;fear

We felt it, with our hands pressed tightly against our child-chests.
Boom
Boom
Boom.

It sounded nothing like a heartbeat,
But explosions being let off in the distance.
And it smelt nothing like fear,
It smelt like sweat and dried ***** caked onto torn pajama pants.

We grew to know the insides of our mouths,
with our soft gums clutched between our teeth -
We learned that our voices were safer kept stowed away there.

We picked at their hands like we picked at our scabs,
Because pulling off healing skin,
felt like pulling off a rooted burn,
And prying off desperate fingers from off our bones,
Meant prying off something that terrified us.

This was our strength;
This was our paralysis.

We felt it, with our ears pushed against the door,
Please
Please
Please

It sounded nothing like a pleading mother
But warm air, creeping through vents with a sudden force.
And it smelt nothing like fear,
It smelt of fresh blood, kissing the lips of a weeping woman.

We worshipped knives like they worshiped our baby-soft skin,
Because cutting open ourselves meant cutting out what they left inside,
And watching the filth flee
down our wrists, down our knees,
Felt like draining water
Out of a clogged tub.


It felt nothing life fear
It smelt nothing like decay
It was a continual clutch of the knife against their throats

This one's for you, daddy

If I’d happened to be someone else
weaning myself dry from my silent spell
may have taken months
waiting for words to
find me again

"It was just a touch"

Find me again
here
drowned in this skin
I used to know before you
chose to
burrow under

Fingers seeping into soil and rooting in
Once
a friend explained her process of
extracting similar roots
like foreign veins
we'd grown accustom to this

The same friend that
smokes herself to sleep in fear
those roots will find her again

By mere sense she learned the mold of mace and
how to wear her Woman in a public space
She demonstrated proper use as
finger wavered trigger--

If I’d happened to be someone else
reconciling air in my lungs
may have taken years

counting up hours into days
buried in a mangled garden of
thoughts
lingering

Nights spent spinning back clock hands--

I mistook unwelcome hands with the gentle brush of a petal

but luckily

orchids grow
and heal
on their own

Luckily I was not someone else--

Someone so used to gardening open wounds that
trauma festers like a patch of weeds
wild and
unforgiving and
when the soil has dried and
sun has silenced into night
the only remedy is to
uproot the vein

If I'd happened to be
someone else

--
c

Metal heavy
ready
steady

Hot in hand
Shelled, cocked into green-light action
Pierced through fresh flesh

Body leaning
keeling
pleading

Hot under hand
Shelled, coiling under skin unwilling,
Malleable

--
c

how can something so beautiful
fall into the hands
of something so evil

a precious rose
meant to be cherished

but then soiled hands began to
pluck the petals off
day after day
night after night

until there was nothing left
but a bare stem
covered in thorns
that bled every night
from the touch of an impure man.

Sometimes i think i am incapable of caring about anyone. Like, all that i am, is constructed of guilt and emotions i never wished to be mine in the first place.

There will never be a part of me i would offer up to be handled, because every limb, every *****, every slab of flesh worth holding, has been grabbed too hard and forced into positions that paralyzed me.

When i think of hands, i think of HIS hands and how they took, seized my fatless chest; like if he pulled hard enough and if he pinched to the point of blood, it would resemble the gutting of a fish and I would be pliant in his hold.

Hands don’t feel the same anymore, they don’t look the same. ‘Cause when I think of hands, i think of the print that was left behind and how it dyed parts of me a shade pink i had never before seen. I think of how i couldn’t breathe because of it, too scared to leave my room for days, and when I finally did, i tiptoed around him like i was on thin ice and he was the cold water underneath it.

I slept two hours last night, i’m okay with it. I was too scared to close my eyes, convinced that time would pass by without me in it. Woke up, didn’t brush my hair, just tied it back; ratted up knot things clinging to over-stretched hair ties.

And I can’t tell anymore, if these words are just emotions i’m trying to toss out so i wouldn’t have to feel them anymore, or if they are perhaps freed things - open to the page to understand myself better.
How will I ever know?

Mascara crusting, drying between tears
Core shaking with every wail
Head pounding, craving a breath of clear air
Right hand shaking uncontrollably needing control
Cheeks turning red, hot, and angry wanting revenge  

eyes closed silently
Memories blast past

His hand, my dark washed jeans, the only barrier between my skin and his
Muscles tense up
Pointer. Middle. Ring. Pinky, on the seam where one end meets another, thumb inside
Frozen in speed staring blankly across the room
Up three inches down one, repeat five times
Higher, higher, higher  
Hand grabs at my zipper
Instincts, do something
Run away

open eyes, back in my room
Still shaking, mascara still crusting, core still breaking, head still pounding.

the world doesn’t stop moving
not for me
not for him
not for anyone

Wipe away my tears
Get up off the bed
Walk over to the bathroom
Stare in the mirror

I don’t like what I’m looking at

Weak
Broken
Worthless
Nothingness

Lean against wall
Slowly slide down towards cool gray tile
Icy cold hits my upper thighs

Close my eyes

Lean over the ground
Hair strands surround my face
Heat rushes over my body

Sleep arrives
Sleep takes over
I let it take control
I give in

Your presence is comforting,
but I can't help but feel guilty,
when my mind destroys a moment between us
to flashback to memories of him.

He's been gone for so long,
I don't even think of him.
Yet, the wrong stroke or too long without a breath,
and I am trembling, shaking, crying.

Stop. Stop. Stop.

And immediately you do.
You're nothing like the ones before,
so why do their ghosts remain?
My body is haunted by their ethereal touch.

Your light kisses remove the cobwebs from my soul;
your hands stroking my back as you murmur calming words removes their stolen claims to my body.

I look into your eyes when I finish crying, I tell you I'm sorry,
but there's no need.

You see me when nobody else can.

You stay when nobody else would.

You saved me from demons I did not know exist.

What else is there to say but thank you?

breakfast felt like sin, it burned on the way down, burned like how his hands used to burn, as they took a journey on a body i never gave permission for him to inhabit.

I had that dream again, where i am on the floor and he is smothering me, all of me, with his hands and his mouth and his ****, and I can feel the way his body is a persistent pressure and weight above mine. I have my mouth open wide but no sound will leave it & there are people right outside the door that would hear if i just open it and yell something but i can't and i am completely paralyzed by the fact.

sometimes i wish i could wake up screaming, just so i could have an excuse to scream, but i don't know how that would feel, i don’t even remember how to feel anymore. I still cry, but i think it's more so instinctive than it is, self defense, because after each 10 minutes to 2 hours, i don't feel any different. I just feel dull and detached. A floating lost thing in space, waiting for someone to discover it and see him,

see me.

feeling trapped is worse than feeling alive, and for so long i dreaded that simple, factual feeling, but now, this cornered, helpless feeling that is living on me, in me, like mold, feels worse than how i imagined death, how i imagined life, if it meant something..

I just want to feel like i could crawl out of this cave with the confidence i wouldn't fall into another one.