Clutching my chest
I can’t breath
I can’t see
I can’t be
Me

very start of the new year
empty wine bottles hidden in your bin
i couldn’t be around that, you knew this
what the **** were you thinkin’

it neither killed me,
nor made me stronger,
it did a third thing

~

got angels and devils sitting on my shoulders, in my ears
these different parts of me— you’ve seen them through the years

i live in fragments
i'm never whole
it's not the life i thought i'd lead
at least it's never ******* dull

i lost my head
found these instead
and never felt quite like 'me' again

even when i’m alone
i’m never lonely

~

i hear the voices
from the inside out
oh stop; i recognize that look you're giving me:
"why keep it hidden from us until now?"

i don't recall much from after ten years old
let’s call that 'brain rot'
lost memories of repeat awful happenings
that i still don't know if i deserved or not (you didn’t)(x2)


the only one who ever truly knows what's going on is you

gotta have it all— you’re never satisfied
open up your mouth to speak but all i hear are lies
you can try to outrun this but there’s nowhere left to hide
wearing your defiance down, just like you did with mine


heartbreaker
manipulator
punching holes in his walls but tells you he’s your ‘savior’
makes your face his phone background then goes and breaks it later
message to those in his vicinity: YOU ARE IN ******* DANGER


do you remember? don’t try to deny it
standing by the window in your dejected silence
the day you mystifyingly transformed my No’s into willing compliance

i don't know what the hell you were thinking
but here i am left stuck in the mess
picking up the pieces, barely thirteen

a sea of eyes staring back at me, cold, curious
meeting my gaze but not my needs, that’s for sure
a lot of boys but not a single man in sight
wolf in sheep’s clothing, prowling, now he’s pounding at the door
he’s got me in his grips, but out i slip

and i don't know why or how you chose me but i'll never forget it
confused and betrayed, i grew to deeply regret it
what i said? did? what i wore?
no
it was ever. meeting. you.

the two of us were having fun
or so i thought
of course, i never foresaw how the tides would turn
and definitely never forgot

thought i was using you (antidepressant)
then i realized how much you’d been using me
and how much worse off i actually was because of it

(before you ask)
yes i was drinking
yes my skirt was probably short
back in my years of performing femininity with troubling force
why doesn’t anybody ever ask what the aggressor wore
oh wait i know this one: because it doesn’t ******* matter

we were both blackout
for different reasons
yet i still get a particular chill right down my spine
during the early seasons

a lot of good memories here
i will admit it
but one night
that’s all it takes
whether you can’t remember OR forget it

i can remember the crisp winter air on my exposed skin in the courtyard

i can remember the way you said my name, colder than the air around us

i can remember your eyes on me, your hands, pinning me there

i can remember their eyes on me, their mouths gone where they should be

i can remember the fear in my heart, pumping out an SOS with every beat

i can remember grabbing your hands to get them off my body

i can remember wishing one of them would put their hands on yours

i can remember running for my life towards the single-stall bathroom

i can remember flashes of my thirteen years in slow motion

i can remember relief as my days of racing boys proved its worth

i can remember slamming that door, but not locking it, but i guess i did

i can remember you on the other side pounding your fists into the door

i can remember the way you called my name this time; teasing, taunting

i can remember your footsteps growing distant as i sank to the floor

i don’t remember how or when i got the strength to pick myself back up

i don’t remember much else of that day, that week, that month, that year

i don’t remember a time i wasn’t afraid of being not quite fast enough

i don’t understand and i don’t think i ever will
siding with a monster that they know put me through years of hell

choosing him repeatedly
turning their fake snake backs on me
while he moves on so happily?

[deep sigh]

**** that.
and honestly?
*******, too, if you side with him
making all kinds of judgments like you’d know the type of pain i’m in

i had set plans and goals and aspirations a-plenty
long gone now, stuck in my feelings and my ways well in my twenties
my brain machine on repeat cycle for these soiled memories,
left here navigating a world where i no longer even know which me is me

“one night, that’s all it takes”
except it wasn’t; again i say for YEARS i stayed
going ‘too far a single time’ doesn’t negate his common rage

anyways
i get you love him and his music but i don’t really care
he’s a darkness lurking waiting to manipulate the air
a shadow: stalking, smothering, secret-holding, thieving(,) *******
that last one’s for me; because i hate him, if you haven’t gathered

“it happened WHEN? wow, THAT LONG AGO? just get over it”
“there’s no need to keep living in the past”
“what a crazy *****”

i’m sorry, i can’t hear you, you’ve caught me at a real bad time
i’ve gotta do something about that dang machine again
all it seems to do these days is WHINE

here’s to him:
go ahead and tell your little friends how i'm the crazy one
but don't forget to mention all the ****** up **** you've ever done
i know what you think and say about me to your new girls—
—but how about you?
can’t unleash your feelings without revealing the ***** truth

what the ******* think you’re laughing at?
let’s give you something to cry about instead
can’t remember just whose side you’re on after i flip the switch and see that red
not talking violence, sorry, i tend to get a little heated
it’s this lack of closure, justice, resolution that i’m needing

he knows exactly what he did, he just won't admit it
he doesn't seem to like that i put him in this "tough" position
kind of ironic, don't you think? given the situation