I was born mid-eye-roll,
c-sectioned from a punchline.
First words were don’t start with me,
second were fine, stay.

My spine’s in italics.
I bend for no one
but poetry
and panic.

I talk in skip-steps.
I cry in parentheses.
I kiss like a loophole.
He said you’re hard to read,
so I wrote myself louder.

Time doesn’t pass here,
it tantrums.
I clock in and out of myself hourly.

My skin’s on backward.
My hunger has subtitles.
My ghost writes sonnets in the steam on the mirror
and signs them:
Almost.

I invented a verb that means
to leave someone before they prove they would’ve.
I use it daily.
It conjugates into silence.
It rhymes with obviously.

The doctors say it’s chronic.
Pre-traumatic glow disorder.
I blush before the pain hits.
I glitter out of spite.

Don’t ask if I’m okay.
Ask which version of me is answering.
Ask if I remembered to name my wounds
before dressing them up like confetti.

I am being drawn and quartered
By each expectation pulling away,
Tugging at my fragile sense
Of identity (if there ever was one)
Until suddenly, oh no! So suddenly
I am in pieces, and each person has only
A part of myself, that is all I can give—
I gave myself the death sentence, they’re
Only the horses that tear away my
Skin.

As they bolt away, I wonder
How far they will go until they
Realize
That I am no longer Whole.

I sit here sinking
Into the dirt,
Without feeling because I am on
The precipice of numbness,
A mere step away from screaming.

Hey kid..

Vulnerability is your access in to what is real,
though  as you know..
not always is it safe to do or be,  in this world..
in fact, there are those who will,  or have..
shown you over and over again,  
that vulnerability of heart with them
will get your sweet little *** slapped down into the dirt..
over and over again..
(as if you did not already know, firsthand).

There are many reasons those people behave that way,
and every single one of them  deal with hurt..  
and hope (when they still had it),  being unfairly
and unkindly stifled back inside of them.  
In hating  and then stomping all over your vulnerability,
they are in truth, hating their own..  
and rightfully so, for what they had to endure..

but until they want to see and change,
they will be the death of you..  
   or at least the death of your awakening heart.


But there are those who thrive on vulnerability
because they have learned to believe  once again..
in the word, Hope..  and when vulnerability  of another
comes towards them,  they cannot help but celebrate it
from the place inside of them  that is overwhelmingly grateful
     that it still exists.

.. When you open up that way, I want to kiss you deeply.

In truth, all vulnerability and authenticity at that level
should always be met with the deepest of kisses.
You have the right idea..  but sometimes with the wrong people.
You've been nearly trampled to death in the process--
starting at such a tremendously tender, young age.

It makes a person edgy..
(and if  extremely brilliant,  in that gorgeous brain of yours..)..  
ya, kid.. sarcastic AF.

That's where you get hurt.
That is where you hurt yourself.
At times when the emotional **** hits the fan,
and everything starts feeling like its all going wrong..
that gorgeous brain separates itself  from that beautiful heart..
making it feel as if it has gone dark..
and then that brain..  thinking that it has been left to its own
survival resources,   turns 'mean' ..
in its own perceived abandonment by the heart.

At those moments, you feel  the horrendously-black
and empty, loss of self..

That is when it all starts compounding, quantitatively
No one understands, and so when you  actually
are needing it the most,
Grace  through understanding, in an instant  gives way
to judgment and ridicule by others..  causing you by necessity,
to retreat further back into yourself..
relying on more and more  of the one time, necessary (when little)
but now so relationally-damaging,  survival skills.

Beautiful girl with beautiful heart  and amazing mind,  
becomes fragmented..   compounded by her own  
now nearly out of control,  age-old tactics and behaviors...

And those that do not understand,  stand back and paint
(and allow to have painted) a view of you..  that in truth,
truly is not you..

but is only self-protection/survival-mode,
but on steroids--

Beautiful heart,  implodes..  
within the loss of its much-needed,  beautiful self.
Brilliant mind goes into hyper-drive,
now left alone to its own, survival-resources--
Hacking it out in the ******-up wilderness,  without  
its much trusted and needed,  Compadre..
     that Beautiful, beautiful heart.

You are not that person, Babe.
You are the owner and possessor of two extremely-gifted organs--
both placed into you  to be in full relationship with each other.
That is who you are.

When they are fragmented  and torn from one-another,
that is not truly the true, you.  But since they are both yours,
you are in the strongest essence, accountable.
Somewhere within all of that,  
guilt and self-condemnation kick in..
and literally beat the living **** out of you.
That brain of yours, Babe..  it is beautifully-brilliant
and also quite the *******.  
You are not "mean".
You are not "unkind"   or "unloving"
(though, in essence-- at those times, you are)

No..

..You are temporarily detached..   fragmented--
separated from what it is that you so desperately
need the most---    y  o  u.
.. But your own guilt and self-judgment
slap the **** out of yourself
almost as hard (sometimes harder)
than the one who is now pointing their finger at you..

                                                       in all of their hurt.

All you need, is Understanding.
Love cares enough to want to give you that.
Love cares enough to want to take care of its own story

so it can better see and understand
how to help you with yours.


     That is what you need. That is what you deserve.
     That is the kind of love you are worthy of.


You are everything beautiful that I have been saying that you are.
Within your at times,  own Great Divide..
the blackness between the two parts of you  that you need most,
completely blocks out  your own, much-needed view of you.

I see the picture, my Beautiful..
I have a right to speak to you this way.
You took my breath away, right from the get-go.

       The only way I could get even
       was by looking directly at you.

It is your talking and opening up that did it.
What you so often and so rightfully need to run from,
is the very thing that is actually,  most saving you.
To be "seen" is to be understood..
if the one doing the looking
    is doing it for all the right reasons.

       No one has ever understood.
       That is where you get hurt.

And  in the aloneness within it all,
is where you hurt yourself the most.


       Mm.
       This party is far from over, Babe..
       Far from it, beautiful girl.
       ..And so it is with Magic.


       You are beautiful, beyond words.
       ❤️️

Pieces of me
F  l  o  a  t  i  n  g

S
     i
          n
               k
                    i
                         n
                              g

Hiding below the surface

Keeping them submerged takes effort
Drains energy
Makes the pieces feel like a secret
                                       wrong
                                       shameful

What if
I lose them
Buried deep

Out of sight
Out of mind
Never to be seen again

The fear seems foolish sometimes
                                                       ­       but terrifyingly real

To be always incomplete
Never able
To put the pieces back together

What if my self didn’t need to fragment
For others’ comfort
Their easy understanding
And acceptance

Wholeness is hard to imagine
Especially for the pieces that started to s
                                                               ­       u
                                                        ­                b
                                               ­                          m
                                                               ­           e
                                                    ­                       r
                                                               ­             g
                                                  ­                           e
                                                               ­                  before memory began

What a wonderful dream though
To always have access to all of your parts and pieces
To in fact not have pieces

To just be

One person
                         
Complete
                                         ­   
And whole

the forming of substance 04
Stephan W

"For years I’ve wanted to live
according to everyone else’s morals.
I’ve forced myself to live like everyone else,
to look like everyone else.
I said what was necessary to join together,
even when I felt separate.

And after all of this, catastrophe came.

Now I wander amid the debris,
I am lawless, torn to pieces,
alone and accepting to be so,
resigned to my singularity and to my infirmities.

And I must rebuild a truth–
after having lived all my life in a sort of lie."
~Albert Camus


~
Worlds apart,
there is a tension
an alienation--

now, strangers-
in a not so strange land

So many parts..
fighting the glow
fighting each other-

These parts, hiding--
From having to be seen- when needed,

From the pain of
having to need the other parts
who also are so unable,

From the visibility--
from having to be asked to join in-
to the process of
an integrated internal functioning;
the metabolizing of things.

From the pain of it all-
and the despondency that will come
from any attempt
         to even try.

~  ~
The spirit--
its dimly-lit distant memories
of a wholly different time

now afraid to ingrain itself
into a body- that is as of yet
wholly unable to even know itself--

Fragmented parts of the heart;
broken spirit,
a lonely longing-

There is a division
a separation
immersed in a dank mist of fear--

Parts-- nearly touching
but, so unable to see..

or even feel each other in the dark

And the greatest loneliness
becomes the one that is lived within oneself--

An unlived-living
within the broken internal-world
of fragmented parts-
now huddled into remote corners
with such large spaces in between;

parts, isolated from
other parts.

~  ~  ~
One day they will no longer be
so afraid of each other--

Even in its dimly-lit state of being,
the spirit yearns for a cohesiveness,
a wholeness--

      a re-integration of all the parts;
      a reassembling.

Until that time, everything will be partial;
dis- assembled


                  fragmented.

currents unseen
compress space
distil life's
drive

laser beam sharp
hidden lest robbed
chained yet
free

ego crushed
constrained
causing
breaks

confetti dreams
take wings
orb's disparate
parts

inhabit one frame
fragmented scope
splintered tones
link

eternal sentience shines
born of toxic fumes
from other beings'
waste