I wish this time
Didn't feel like a memory
Like your hours of lectures
Because I'd never be good enough
Never be thankful enough
But what could I tell you
How could I thank you
When you provided the bare minimum
And used gifts as manipulation
Just to take them away before they derived any joy
How could the isolated child
That never asked for you
To take your trauma out on them
To be thankful

Today I've just laid
In my bed the entire day
Feeling absolutely numb
And that's what scares
Me the most...

I don't wanna go down
That road again

I set out to answer the question
Of how much weight simple words
Could hold—could they crush
Shoulders, evicerate hearts like
A falling anvil? Or were they more
Like acid rain, almost soft and gentle,
Unseeming until they sting more
Than water? There is always so much
Weight on my chest, and I suppose
It must be from the countless, heavy

Words left unsaid; but I don’t want
To be the hands to heave an anvil
On some unsuspecting bystander’s

Head--or the clouds sprinkling
Deadly tears onto unblemished skin. 

How much weight can words hold?
But I think the question is more
Accurately: how much weight are
We willing to transfer onto others?

hoarfrost bloom
skeleton forest
silence crows