My uncle used to ask often
if I had any boyfriends.
I realize now after
reporting him for
molesting me,
that he asked me that
question because he
didn’t want me
to be
anybody elses.

I keep having dreams
of when we were kids,
but we were never kids.

A shadow holds me in his grip and seeks the bones that he must find. The grazes of ghostly fingers on myself remind me of my ending youth and the ticking time that is left.

I’ve disappeared into the morning fog as the people I love have begun to stare straight through me They strain to look at me although I vanish upon them catching a small glimpse- I am acid to the cornea causing burning blindness and hatred.

These bones are brittle and the wind has picked up, the sky is darkening as if to rain and the rainbow day is done. However, the rainbow days were spent as a child whisked to the side to be plucked like a fruit all of the brightness and sweets taken, leaving me dull, laughter drops from me like a stone.

I attempt to concentrate on the slivers of light peering through the bars of my own psychological prison cell, but such magnification did not set my heart on afire.

Rain droplets ******* skin, unraveling at the ripples as 3 lightning bolts fork through the houses, 7 claps of thunder, 12 bursts of laughter in the house next door and a thousand tears rolling down my cheeks. I suddenly realize that my head was severed from my body days ago while lying sleepless on the worn couch.

Each season the garden dies, i die with each, until i die no more- although his death and mine were not the same, we still rot underneath the dirt in worms and earth as the city streets blacken and decompose.

The tears cling to the sleeve of my jacket mucus separating with a sticky pull and the dolls and smiles of my life are gone replaced by the headache and the row of cuts on my thighs.

they let their sticky humid hands
hold my glitching hologram body
against the scratchy playhouse
walls and drag their clammy
claws where no child should
think to rub all the while
whispering into my vacant ears
how they would beat me and
bite me and cut me and kick me
if anyone were to ever find out
our little game as tapeworm
tears sludged from my sickly
sweet rotting eyesockets and
down my shiny shaking dust
stained cheeks silently over my
cold and closing throat and
when my dad finally ripped the
splintering wooden door across
the sandy shifting floor i was so
pale pink blue i could have been
six hours dead save for my
fracturing porcelain and
plexiglass heart destructive and
bashing and shattering itself
through my frail and brittle
crumbling ribcage whispering to
me how badly my dad would
scream at me for the way we
were playing

Waves taller than I was
cool atlantic ocean
grainy sand between my fingers
burying my toes.

Hot sunburns and salty hair
the beach bars where we used to eat off the kids meal
going back to your condo
sitting on your couch.

Thrown over his shoulders
covered in sand, the warm weight used to be fun but now it just scares me
you scare me.
My shoulders were kissed
sunscreen on my back
the lukewarm pools and marco polo races holding my breath until i thought my lungs would explode.

The water would rush back with the pull of the ocean our sundresses damp around our ankles, bruises over our mouths where you held them shut
The porch light was on to the condo my towel draped over your balcony, bathing suit bottoms in your bedroom.

Forgotten toys and to pairs of arm floaties because i was never good at swimming, you left your watch on the shoreline.
Crying because of the pain and the hatred and love
Never knowing if I would be cuddled or touched
but knowing i would be cuddled after being touched
those sunburnt spots caressed by you.
White caps peak as the sun rises, we’re cold with fevers and abuse, shaking as our feet are wet again with salty water and your watch pulled out to the sea, lost forever.

Tonight my mom is having a manic episode just like I do.
Passed down from generation to generation is a shadow , a void deep within our minds.
I feel ill and twisted. Like the vines growing in my veins , growing thicker and begging to burst. Just so dark crimson can run down my arms , my legs , my eyes. Fading into black and growing thinner. Falling onto dimly lit tiles and rising up as dark smoke.
I am suffocated by my thoughts that are slowly blending into real life. Like paint that is every color of the rainbow being swirled together until it turns sickly green brown, like my eyes.
I admire an iris that hasn't been tainted like mine , diluted , dripping. Eyes that haven't seen what I have as a little hopeless child. A happy child , a sad child , a broken child. It was too real. Too bright and blinding to be nothing.
Shining into my pupils , traveling into my soul, reflecting my being for the world to see. I am ashamed.
I was weak, I am weak. I am sorry mom and dad. That your pain has made me and not your joy.
A product of dark memories and buried thoughts. I tried to hide it, so I wouldn't become worse.
I can't ever promise I will love myself and who I let myself become. The scars have burned too deep; but I will always love you.