I hate
the way my heart clenching
the way myself benching

I hate
how I let myself to fall
just to catch the ball

I hate
myself
for
letting me
fall in love
once again

or
perhaps
I just hate love?

Too much is all I’ve ever told myself, to be one that holds not just my heart but the entirety of what I am on my bare skin, is to be to be naked with immense shame.

Am I what I what truly believe? or what I was told to be? Or am I every promise made by a hurt child?

To abandon one’s self in exchange for a forceful invite from those starved of light,

To make yourself small enough to fit within the cracks of those who never had a place within their shallow hearts,

To be able to juggle the minds of those who pierce their judgment onto others' skin like muddy stamps on delicate silk,

To simply question your own heart,

Was enough to break one’s soul into an eternal state of tender consciousness and agonizing bareness.

One might say ignorance brings bliss, and to a certain degree, it does.

The blind fears no longer the broken glass on the ground for he has no knowledge of it, there was never room for fear to grow.

The deaf fears no beginning of war, for he is only confused at the distraught.

Fear grew in place of knowledge.

Knowledge is no different from people for they hold many forms of behavior, beliefs,
and betrayals, but with knowledge comes ones curiosity, and with curiosity comes adventure, and with adventure comes tragedy or at times death.

You seek connection, yet you’re too naive, too young to understand that even friends **** others, and it’s not those who bite at you that pose a threat, but it is those that slowly sink their teeth in you, and as you’re slowly filled with venom, you never realize that the pain of those firsthand bites should have not been as intense, but because you were too busy tending to anyone’s wound but yours,

The thought never occurred that your pain was actually deeper than what you forced yourself to believe, because after all

You’ve been nothing but an unpleasant guests to many.

You’ve been made small enough.

You’ve left your own identity, yourself.

And your heart bleeds, and now it never stops and you can’t stop worrying that you’re constantly bleeding on others, but time has passed enough to leave no aid for you, and you bleed, still.

you were my whole world
and you decided to tear my body apart

you were my fortress
and you left me drenched in a dark road

you were my definition of love
and your eyes said i better nonexisted

Can you really know me
If you don't know the darkness I've seen?
If you don't understand
Why it's so hard for me to sleep?
Or how I have to fight back tears
When I hear someone yelling?
Can you ever truly see me
If I don't show you what's behind me?
The childhood trauma boxed up neat
Until it spills across the floor of my insides
I keep the doors locked mostly
But locks don't prevent earthquakes
And sometimes, the ground shakes and
Frees memories to pool and suffocate
I've thought about speaking them but
Something inside says it's not bad enough
That no one will understand or see me
They'll just judge me as weak
"I'll give you something to cry about"
Hurled at a traumatized body

I don't want you to see me
Because you could call it sensitivity
And overlook the senseless violence
That comes with surveillance, intimidation
To share this pain is too risky
Because so much of it is crazy-making
I can take a punch no problem
It's the other stuff that broke me deeply
Expectations perfectionistic and unrealistic
Repetition into sleep deprivation
Fear flooding my system so entirely
I chose to **** myself over interrupting her
Every week she made me grab the scale
No matter the result, I know I'll fail
If I gain weight then I'm lazy trash
A decrease? muscle weighs more than fat
And when she found out that I hated myself
She had the nerve to act confused
Asking if I know that I'm beautiful
Like I should love this body that could only lose.

She controlled everything
From how I wore my hair
To the clothes on my body.
I learned to move around silently
Rushing to get outside the house
Before she could wake up and yell at me.
She'd scream so close to my face
I'd be showered in her spit
Trying to stop the tears from betraying me.
I'd watch two grown adults fist fighting
Being threatened not to cry
And failing anyway.
She made every decision
Not only what I ate
But how much too.
I'd learn to eat fast like she wanted
Trying to finish what she gave me
It didn't matter that it was too much.
Despite my attempts at compliance
I often threw up before I could finish
And she'd scream about that too.
Alone in bed at night
I'd stare into the glowing clock
And feel the deepest desire to die.

So can you really know me if you never see
That this is the history that haunts me
In the face of insanity there is no winning
So what's the point of it being seen?

do you remember the time
when you said that you
wished you could send me back?
that you wished
you had never adopted me?

do you remember
when i called you a
substitute mother?

I was only 6
years old,
but i should have known better.

the first half of my life,
i was the problem.
i broke rules—
broke trust.

broke you.

eight years later,
everything was a fight.
i didn’t hate you,
but i hated our relationship
because it was a minefield.

ten years later,
and we’re teetering on the edge
where anything i do
can send us over.

i almost miss the constant fighting
because at least i felt angry
instead of scared.

scared of doing the wrong thing,
because i always do, every time.

at least then,
i did not have to live with
the knowledge of my guilt.

but i should feel guilty,
but it hurts.

but i should be hurting,
because you are hurt.

i want to scream,
“𝑰 𝑾𝑨𝑺 𝑱𝑼𝑺𝑻 𝑨 𝑲𝑰𝑫”,
but you were just a mother
being dismissed
by a child who you only
ever wanted to love.

now, i am the one
whose every mistake
weighs heavy
because it is one
out of a tall, tall stack.

now, i am reaping
what i sowed,
and swallowing
the bitter fruit.