To choose my own life
meant releasing myself
from his grip. The one
unholy touch I'd ever
known. If he had not
caught my scent, then
maybe his hand would
never have reached me.

To say ****** abuse
is to say I was not quite *****.
There is some dignity
I can still hold onto, a weight
I never felt threatening
to crush my body
into the dirt.

To say I am woman
is to say he is animal,
to deny him the right
of remaining ******
from the stink
of his mother's womb;

to insist on calling myself woman
is to forget the terror of knowing
I was child, I was bone
and I was sacrifice, the flame
on my tongue had scarcely
scorched his teeth before
they closed in on me
to drag me down.

To say I loved him
is to puncture holes
into my pelvis, let the marrow
drip until I was unrecognizable
as human, only a
thoughtless brainless creature
could love the knife
as it ripped them apart,
to save the hawk who grabbed you
from the river by feeding it one
of your young,

to say I was too young
is to say it gets better with age,
as if the signs become easier
to recognize once the baby fat
has shed its protective casing
from his skull.

To say depression
is to say I wasn't born
this way, there was a disease
inside his bloodstream
that erased me, it was
something from his veins
that made the doctors
hover over my wrists
like vultures waiting
to snap me up whole.

To say victim
is to say there was a perpetrator,
is to say our love was crime,
is to say there was nothing holy
until I learned to make it so myself.

To say ****** abuse
is to say *he has taken everything,
there is nothing left of my frame
for anyone else to hold.

what i remember about summer
isn't quite sunshine, isn't beach and isn't
ice cream or flip flops or picnics

it's the way the sunlight touches your face
as it passes over the horizon, coloring you
yellow pink orange red and beautiful

it's the freedom of dry grass
and a field we could fall into,
sweaty palm to sweaty palm

in the freedom of brighter days
without responsibility to hold us down
leaving space for us to move together

i discovered you in summer, the outline
of your body came to me in light
where i could not ignore your shape

and i didn't try, where we swam together
through apartments and borrowed rooms
trying to find out who we were

only in the gap we call summer
could i find you bold and careless
waiting for me to touch you

Some nights
it's hard to sleep
when your memories
are lying next to me
shaped like an outer mold
that holds me like you used to
Some nights
it's hard to sleep
when I'm crumbling
at the ends of all your skeletons
haunting the emptiness
of this bed
Some nights
it's hard to sleep
when your lovers mark
is still stained on the sheets
Some nights
it's hard to sleep
when your memories
are lying next to me
shaped like an outer mold
that holds me like you used to

i often wonder
if i'll remember
in the morning,
how i cried with
passion battered
against my chest
like a child,
i can't cradle it
much longer

dust
turns red
through my eyes,
maybe if i dream
just a little longer
i'll smile longer too,
some days i get tired
throwing phrases
against my throat
hoping they'll
escape

i've always been
fascinated
by tear stains
the way they track
my mascara through
years of freckles,
i never knew i had
this many
until now

our bodies
lying hot
between the
concrete and
the sky, whisper
windows of silence
through flowers
wilting against
my skin, i knew
a destruction
you could feel
in the scrape
of my nails
on your back

and this dream,
it's no better
than the rest of them
i've always feared
forgetting
the most important
things, but this
is more important
than anything
i have ever known

this flash between
your teeth, i don't know
what forever is, what
it means against
the sunset, you spoke
these words and it
crushed me, my heart
is beating, but it's frail
the fight within its chambers
is slowly beating out to sea

the ocean never
called to me
like some girls,
i wanted to feel
the rain on my skin
without being pulled
into the undertow,
this breathing love
between our chests --

i don't know if it works
the way you wish it would
my words they tangle
into knots on the way
from my mouth into yours
and i never knew
your breathing the way
i wanted to, i've never seen
you breaking the way that
you saw me that night

your parted lips
pull
against my teeth,
and i wonder
why i always bite
instead of breathing,
why i hurt instead of
loving, why these lungs
don't fight for every breath,
they only fight when they're
close to dying out

i want to watch
you sleep, i hope you
take that the right way
i want to walk on an earth
where your arms can heal
and your mouth can cut
me open, i want to feel
more than i am feeling
i want to dance
for hours, i want to drink
and hear you laugh
in the dark of night
when nothing matters
except your eyes

your eyes,
they capture me
like butterflies
pinned to papers,
i wish i had wings
to beat against
your cheek, that way
i could tell you
everything
and i know
you'd understand

The carpet is stained with your beer.

You used to have the sharpest mouth
a tongue like a serpent's in slow motion
as it flicks, nay as it laps into the dark of my mouth.
Your lips felt like frozen lines of gasoline.

They tasted like the fires of the oil refinery.

I used to beg you to let me ride with you
through the forested paths lacing behind my house
on your mobylette we would fly down the gravel
like birds upon a cloud, with more bumping and rattling.

But birds aren't aroused by the turbulence of clouds.

I loved the feeling of my arms about your waist
holding you close as a reminder that if I let go
I would fall and when the day came that I let go
standing in the living room as you drank beer...

There was no where to fall but up.

It was just past midnight when he fell asleep
which was impressively late considering how much whiskey he had consumed.
The dream began with her,
because, honestly, a bad dream wouldn't be complete
without her in it.
They sat on a vast lake in a small boat
with the moonlight blessing them
for the first time in a long while.

I believe that the two were happy
but despite this fallacy
he still wasn't aware that he was dreaming.

As they laughed
a spider came crawling into the boat.
He was too starled to wonder how it followed them into the water,
andas it's feet scuttered and his stomach guttered
the girl muttered "**** it, please, **** it."
But when he extended his fingers to do the deed
the spider turned to reveal
a bloodshot eye in the center of it's black back.
It's pupil was an hourglass, and time was running out.

So disturbed now from the specter that his fingers wavered
and the widow-maker pounced, biting first his finger
then his wrist, then his heart.

He fell from the boat.
The spider disappeared into blackness.
After a few minutes of breathless panic
he emerged at the shallow end of the swimming pool
that must have been there all along.

She was on dry land
and in his panic he didn't bother to question
how she made it to safety without him
with such ease
why she didn't bother to help
or why she didn't seem too alarmed
at the fact that he was now dying.

He was now only a few steps away from a large crowd,
I think he said something to her

So here was the task of seeking help
in a faceless mass of people
who also didn't seem the slightest bit concerned
over the fact
that venom was coursing through his veins
and dread was settling deep into his heart.

He searched for someone to drive him
to a hospital or a bed
or even just to watch him die so long as they'd sit and pretend to care
over the fact that he would no longer exist.
He realized that she could be that person,
wondered why he hadn't thought of her in the first place.
He turned around to find her but she was gone.

Maybe she was offended that he hadn't thought of her sooner
in his time of dying, maybe she, too, didn't see much seriousness
in his now worsening condition.

His steps grew heavier,
the eyes were losing focus.

Searching the faces looking for her,
she was either gone
or had melted into to the solidarity that seemed to loathe him so much.
They were all faceless, hostile,
avoiding him like the plague
or grabbing at him like a villain.
One man punched his teeth so forcefully
that his jaw no longer opened,
(but in all reality he was probably just
grinding his teeth in his sleep,
but the venom was sinking deeper
and he could not wake up.)

He ran, no one would help him so he ran.
There was his car,
there were his keys.
There were his shaking hands
and his fading vision
and apparently someone else was in the passenger seat
telling him that he was too ****** up to drive
someone who failed to see the distinction between alcohol
and venom but even still he drove because this person was no friend
not even a person
he never saw his face while his heart pounded
and the words slurred together
and she was not there but now was no time to think of her
and the hourglass was running out and he knew it
embarrassing tears dripped as the engine roared and his eyes darkened
the landscape all blended together i don't thinkhis mind could
dream things up quickly enough as he sped by
which might eexplain why he suddenly was standing in the desert
the car was gone the faces were gone
and he thhought "might as well have a last cigarette before i ******* die"

his hands didn't work and he couldn't grab the lighter
even if he could his mouth was still clamped shut
couldn't yell for help even if people would care
the crowd was back they were all yelling something
but it was no matter now light was leaving and no one seemed too concerned
she was gone and i'm not sure she ever was

thus he faded away without anyone to look him in the eye
and agree with him that something terrible was happening to him

The world grew black.
The stars went dim.
His heart hurt.
Their laughter faded
and he died alone.

And so I awoke to live my day
with this dream deep in my mind.
Alive to live another day,
with venom in my veins
and darkness in my heart
that no one seems to notice
or care about.