inside for days on end.

V.
It isn't enough to go on.
You do not call it anything aside from
"I have trauma".
Trauma could mean anything; it is beautifully vague.
Maybe someone hit you (maybe they really did, sometimes
you almost remember it).
Maybe it was worse than that or maybe it was a book you read,
over & over & over & over.

VI.
You are over & over & over & over
and you wish you were over & you wish it was over.
You don't use the word ****. Over & over & over & over,
you don't have it in you to use the word ****.