I've been thinking more about you recently.
...No, not like that. Don't get the wrong idea,

Again.

You come back into my mind like the text notifications that would light up my phone.
Only this time I can't press the block button,

Again.

It's an odd feeling, a sort of confusion that gives me anger.
But I don't want to try and figure it out,

Again.

I was vulnerable, alone, suicidal, depressed, and you knew that.
You took advantage of me with your manipulative "I love you"'s

Again.

I fell for it, I was weak, and I loved you for awhile, I truly did.
Until you made me take off my clothes and give you a show,

Again.

It was intimate, for the first couple of months I thought.
But you began seeing me more as your ****** object,

Again.

But I wanted to believe you loved me.
So I opened my skin for you to make your home in me,

Again.

Did you deserve that? At the time, I thought it was only right.
But giving you my ***** home was my mistake,

Again.

The cycle continued, manipulation of *** for my dignity.
My identity was at stake, I was scared to hear you say,

"Again."

Silenced by threats that would expose me more than the skin I showed you.
So I, weak and stupid, fed into your fantasies

Again.

Emotional turmoils arose if I didn't give you what you wanted.
And I, depressed and scared of being alone, endured the hurtful words,

Again.

I had let your words define my worth.
I was nothing more but just someone who deserves this hurt,

Again.

There's a reason I stayed, but I feel like it was more rather for me than you.
I feel like some days I wanted this pain, or that I deserved it,

Again.

My trust was tattooed on your hand, my heart tattooed on your foot.
Never realizing the damages you left in me,

Again.

As you began to rattle my rib cage to wake me,
Asking me for more, and more, until I bled out my soul,

Again.

Forceful grabbing, soulless insults, groaning and yelling,
Then you'll leave, high and dry, for hours until you were ready to start,

Again.

My body shakes, my mind in disarray, buzzed like bees in a can.
I wept as I had to bandage myself,

Again.

You broke me as easily as a porcelain doll.
And I laid there, numb, as you kept moving your hips faster,

Again.

My body turned cold, as my heart packed its bags to leave.
I neglected myself, all for you, but you just wanted to keep going

Again.

You probably didn't care that I said I couldn't feel a thing.
You covered my mouth, ripped off my clothes, and forced yourself through,

Again.

Stating that I'll feel you inside, I'll feel our love in my chest.
But I cried and all I could feel was the yearning to slit my neck,

Again.

I had many breaking points, but none the worst as the last.
I was ready to give my tired body to the Reaper's arms,

Again.

And so I did, I left without a care of whatever you were going to do.
No matter how many threats and insults you shoved into my ear once

Again.

You wanted my hollow body that echoed your voice of "Take it off for me,
Again."
And I stab myself through my stomach, slice myself in half, rip you from the grip you had around my heart, snip your gnarly fingers from my brain, and say

"No."

They call us survivors

I call us leftovers

They tell us we're heroes and deserve better than the hand life dealt us.

They use us as examples of inspiration and make shiny metaphors out of our trauma.

But.

But they never look at you long enough to see that you flinch when they reach, with greedy hands, towards you because to look at you too long would mean seeing the hand wrapped around your throat.

They are never around long enough to know that panic sets in while you shower and scrub at your skin until it's raw and bruised.

Sticking around would mean knowing that you were touched by Poison Ivy and they've heard it's contagious!

They don't watch when you're seventeen and crying into his shoulder, asking him to tell you he loves you, just so you can sleep because that would mean that maybe..you aren't that heroic afterall.

If they got too close they would see that you aren't surviving so much as submitting to being alive.

They sit on the edge of their seats gobbling up details about your so-called courageous story, eating up the nitty-gritty details because they know it will end in some form of you rises from the ashes.

But YOU didn't know that you'd be rising from the ashes when he was lighting his match.

When you tell them, you're still in therapy learning to breathe and count to ten, they have to realize bandaids don't fix gaping wounds, so they stop listening, notice the crows feet and crooked teeth,  and turn away because suddenly...you look like a victim

When my ****** texted me after 3 years of silence
My body shattered
I've spent all this time picking up the pieces glueing them into place like a puzzle that doesn't quite fit
You swing at me with a hammer
Chipping away at me like the paint I chipped off the deck with my grandpa summers before I met you.
I am the opposite of forgiveness
Sharp teeth, howls of rage, and jagged edges
If our bodies turned red where unwanted fingers like claws, carved into us, I would look like I was bleeding out
I don't know when I became a space to be filled
I have made you as ghost story as possible
Using you only as a joke at my own behalf or cautionary tale.
When you're only a story I can close at night and pull out when I want to, I can pretend you've left no scars on this forsaken body of mine
But when you text me out of no where, I find you've taken my autonomy once again.
I find that I'm once again stuck between your teeth.
Every probing text is gasoline that I swallow with a smile.
You think I turn to ice because I have frozen.
I am ice turned fire
And I'll burn the whole **** world with me if I have to.
My body is constantly in fight or flight, rigid with the possibility of springing into action.
Never quite relaxed enough to forget past sins made against me.
When people ask me, with sneers on their faces, if every adams apple I see reminds me of a fist, I tell them no. Because one of the faces that haunts me has deep brown eyes and soft skin, like my own.
She hid claws under royal blue painted nails and cinnamon scented gum.