i told my mother
the other night about how
i've never really felt a sense of
accomplishment whenever i
really do accomplish something,
because i have this unending burdening
inside me that bids my brain, and other
extremities around me to be obligated to do such things,
and extraneous tasks at all costs.

or else.

and she just looked at me with
sad vacant eyes,  and then i said i also have
experienced very little joy in life, which
i think my father can relate to if he would
actually talk about it, or his feelings, or anything
at all, really.

i still find myself wondering if living with
myself has been punishment enough for the times
i have done wrong in the eyes of others. i don't want to but
then i go back to a place when i was just a girl, trying to be the
right amount of “just enough” for an approving
smile, or nodding gesture. it didn't stop there, obviously. it carried on, into my current chapter, i keep grasping the pages of each day and rip them from the spine of my own flawed
little life story just to keep it from
unraveling completely.

but that's how it's supposed to be, you
keep waking up, even when something truly
terrible happens. even when you are devalued,
drained of your former self, and possibly brainwashed,
maybe. strangers will say that they can't believe your
so-called strength, or whatever, while you exist in pure disgust and
shame that this is really happening. you want to manually
unhinge your own jaw and crack open your head about it. this is really happening.

in the meantime, i think forgiveness is a weapon.
however, it's best used against its perpetrator. at least that's
my take on the subject at hand. and i know it's not
the most karmic way of looking at it but my finger is
definitely on the trigger,

and all my friends and family are asking me

"for what?"