the bath soap scent from my childhood.
the one my mother
would bring home every sunday;
for me to wash but never feel clean.
it stings,
but no longer seeps into cuts like antiseptic.
it smells like sorrow,
loneliness, and pain
yet the scent on my skin doesn’t make me sad.
i think of the girl and what the girl would think of me.
how far we’ve come;
and how we share the same scent on older skin.

and i hope for the child
who is no longer a child
who is now older than her abuser
to mourn the child inside her that doesn’t stop crying for salvation
to no longer feel his touch
through each hand to explore her body
to feel clean when she scrubs
her skin til it’s raw
to put down the blade before
it opens her up to so much more
i think about her when i bleed
though i don’t bleed for the same reasons now

and under the eyes of god he takes me
he kisses the skin crafted by angels
tainted by men
and tastes the sweet suckle honey
from between my hips
all of which makes me holy
he traces and kisses with a sharp tongue
and licks up red wine spilt fresh on my satin sheets
he wipes my tears with razor blades
in hope to see something virtuous

you're on my mind again.
though i left you back in the year of my downfall,
i want you to know that i forgive you.
no matter how vividly i remember feeling so numb,
taking you to a place no one had been before i was ready to.
taking my innocence
and stretching it into an unrecognisable form,
pulling it out like barbed wire through my open wounds.
though, despite all of this
despite knowing that i probably should hate you
and the realisation that you never really truly loved me.
i couldn't help but love how my blood looked on your hands,
nesting deeply under your chipped black fingernails.
i hated to admit that maybe
just maybe,
i loved how vulnerable you made me

and here i am,
cleaning myself off my bathroom tiles
in attempt to try again.
but trying again isn't as easy the 4th time around.
i want to be a kid again.
but even at 9 and 10,
11 to 16
being a kid became an adults job.
looking after myself and cleaning the dishes of uneaten food,
cleaning wounds and kissing plasters like my own mother.
i'll be okay.
that's what i'll always say,
and i guess when you say it enough
the lies become the truth
and my eyes blink away my youth.
here i am
cleaning myself off the bathroom tiles
knowing that i have to try again.

i met another stranger tonight.
in the shadows of online chat rooms,
it’s been two hours and we’re convinced we’re in love.
inappropriate photos and
a suicide pact later,
we’ll never speak again.
though i’ll text the stranger in the morning
but it’ll be in the afternoon where they are.

my sins rot my innocent flesh
even god can’t save me now
i pray and pray and pray and pray
my knees raw from the bloodied cobblestone tiles
my tears are no longer righteous
my mother told me
when god doesn’t answer, be one
but how can i be a god
when behind my eyes all i see is darkness
though red wine spills out my mouth and veins
and men take their portions of my body
the hole of which my soul once stored faith
shelters the cold empty remains of
what once was

i'm convinced *** was never meant to please me.
after so many times of doing it only to convince them to not leave,
i'd given up trying to find some pleasure.
i don't know wether or not to say,
but i'm scared that it'll make him not want to stay.
so i pick apart the stitches from my seeping wound,
and open it up with no remorse or fear of infection.
and i'll bleed everywhere in clear not red,
so he can't see through to the tears that I shed.
cause if i fake a smile it'll make him feel better,
and convince my body so it becomes wetter.
but inside my mind its just a lie,
because being wanted is better than being left to die.

and when he told me
he’d **** himself if i left,
a part of me believed him.
a small stupid part of me,
foolish, young and naive,
wanted to believe that i’d meant that much
that the lack of my presence
would make his blood run cold,
leaking into the creases of the bathroom tiles.
if i left,
and he killed himself.
his blood would be on my hands
but unlike my blood on his,
this time it would be metaphorical
but would feel so much worse.

i miss all the love letters
he never writes me,
all the late night calls just to hear my voice.
texts to read in the morning,
and cheesy poetry to read in bed.
i pretend to sleep just to see if he’ll kiss my eyelids and tell me he loves me.
he doesn’t but i love him anyway.

he doesn’t love me anymore,
now his love lays inside another.
may he kiss her lips like he never kissed mine.
hold her in the night like id never laid there before.
hold her hand like he’d never felt a grip so strong.
my memory is still there yet so easily forgotten,
and now he’s loving someone else
i’m stuck feeling like it never even mattered.

so call me tonight.
lets sing the songs of summer romances
and make plans we'll never follow through.
listen to me pluck the chords of this scratched up acoustic,
humming the lyrics that only i know apply to you

everyone i love has my blood on their hands
wether metaphorically
or literally
i no longer feel safe in the arms of lovers
my heart weighs so heavy
within these heavy broken bones
blood seeping through bruised skin
i’m exposed
open and welcoming
for anyone to come and make home in my hollowed out chest
love is no longer what i crave

and when my lips dry
like a corpse under summer sun
and i was still touching yours
i felt everything falling apart within me
i no longer felt that the blood flowing through my veins was heavy

sometimes i want to open up to you.
slice through my bruising flesh,
to reveal to you what words could never say.
i trust you like that.
to see how my ribs cage fragments of a broken heart,
and how my lungs are black from second hand smoke.
i want you to dig in,
and pull out all the things i’ve always questioned.
til the only thing left is a hollowed out hole.
maybe that way i can really feel nothing,
instead of saying i don’t
to avoid the conversation.
i want you to drain me of my blood.
like the vampires in movies i watched as a child.
so i don’t have to feel it pumping through my veins,
every time i feel the urge to open myself up
and search deep,
deep,
deep,
for a reason to feel nothing instead of feeling everything all at once