comfort
safety
everything I needed
& she was holding me.
forehead to forehead I'm crying
& she's so calm so slow so high so careful
not enclosing me
just there
as I'm buckling under the weight
of the pieces I've just
put together.
I'm sitting there
forever with her hand on the nape of my neck,
pixie queen eyes never faltering,
meeting my pleading
alarmed gaze. "It's okay baby girl"
she whispers it
over & over

she reaches up & presses her thumbs down on my airways shaking me & my head keeps smacking the concrete. Both a crack and a thump in my skull. But later it's me: beating her face into the floor breaking her nose her face all apart makes me feel sickeningly alive, mortifies & exhilarates at once. I'm terrified of her, yes, but more so of myself. "It's okay baby girl." Is it? Because night after night sleeping pill after sleeping pill I'm dreaming of ending it all.

Oh, of all the ways I could end.