Feb 2015
I smelled him.
Like musty cigarettes and stale marijuana smoke
his cologne curled under my nose and itched it's way inside
until my memory regurgitated that night to my retinas
over and over and over again.
I sat curled up in a fetal position playing it again in my mind
the way he smelled so familiar but so dangerous
I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know.
I was asked who it was-
I can only remember the face of a female
but the male who took me away in the night
to sit on his lap so he could paint me red with regret
I see no reflection in the mirror beside me.
I see no reflection behind my eyelids of who he is-
So I just replied, family friend.
But he was no friend of mine
even though half my family probably did befriend him.
I was 7-
that was the year my innocence left
and the only noise around me I could hear were whispers
because everything I seemed to do had to be in secret.
I felt sexuality creep up behind me, put me into a chokehold
and made me say your name until it would let me go
but I couldn't answer, I couldn't tell it even though I wanted to-
So it never let go.
It still has me by my throat and whenever I try to tell someone
the grip becomes tighter and the oxygen begins to leave my brain
and it feels as if it has happened all over again.
My lungs are made of tar, and my liver of FDA approval
because even though I never smoked cigarettes
the smell of you encases what it takes for me to breathe
and the pills helped take away the memory
or at least manage it for the time being
until I got bad again and the pills weren't enough to work anymore
they just bled through my hands when I tried to take them
and when I would finally get the courage to pop them
into my mouth, they would get lost in the lining of esophagus
because you're still buried there.
And you took away what I thought I needed for survival.
I was broken and the pieces left were shell casings of your cologne
and a painted dark figure in a mirror I'll never be able to make-out.
I have wondered for so long if my mind was just harvesting-
waiting for this memory to grow back in time
with a little anti-depressants and a little alcohol
it would all come back
But it never did.
I was 13 when my memory planted the seeds of you in my mind-
I'm 20 now and you're still just a scarecrow in an empty field
but somehow, I'm the one looking for a brain
that can somehow map out your ****** features
or even spell out your name for me
but I always come out empty.
Memory is a tile floor
cold and masking the destruction of what's really underneath.
But sometimes you pull it back-
and all you end up finding is mold.
Like musty cigarettes and stale marijuana smoke
his cologne curled under my nose and itched it's way inside
until my memory regurgitated that night to my retinas
over and over and over again.
I sat curled up in a fetal position playing it again in my mind
the way he smelled so familiar but so dangerous
I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know.
I was asked who it was-
I can only remember the face of a female
but the male who took me away in the night
to sit on his lap so he could paint me red with regret
I see no reflection in the mirror beside me.
I see no reflection behind my eyelids of who he is-
So I just replied, family friend.
But he was no friend of mine
even though half my family probably did befriend him.
I was 7-
that was the year my innocence left
and the only noise around me I could hear were whispers
because everything I seemed to do had to be in secret.
I felt sexuality creep up behind me, put me into a chokehold
and made me say your name until it would let me go
but I couldn't answer, I couldn't tell it even though I wanted to-
So it never let go.
It still has me by my throat and whenever I try to tell someone
the grip becomes tighter and the oxygen begins to leave my brain
and it feels as if it has happened all over again.
My lungs are made of tar, and my liver of FDA approval
because even though I never smoked cigarettes
the smell of you encases what it takes for me to breathe
and the pills helped take away the memory
or at least manage it for the time being
until I got bad again and the pills weren't enough to work anymore
they just bled through my hands when I tried to take them
and when I would finally get the courage to pop them
into my mouth, they would get lost in the lining of esophagus
because you're still buried there.
And you took away what I thought I needed for survival.
I was broken and the pieces left were shell casings of your cologne
and a painted dark figure in a mirror I'll never be able to make-out.
I have wondered for so long if my mind was just harvesting-
waiting for this memory to grow back in time
with a little anti-depressants and a little alcohol
it would all come back
But it never did.
I was 13 when my memory planted the seeds of you in my mind-
I'm 20 now and you're still just a scarecrow in an empty field
but somehow, I'm the one looking for a brain
that can somehow map out your ****** features
or even spell out your name for me
but I always come out empty.
Memory is a tile floor
cold and masking the destruction of what's really underneath.
But sometimes you pull it back-
and all you end up finding is mold.
