i do not feel compassion
for the man who made me
learn what it means to survive,
to come out the other side
with wounds that hide under
repressed skin, only to reveal themselves
as silence or black ice caught in
a flash of remembering;
i do not wonder what made him this way
think, did his mother hug him enough
when i hear his voice echoing
in nightmares where i cannot scream
and my legs feel like lead
burdened by the weight of all this baggage,
a torn up suitcase
filled with blood red bricks—
it does not meet the carry-on weight limit
and
i cannot unpack it.