It isn’t fair anymore
You get the fun of wanting to be alive
You get the pleasure of living
You’re not trapped
Why do you get that right?
Why wasn’t I allowed that too?
Did I do something wrong?
I was just a baby
I want to do something to make it up
Something to show I deserve it just like you
It just isn’t fair anymore
You get that joy of not being stuck
I can’t see
It’s too dark
Explain to me how that’s fair
Why does everyone get that but me
The food passes by
But what’s the point
Why do I need to prove myself?
Show how much I need this
I don’t want anything
It’s a right
Not a privilege
Can I stay with you?
There’s enough room for me too
I’m tired
When I sleep it’s okay
But I can’t sleep all the time

The feelings are all too familiar
Rough couches
Brown so bright it’s orange
So cold it burns
So soft it cuts my skin
I can’t recognize it
The feelings are all too familiar

And I’ll cry harder when they return
You fill my heart with hatred
Hate for you
Hate for how I feel
My feelings of hate
Hate themselves too

And the feelings are textile
And the feelings are nauseating
You filled my head with tears
That you got high off of
B*tch

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?