Memories exhumed like creeping camisados

are out here stalking once more. A cacophonous attack

of unsuccessful repression, screaming

of the foregone,

of the degredations you spat from profane pulpit,

and of my tongue, jarred, a malign antiquity.

And of what you left, burning from inside, that was

to emerge, in time, from what you liked best about me.

A fruit blossom blooming; a rose potted in ****-

I put that out after thirty-nine moons.

Tip toeing towards tremendous plains,

a few times tripped, but never tumbled.

The cacophony’s eurythmic now, now

that I recall where the screaming first stopped.  

A blossom, a rose (or something greater)

given to me to put things right.

My black turning blue, improved and renewed,

a parturition extinguished through love.

And now I bloom, faintly, in the shade of you.

Another day in bed.
My pillow dry with tears.

You're waiting for another breakdown.
Another plea for help.

You crave me.
You want to corrupt my mind so that I will only be yours.

What hurts, even more, is how much it works.
How much I can't run away from you.

I could leave your apartment.
The door is so close.

Yet, after I cry you just shove your hands down my pants.
We get busy after that.

You make me weak.
You make me vulnerable.

You use me when I am out of strength.
To fulfil your selfish desires.

"Come here, I'll make you feel better."
My thighs are always bruised.

I expected long conversations underneath a sparkly sky.
I expected cuddles and reassurance that everything was alright.

What I got was a torn *****, bloodied bedsheets.
Bruised ankles and red eyes.

I never told you "No."
Because if I did, how would you react?

I didn't tell you this.
But I'm late.

It hasn't come in a month and I got worried.
I spit up blood more than twice a week.

How can I tell you?
You'll ask me to get rid of it.

Yet you keep pushing me.
My limits are breaking.

You're going to hurt them, stop thrusting.
It hurts.

Stop.

It follows through iridescent dreams.

It stares and it lingers.

It watches with saddened but dead eyes.

Sometimes you'll see it, most times you won't.

But either way, it is always there. Even when you awake from the nightmare, it remains.

Can you remember holding it?

Do you remember smiling as it giggled in your arms?

Do you think of it staring back at you as you lightly feel its soft skin?

No. Because you never did.

You never watched it take its first steps.

Heard it cry in the middle of the night.

Clean up after the mess that it had caused.

Or hear it call for you.

And now you never will.

Do you regret that day? That choice that you made?

Do you wonder to yourself what might have been?

If only that child was here today and you could tell it that you would love it and protect it.

Would you?

Conceiving you felt like death.
Slowly drowning in despair.
The pressure rising to my head.

Only in my womb for a month,
Longing for a mother
That wasn’t actually there

I heard you crying in anguish
It mocked me continuously,
You felt contaminating.

I sank to the bottom,
Laying there, lungs filled, bursting in pain
A dark presence swept over me.

There are a million ways to bleed and
You were gutted out whole
No sea water but my own tears.

She took you from me.
Or
Did I take you away from myself?  

Regret and
Heartache
Paralyzed me

Telling me I have no other choices.
That this is the only choice I have.
That this choice must be done immediately.
You tell me I can die if I don’t choose the “right” choice.
You are only looking out for me.
As if what I have inside does not matter.
But I have an expiration date.
I will die, but there’s something good still.
There’s something good to see.
When I picture it your way.
Everything goes black.
There is nothing.
Only death.

My sister said she saw you
not long after we broke up
she said
“She’s…not been doing so well”
And the way her pause felt
coming from someone who
is never lost for words
Told me everything I didn't want to know
about the shortcuts and the destinations they lead to
I know I have no right
To the answers of questions never asked
I just wish you had told me.
Wish you had said something.
I can understand why you didnt though.
How this must have ground your teeth down on the pavement,
As your tongue walked every excuse home you could think of.

I wonder how you first found out
if it was with a distaste for the bitter black coffee you loved
Or in a yearning for porridge again
honey sweetened and spiced by cinnamon
Oats rich on your grieving, no appetite tongue

I wonder if
When all was said and done
You starved yourself like you said you never would
To have your body wax concave
Instead of convex as if to reflect
The parabolic curve of pain pinched waist,
Hourglass carelessness
Answers to the equation of us.

I wonder if your resolve hit as hard as the realisation did,
Or if you anaesthetized yourself to the question,
The way you said you would never drink your pain away again.
And I wonder if had known sooner
if there would have been any room in that excuse for me too.
 
When you found, did you pat your stomach absentmindedly
Or did you just brush it aside?
Did you name it burden, or curse, or something to take care of, or did you not name it anything.
But simply called it goodbye?

If it had been a girl, I would call it serendipity
Its got a nice cadence to it
and I think that something
equal parts ****** up us
could grow into a name like that.
If a boy, then Bump, or Oops or Accident after his father and his ignorance

Had I the choice I wouldnt wish it anyone else

So I know I shouldn’t name possibilities just to grieve them,
But I only just found out the cost of shoebox coffins
And the unworn boots that fill them.
Maybe I am attributing too much weight to a collection of cells not much bigger than a fist
But I know the weight of that in my stomach,
So I can’t imagine how the absence of it felt in yours.

I do believe in choice,
And I won't pretend I have any idea
The choices you must have gone through
Nor will I compare asking only promises of me
To requiring 40 weeks of you
 
I just never got asked what my decision would have been
And I wish it would have mattered too

If you need to – I still want to talk
I have a cup of tea waiting
Grown cold from being 3 months too late
Just like we were.

I did not know if I should be
Happy
Or sad.
You were talking about an ultrasound, and that he told you to get an abortion.
You were 18 still in high school.
I have never seen you more broken,
Or distressed.
I wanted so bad to be there for you,
But
What do you say to someone when they had to give up their baby?
I didn’t know what you were feeling.
I don’t know what you were feeling.
All I know is that
The day you told me, I knew that I would fight for your happiness until forever ends.