I didn't know and
I couldn't understand
                                           Anything about myself.

I couldn't see through and
Never had tools,
                                                     Pitch dark and wandering by stars.

I didn't know and
I couldn't understand
                                           Social rules, quiet cues, or how
                                                        Became my "muse".
An island
                                 A shipwreck
                                                                         Adrift at sea
I didn't know and
I couldn't understand
                                               My forsaken longing for true connection,
                                                                  
                                                                    Or what you meant
                                                                       When you said

"Stop painstakingly crafting your prose as if you must earn my attention"

Scouring
                                   Half blind
                                                                       For the unloved part of me.
I didn't know and
I couldn't understand
                                          My desperate diversity.

Shackles clattered free with every blackout pour

Each line a rush of promises I knew would rot

Filled myself to forget nothing was ever there,
Expanding the hollow before it even had a name.

I didn't know and
I couldn't understand

                                           I was heaving the empty unknowing alone,
                                                     An anchor keeping me drowned.

With no practice feeling, I stood
     Petrified to appear the fool,
                                                                   I didn't know and
                                                                 I couldn't understand.

After numbing for years
I finally learned and finally healed,

                             This quiet apology is not an excuse
                      Only late recognition from my old recluse.

In later years, my writings tend to incorporate hope

I hint at it, allude to it, or even praise it outright

But I have so precious little of my own...and I wonder why

I thought of Pavlov:

If a dog is beaten every time it approaches people food

Eventually, after years of abuse

That dog will cringe whenever it sees a delicious morsel

To the point that the dog could be left alone with a steak

Without daring to sniff at it, likely afraid to even consider it

I realized, I am that dog

Beaten down by life, disappointment, tragedy, solitude

Driven to terror by the possibility—even the hint—of hope

I wonder if there are any therapists out there

Who accept payment in kibble...

Grass too green,
sunlight ripped into jagged shards
by the fig tree’s fists of shadow.
Cupcakes bleeding frosting,
iced coffee sweating through paper cups.
We pretended it was a family.
We pretended.

Mum sat besides Dad,
like their bones remembered being joined.
Like his hands weren’t already holding someone else’s.
Like her vows weren’t chained to her job.

I opened my mouth.
The sugar rotted on my tongue.
Everything spoiled.
And I told them.

How I hunted for older hands.
How I thought I needed it.
How I wanted out when I saw the second man,
but the door was already locked.
How they used me.
How one carved into me,
split me open with steel,
left a word to rot inside my skin.

My own scars, I’ve loved.
They are mine,
my handwriting on my body.
But this one,
this one crawls.
It doesn’t heal,
it festers,
a maggot under the flesh,
hissing that I didn’t choose it.
A vandal’s tag on my skin.
An infection of me.

Dad’s face twisted, anger,
then collapse.
Mum’s face, vanished,
then drowned in tears.
The helpers, two statues,
faces carved like gravestones,
motionless as I gutted myself.

I clutched my ribs,
hugged myself,
but the scar pulsed,
thick, swollen,
as if it was laughing.
And no one reached for me.

The picnic died.
Flies feasted on icing,
ants drowned in coffee.
Mum and Dad pulled apart,
the rug split like torn flesh.
And me,
already in pieces,
my body a crime scene.

I dragged myself to the sun,
limped like the scar was a chain.
Collapsed.
Let the world blur.
Even in sleep,
I felt it twitch,
like a parasite feeding.  

When I woke,
a hand on my face.
Gentle. Slow.
Tracing me the way she once did
when I was a baby,
her fingers mapping me
like I was new to her again.

She avoided the carved word.
Her touch lingered on the scars I made myself,
as if she understood those belonged to me.
Her fingertips circled,
again and again,
like she was trying to write over the wound,
to overwrite the trespass,
to give me back the body I lost.

Mum beside me,
breathing clouds.
No words.
Just her arms,
finally closing around me.

And for one fragile moment,
the scar went still.
Not gone.
Never gone.
But almost forgotten.

sometimes
i need to remind myself
you’re my therapist,
not my buddy.
but man,
i wish i could text you.

i’m breaking
to pieces,
tearing
at the seams —

could you please
clear your calendar
for me?

I found out you moved on,
you’re with another woman.

I felt nothing.

I thought I would cry,
tear my hair out over you—
but I think I love myself now.

My weekly therapy sessions worked.

Wholeness
That must be the word
If it’s not, that’s fine
I couldn’t care less
I know what I feel, and I can’t deny it
My verses are not for you
They’re for me
Period.
If you understand, congratulations
If not, I’m sorry
Go find a book—one with over a thousand words
Even better if it’s self-help
I need only a few words to say what I want
My therapy is in the verses
I owe nothing to anyone
Liberating
That could be the word too
Doesn’t matter to me
I simply cross my legs in the hammock
and spot a new world of possibilities
waiting for me

My therapist says the words I’ve carried
might not fit me after all.

And I don’t know who I am without the illnesses I’ve been certain of.

They were a soft alibi, not to excuse the harm, but to explain it.
a small cushion between me and the truth.

Without them, every bruise I’ve left behind
belongs only to me, and I am terrified that the truth is this:
I was never sick...
I was just cruel.