i was 12 years old when i realized the world was much darker than i previously imagined
you see, when you're 12 years old and alone in a hotel room bed by yourself
and the t-shirt draped over your small shoulders is adorned with cartoon trees with faces that smile at you
you don't think of the macabre or the morbid or how your life was destined to fail as miserably as the greeks against the gods
but you whimper
i was 12 years old when you opened that door just a crack
just enough to let yourself through the gap unnoticed and i've spent 9 years tearing apart my brain and flinging empty words at random strangers to decipher whether or not it was all my fault
but it wasn't
they said i was a hero
they told me i had saved someone else's life, that i should be proud of myself, that i should tell others my story so they could understand what it's like to have someone reach their filthy hands inside your body and twist until you split in half
well i never made it
i never showed up the day the decision was made for my breaker and creator to be sent away and i'm still not sure you ever came back
i built up a wall against the world and for almost 6 years i had maintained a moat around my soul with alligators and hot oil to keep everyone with hands capable of sin away from my ****** up head
i remember losing all hope in people that night when i held someone's hand to confide my sins and they advised me to keep quiet to save face
they told me i was an angel
they told me that i was a savior to the community and to cheer up because i was strong but how could they even ******* know when you're 12 years old and your mortality has been shown to you far too soon and you want to die more than you want that next rush of air in your lungs
but you're afraid
well it took me 9 years to understand that it wasn't my fault
i wrote an apology letter to you one night when i decided it was the right time to stop breathing and when i signed my name i realized you were the one who laid hands on a 12 year old wearing a t-shirt with cartoon trees with smiley faces hanging off a child's frame
i signed my name and tore up the letter because
you didn't deserve my apology
and maybe you didn't deserve forgiveness either
but i didn't deserve the ongoing death that lived inside me
and so i let go

this is my cactus poem
when you imagine an image of the desert, do you think of dust and dirt, a tumbleweed in the wild west?
a cowboy with spurs on his boots riding horseback beside a covered wagon?
a filthy, grungy, bearded fellow who spits into jars on the floors of saloons and whistles at passing women?
i think i can understand how people view arizona the way they portray it in movies
sometimes i forget that we're more civilized than that when everyone i've met here has been so morally obstruct in their ways
the dust and decay that the outside world views in elaborate movie scenes has become the insides of the people who reside here
you may live in a pueblo-style luxury condo but your soul resonates with dirt and filth and each time you exhale when you speak, i see the dust you cough up from your lungs
sometimes i like to think i'm a cactus
my skeleton is strong and my exterior is sharp but i know to hold onto the niceties because sometimes the rain only comes once a year
rain that brings turquoise and orange blossoms but you only see my thorns
and when you get too close, i'll know just how to push you away
***** you just right so you know that no matter how close you get, you'll never stand the fight
this is my cactus poem
and i'll be just fine