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

i don’t understand and i don’t think i ever will
siding with a monster that they know put me through years of hell

choosing him repeatedly
turning their fake snake backs on me
while he moves on so happily?

[deep sigh]

**** that.
and honestly?
*******, too, if you side with him
making all kinds of judgments like you’d know the type of pain i’m in

i had set plans and goals and aspirations a-plenty
long gone now, stuck in my feelings and my ways well in my twenties
my brain machine on repeat cycle for these soiled memories,
left here navigating a world where i no longer even know which me is me

“one night, that’s all it takes”
except it wasn’t; again i say for YEARS i stayed
going ‘too far a single time’ doesn’t negate his common rage

anyways
i get you love him and his music but i don’t really care
he’s a darkness lurking waiting to manipulate the air
a shadow: stalking, smothering, secret-holding, thieving(,) *******
that last one’s for me; because i hate him, if you haven’t gathered

“it happened WHEN? wow, THAT LONG AGO? just get over it”
“there’s no need to keep living in the past”
“what a crazy *****”

i’m sorry, i can’t hear you, you’ve caught me at a real bad time
i’ve gotta do something about that dang machine again
all it seems to do these days is WHINE

here’s to him:
go ahead and tell your little friends how i'm the crazy one
but don't forget to mention all the ****** up **** you've ever done
i know what you think and say about me to your new girls—
—but how about you?
can’t unleash your feelings without revealing the ***** truth

what the ******* think you’re laughing at?
let’s give you something to cry about instead
can’t remember just whose side you’re on after i flip the switch and see that red
not talking violence, sorry, i tend to get a little heated
it’s this lack of closure, justice, resolution that i’m needing

he knows exactly what he did, he just won't admit it
he doesn't seem to like that i put him in this "tough" position
kind of ironic, don't you think? given the situation

often catch you occupying my thoughts (/dreams)
who the **** let you in
you're not supposed to be here

first lost my dog then my best friend then girlfriend
the last two didn't die but i swear
sometimes it feels like they did

very start of the new year
empty wine bottles hidden in your bin
i couldn’t be around that, you knew this
what the **** were you thinkin’

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?

Now I’m ashamed
To open my mouth
Cause I fear you may not like
what will come out

Put the black ink into your glass
It turned blunt, sorry I don’t want to
Sound like a haggard girl, who went through a lot of stuff

I see the old me in you
But something made me change or break down
Cause I used to have the same mindset you have
Until I faced the realm

You’re too kind, you’re too wise
I think you’re too good to trust
I hate to be this way, but I’m like
What have I been doing this whole time?

Cause I could be all of the things, and I’m none
I did not get anywhere near my goal
Heart’s getting heavy to speak
I wish I could delete the scene

But I wonder if I’m ever right
To doubt the power of light
Cause having sun shining to everyone
I’ll find a cloud to cover the bright

Under different circumstances who I could have become
She would be
Carefree
Smart,
Confident
Friendly
Trusting
Loving
She wouldn’t think everyone is going to leave her
She wouldn’t see memories of the past in people’s actions
She would trust that people mean what they say
She could love
And be loved
But I am not her
I grew up hard and rough
I wasn’t able to be that carefree
I will never be smart and confident
I will always struggle to make and keep friends
I will always struggle to love
And I will never be able to be loved

my body was once a temple to Daphne consecrated,
got razed by your sinful touch,
an ingenue bearing the grudge.
ephemeral eudaemonia, sempiternally anesthetized.


crimson substance will gush out from my lips,
running down my ******* and hips
it will splatter my ankles and thighs,
retracing the marks of the night you eroticized.


same old scars were once covered with epidermis,
petrichor smell, decorated with the salt of my tears.
backsliders will cry at my vault, murderers won't go to court;
left with a soul reduced to the coagulation of common thought.