He said I always make things worse.

I traced our last conversation
inside my lip with my tongue,
until it burned like citrus.

My teeth still taste like that night—
miso soup, metallic coffee, a dare—
and the word “almost” said until it split.

I don’t start the fires—
I just know how to fan them
so the smoke spells mine,
so the ashes spell proof.

“You’re welcome for the mirror,” I said,
then, “You flinched first,”
like scripture I was tired of reciting.

He called me a problem
and then prayed for something exciting.
Well, God listens.
And she’s been on my side lately.
(And sometimes inside me.
And sometimes wearing red.)

You say I write like it’s a weapon.
But you brought a sword to my poem.
You heard me speak—and called it war.

I’m not the plot twist.
I’m the motif.
I’m the whisper that keeps showing up
even when you don’t name it.
Especially when you don’t name it.

You wanted a girl who could break
without getting any on your shoes.
Who called it miscommunication
when it was a massacre.
I called it Thursday.

I made you feel.
You made it a crime scene.
Now every sentence tastes like sirens.
But sure—blame me
for the blood in your mouth
when you kissed me wrong.

So yeah—
maybe I do make things worse.
But worse is where the story gets good.
Where you start reading slower.
Where your hands start shaking.

It’s not that I ruin things.
I just ask questions
that don’t look good in daylight.

It’s not that I mean to wreck things.
I just don’t know how to leave a room
without checking every exit
twice.

And labeling each one ‘almost.’

You ever love someone
so hard you forget to be charming?
Me neither.

He thought he was the mystery.
I’m the red string
and the corkboard
and the girl in the basement
with the map of everything that never happened.

You didn’t fall for me.
You fell through me.
That’s not my fault.
It’s gravity.
Or girlhood.
Or God, laughing behind her hand.

Say it again. Slower. This time, with your hands in your pockets.

Am I only my body?
Did he have to have *** with me to realize he did not want me anymore
Or did he already knew?
Was the question
“Can we do it raw?”
Because he knew it would be the last time?

Why did I do this for so long?
For him to love me?
For myself?
For the last bit of hope?

I hope no one has to suffer like I did

I kinda wish he was miserable too
To feel at least  a bit of regret
A bit of sadness
I kinda wish the world screws him
Just a bit more
So is ego is crushed

He does not have my respect
Because I do not think he respected me anyways
Or atleast
Not my body

A beautiful day to get lost,
Following the traces of you.
The sun kisses my skin—
The way you used to.

Fingers drift through blades of grass,
Remembering how softly they touched you.
My love, my other half,
That grounded me to this earth.

Eyes wide open,
Memories find you to share this beauty.
I find myself standing in an open field,
Blue skies unraveling to gray—
Billowing clouds travel like words unsaid.

Your lips pull away as the light fades out.
A familiar distant thunder crashes into my bones,
Moving the earth beneath me.

Seconds between raging lightning,
Splitting through the skies.
The keeper of my dreams,
Before the tempestuous sky became your eyes.

The tremors break.
The storm is coming.

I steady this heart—
Shaped like my tired, breaking body.
With fury and wind,
The cold, heavy rain finds me,
Burning like embers escaping a blazing fire.

I wrap my arms around myself,
Whispering:
Did I deserve this?
Did I create this?
Did I make this worse?
This is my fault.

But before the thoughts can comprehend,
Before my mind can settle in,
The rage retreats,
The storm fades—
As quickly as it came.

The rain, it gives.
The clouds shift again.
And the sun warms me,
Wrapping its arms around my cold, soaked body—
The way your arms always did.

For a moment, I clench my eyes,
And your gentle love is with me.

And I love you—
Again,
And again,
And again,

Without armor.

My screams, fiercely and recklessly,
****** themselves into the starless sky.
Howls of despair became an inviting try.
It is fearfully unknown who or what may answer
from the den of the lachrymose night.
It's a different world in the charged absence of light.

The ghosts of my cries reverberate in heaven's valley,
and long linger down hell's burnt alley's.

Long before I knew self love would heal my life.  
Annihilate my strife.
A dawning of hope now veins my soul with the missing light.

His hands seemed almost bizarre on the fork.
How can something so large handle something so small?
Did my mother's hand fit into his at all?
I wondered as he chewed up the dead pork.

"It does not taste right." He says as he takes another bite.
The blood is foaming from his open mouth.
"It is half-cooked and still fresh; the animal still tries.
to outrun his flesh. It is hard to bite and dry."

He tries to say as he swallows, even as it rots
He keeps just eating more. Then he slams the fork.
chants curses that would put a priest inside the morgue
I listen to him call God as I ponder about loving

In the black and white pictures, it existed.
where my mother's eyes still smiled
where her movements were not rehearsed
where she didn't have to keep the glass half full so it wouldn't burst

I see her in my reflection: a sad-eyed girl.
with a table filled with savory and sweet
But Mother, do we share this quiet rage when we eat?
You wish you could replace his head on the plate?

Mother, are you a good actress?
Do you keep knives under your dress?
Does your mind create images?
Where you pay off all the witnesses.

"Will you ever feed me something other than your tears?"
He shouts as he slams his fists.
and his hands make sounds
as loud as war bombs

We learned when to be quiet.
when to soak up all the silence
But, Mother, in your mind, is he still the head of the table?
Or just a head on the plate?

The only emotion I know
is rising and rushing.
Fast and raw,
yet never disgusting.

It's hard, I know
but that’s the catch.
A strong force for me to match.
My body learns, blends, it sways,
ready to swing along in its reckless ways.

Ahh, the rage,
I like it,
a fuel to ignite my fire.
It’s good,
I love the warm feeling,
a spark to turn my soul.

Ahh, the pain,
I can achieve it,
all through every ache,
I rise and grow up.
It's mine, I hold the warm hug,
untamed force, I let it flow.

To be a woman:

To be a woman is to bleed.
From between our legs, as young as nine, when the only worry in our young minds should be about scraped knees from riding bikes and scooters, the visceral meaning of womanhood begins to leak through the soft cotton amour of childhood.
The impending doom of what could be warded off by a child's imagination has cracked and no longer can be repaired.
This is the fate of a woman.
From that day we bleed.
Shoving gauze of soft smiles and politeness into bullet holes bore into our bodies by men.
Anything to stop the bleeding and remain a fragment of the person we once were.
We’re blithe in the presence of grown men that become aroused to the notion of humiliating us.
We try to feign ignorance and keep a straight face in times of turbulence to maintain modesty.
Our nails embedded into our palms, we bleed.
And a storm has formed.
Through the storm we seek the same refugee we watched our mothers seek. Always thinking that the outcome will be different.
This one is not the same.
We’re not our mothers.
Our love is different.
It’s respected.
It’s mutual…
as long as you’re the one doing the laundry and the cooking and the cleaning and you pay your half and you look after the child that you nearly bled out for.  
Nurturing, tending, cooking and cleaning and ‘whoops’ watch the knife…

bleeding.
Always bleeding.
It’s equal love though, isn’t it?
It’s what you wanted, right?
When you bore two children and you’re raising three, that’s what you wanted. That’s what you bled for.
That’s what you bled for?

Who has he bled for?


He walks into the kitchen, boots scuffing the linoleum on the way.
Dumping the scrapped leftovers of love you gave him in the early out of the morning into the trash and tossing the containers into the sink.
He pats the heads of the people he pretends make him whole and goes to the shower to rinse off the 10 hour shift of hard labor that didn't involve his family.

You don’t expect a kiss at this point because you learned that asking for what you deserve could come with a broken orbital socket.
So you let your heart bleed.
You bleed it into your kids.
You let them know that they are loved.
You pretend that everything is okay.
You go to work, you come home, you bleed and you bleed and you bleed.

Hopeful that your daughter doesn’t see.

I remember the way I screamed,
While you walked free, so redeemed.
You left me crawling in the dirt,
But I won’t break, I won’t get hurt.

You played me like a worthless toy,
Just to shatter, just to destroy.
Left me bleeding, torn apart,
Now taste the wrath you chose to start.

You built a throne on my broken bones—
Now watch it crumble under your own stones.
No more mercy, no more cries,
I'll rise while your kingdom dies.