i am a lot of things
to you
i may read as an
amateur poet
perfecting her art
to my parents i am
their failure
their too much and not enough
their daughter who acts
their "why do you fake everything?"
their "why don't you sing anymore?"
their "how long have you been smoking ****?"
their "i'm disappointed in you"
their "i knew you were going to be a ****"
their "bisexuality is *******
why is everything with you for attention?"
their "why can't you be perfect like your brother?"
their "pretend you're happy or cry in your room"
their "cry in your pillow i don't want to hear that"
their "why must you fake every ******* thing?
if you want to act audition for plays
i don't want your ******* in my house"
but i only fake happy
the joy that lights my face
everywhere but my hollow
eyes
and you see, they are only hollow
and dark
because i walk the shadows
with my left foot stretching out
in front of me
i've walked the shadows my whole life
with a cane on my back
and blood etched into my chest
you see i
am a **** victim
there i said it
what i've denied for so long
in hopes that i could be strong
and carry on
and just get over it
like i was told i should
but i cannot trust anyone
or anything
because he always said
my 9 and 10 and 11
year old body
was appeasing
so what do i do now
now that i am a young woman
who's growing into these
"great things" he always said i had
but i never had
not then
and i know you will hurt
me too
i know you will hurt
me too
but maybe this is just a
nightmare
perhaps i am a butterfly
and my PTSD is just a jar
or could it be that i am
not real was never
real
because i do not feel
real
i shrink from my own skin
because your handprints are still there
i am a walking skeleton
afraid of having a body
yet i yearn to have a body
but i only wish
you did not have eyes
god do i hate the fact that men can see me
because i can see the despicable things
that rack their lustful vision
tear my feathers
clip my wings
pour bleach on them
make sure it stings
2 years later
not a second goes by that
i did not eye
every suspicious man
who followed me when i walked
and i started to get over it
it wouldn't happen again
i repeated
every
single night before my eyes closed
and you stomped through my dreams
cutting all of my seams
i was 13
the day he offered me a drink
and some ****
and of course i obliged
because i know him
i know him
i see him every day
and his flesh is plenty real
he is real
and i wonder
if he stole my real
when he stole everything else
i drank until the bottom of the bottle
looked like a pool of blood
i could sink into
i smoked until my throat
was black and charred
like all of my unworthy pieces
burnt until they are ash
he told me
words i can never scrape out of my ears
out of my head
i want them out of my head
they are pills i digested
that stuck to my kidney
my body never forgave me
"i am only here
to get you drunk and *******
but i'm not doing that this time"
and now i live in constant fear
*** you a cigarette and a light
so i don't have to hear
your voice crackle like a fire
that burns too high
it scalds me
i am a lot of things
and i do believe
that weak
is not one of them.