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

we were only kids
thirteen and twelve
you'll never understand the grief you caused--
i lost myself

adrift in a world of nightmares flashing always, never ceasing
you had me on the run
from everything that i was thinking, wanting, feeling

tracking calories and body weight to regain control
spiraled into darkness with drugs and alcohol

my head is and was and always will be such a mess
i swear i screamed out NO but all you heard was Yes

~

what the **** happened to you

and, more importantly,

what happened to me?

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

he spreads me open and carves me from the inside out with his fingers while telling me im pretty
i tell myself he cant see that im crying
its dark in his van anyways
time moved on
but i didnt
yet another boy tells me im pretty with the lights on and tears streaming
i think im just meant to be sad
why else would this compliment feel so hand crafted
like they picked my lowest times to tell me how beautiful my pain looks
why else would i be so pretty when i cry

she was 12,
of course no one believed her.
she was 12,
of course she was blamed.
she was 12,
of course she thinks its her fault.
she was 12,
of course they laughed at her when she opened up about it.
she was 12,
of course she thought it was love.
she was 12,
of course it was the clothes.
she was 12,
of course she couldn't press charges.
she was 12,
of course it still haunts her.
she was 12,
of course she's disgusted by her self.
she was 12,
of course she wasn't taken seriously.
she was 12.

Was it really a joke when you hurted/hit me?
Was it really a joke when you inappropriately touched me?
Was it really a joke when you told me to “**** yourself"?
Was it really a joke when I started behaving like yourself?

Was it really a joke when your fingers were over my intimate area, almost as if you were about to perform ****** acts on me?
Was it really a joke when you were toying with my body as if I was your personal *** slave?
Was it really a joke when you blamed me for everything and got older family members to join in?
Was it really a joke telling me that my intimate areas were small compared to yours?
Was it really a joke when I'm the main one getting dogshitted on?
Was it really a joke when I'm getting treated like a slave from the 1800s?
Was it really a joke when I'm being discriminated because I'm not the same blood?

Was it really a joke when you told me about something about me my whole life until I got so insecure about it, till I can't believe other people nor you when they say that it's false?
Was it really “trying to wake me up" if your fingers were pinching me, hurting me?
Was it really "trying to wake you up“ if your fingers dig between the crack of my thigh, right next to my crotch till it's borderline uncomfortable so matter how many times I tell you to stop?

Am I the joke that's being told here?
Am I the game that's being played here?
Am I the toy that is constantly being destroyed here?