I wore a blood colored effigy of her
Straddled between that *****’s legs
Wrapped around my neck
While she choked the life out of me
- I broke

I wrapped myself in my sins
And flaunted them
As a badge of survival

From a smoking wedding bouquet
I blew my brains into the ether
And let the fumes ooze into my veins
Filling me with the vitriol of an alcoholic madman
Forced sober to reality his whole life

The poison danced and cascaded into the water
In a downward feral magnetic spiral of broken promises
My pieces littered the lawn in a prismatic shower

Yeah, my work here was done
And I was going out with the combustion impact of a flare gun hitting five gallons of gas over shattered cinder blocks
I doubled her wager
With a halogen explosion of razor sharp glass.
I bet on her broken promise with an even bigger lie-

I AM OK.

Life,  Death,
And everything in between
Black and White
Gray
Our whole life is a gray area
Gray Matter
It’s all that matters
In the space between
Does it ever really matter?
Or do we just recycle back into the spectrum?

I have this little black stone heart
I’ve often looked at it and thought
It would look much better broken
Atleast, that would be more accurate

Instead, I’ve kept it whole
It’s been wrapped, packed, and buried.
It’s still intact
But I do not think anyone could find where I left it

I was found today
A tattered old thing
Glowing red eyes staring up from a box beaten by the hot summer sun
Most would have passed me by
Scared away by my time worn ugliness
But he saw the life I had
The stories I had lived in those sun-bleached eyes

A generation ago,
I wasn’t so ugly
I used to be loved and doted upon
I was new and beautiful
Cherished by a little girl as her best friend

Together, we danced with each pretend man that would be our future husband
We sipped tea with the queen
We scaled grand mountains
And battled terrifying dragons
Soared with the eagles
And swam with the dolphins
We went on grand adventures through muck and mire
And finished each day in baths of pearlescent bubbles

For years we played as sisters
And were inseparable
But, the years also brought change
She grew,
And gradually,
I was left behind

I didn’t happen overnight
As the girl’s body grew
I became less and less a part of it
I became part of the ideas better left behind
Better to be put in their place

I was relegated to a shelf
To watch as womanhood pushed me out of her life
While the dust grew
I watched her first kiss
And guarded the keys to her first car
That allowed her get further away from me even faster
I saw from the window
As she became our make-believe princess
And donned her shimmering prom dress
My eyes were a brilliant blue in those days
And I could see so much better

Then, one day,
I watched as she packed her room
Growing more barren each minute
Eventually, her mother returned
I was placed in a dark box
And hauled to the realm of forgotten loves
I spent my days itching from the fiberglass
And trying to prevent wasps from colonizing my body

I could no longer see anything with my eyes,
But my heart remembered everything
I dreamed of all the things
The girl imagined with me

I lost track of time in that attic
As I relived our adventures
In my fantasies I had grown with her
Both wearing our matching prom dresses
Both dancing with our princes at the ball
We would laugh as the wind blew our hair into tangled messes in her car

I am more than a slab of plastic
I am a totem for childhood hope
A guardian for the dreams she took off to chase

The light shone upon me again
Only when it was my time to go
I was placed in another box
This time on the lawn
With a 50 cent price tag
My life, my love, had lost its value

I was left in the sun
Forgotten, discarded
Until the natural brilliance of my eyes
Their tears and beauty
Leaked into the ground
Leaving behind only the crimson that had always been there

Until someone finally
Picked me
Dusted me off
Loved me for my red eyes
And put me on another shelf
Where I can collect dust anew

Crack,
Goes the little black heart.
Crumble,
Goes the pieces.
The tears are showing again.
Crimson redemption is upon me.
Let the flames takes me away.

If I smash my hand into a mirror
It may release some of rage,
But it’s only a band-aid on a gaping wound
Scars that still gush my life’s blood

I seek another love to “fix” me,
I am disgusted in myself
For feeling as though I am broken
A twisted reflection of frustration and loneliness

I am falling apart
And can’t pick up the pieces
The cracks are so beautiful
But, the shards cut so deep

Why are there so many?
They haunt my ******* dreams
Get out of my ******* head
Give me my life back

I am so ******* angry
All the time
At everything
Why won’t the music drown out my thoughts

When I’m finally broken
Who will pick up my pieces?
When I cannot stand
Who’s arms will I fall into?
When the liquor runs dry
And the blood begins to clot
Who will be my new vice?
Who will be the final peace I am missing?

Sleep, sweet child
I’ll watch over you
Even after my eyes have worn out
And I’ve leaked the last of my plastic pellets

I watched over your father
Even though, for awhile
I was lost to him
Because of the original corruptor

But, I came home
And brought back
The last shred of good from his childhood

I’ll keep the monsters
Under the bed
And in the closet
I will turn on the light
I will be there
Long after I’m gone

Mother may I, please…
Go to bed tonight
Without being afraid of you

Mother may I, please…
Not be so happy that you are gone
And wish that you would stay away forever
Just hope that you’d finally die
And end our misery

I love her
But I hate who she is
What she has made of me

She tried to bribe an apology with a $5 bill
As though that was supposed to dry my tears or heal my broken lip
I never quite got over that one
So strong is this imagery, that is almost completely overshadows any tenderness

I am terrified that I will repeat her mistakes with my son
And become a parent too much like my own, without thinking about it

They say home is where your heart is
But, I’m afraid to go home
Where your roots grow
The seed of all evil is planted
Fed by tainted water

How can you have so much rage and love for the same person?
This is a person I remember smacking me in the face at 8 years old for not holding up a curtain rod properly
Because I was too short to reach it
And the same mother who would walk me down the concrete path to the majestic sundial sculpture and pick through sea shells in the sand at the beach

This is the mother I want to remember
The darkness so overwhelms the light
That all I can remember of my childhood is the beatings…
And the frustrations…
And the anger…

As I’ve held knives to my arms
Or pictured my brains painted on the wall
I’ve wondered about where I came from
How I got to where I am sitting
Void of compassion and full of rage
And asked
If she ever had these same moments after her beatings
Or on the streets when she ran

I feel as though I suffer from some form of survivor’s guilt
Although I suffered some abuse
When I hear other’s stories
Mine never seems to measure up
That maybe mine wasn’t so bad
It could have been worse
That’s how I describe my family
And the ******* happy years of my childhood
It could have been worse

I thank you for not being as bad as you could have been
But that’s not the same as being good
The lesser of two evils
Is still evil

Yeah, it could have been a lot worse
But, that doesn’t make me close my eyes at night
And stop the memories…
The pain…
The fear
That I’ll wake up and be that 8 year old boy again
Terrified of his own mother
The nervous tension of never waking up
Or worse yet,
Of actually waking up
And setting her off again

Why the hell do parents do such stupid **** to their kids?
Your kids never get over it
It just sits there and festers
And rots away all the warm and fuzzies I have for you

*******
And your ****** life
And everything you put me through
And everything you went through

This needs to get out there
I won’t hide from it anymore
It’s not my shame
It’s hers.

This rage I blame on you
Maybe it is a function of mental illness
The mania was always there
And maybe you were just a trigger
But still…
It only takes one well-placed trigger
To completely blow through someone’s life

My memories are a mask of bruises and shame
I am an incomplete adult
Because I was not allowed a complete childhood
I want to live
Not feel so dead all the time

Mother may I, please…
Love you
Live happily ever after
Forgive you