#brutallyhonest - Hello Poetry

I never bled from a fist But I still wear the shape of violence Raised voices can bruise Silence can bruise The threat of eruption bruises Deepest of all My shoulders remember More than I do They rise before my mind can process Stiffening at the hint of Sharpness in a voice My jaw knows how to lock Before a word becomes weaponized My body rehearses defense Whether or not there’s a war Bruises don’t fade They redistribute Whispering in muscles Posture Carving themselves into instinct You don’t need hands To harm someone You need presence Volume A door slammed with enough force Can knock the air out of you Without ever touching your ribs Accusations cut sharper than Belt buckles matched with An equally sharp tone In the suffocating pressure of Someone else’s anger Tracing warnings into my skin There’s no doctor for that No ointment or polite language That makes it digestible You can’t ice the memory of a voice Breaking you down like it was Dismantling cheap furniture You can’t rest away the sensation of Your stomach seizing when someone Drops a shoe too loudly In another room

0

Oct 10, 2025

Oct 10, 2025 at 5:02 PM UTC

Sorelle

Muscle Memory

I never bled from a fist But I still wear the shape of violence Raised voices can bruise Silence can bruise The threat of eruption bruises Deepest of all My shoulders remember More than I do They rise before my mind can process Stiffening at the hint of Sharpness in a voice My jaw knows how to lock Before a word becomes weaponized My body rehearses defense Whether or not there’s a war Bruises don’t fade They redistribute Whispering in muscles Posture Carving themselves into instinct You don’t need hands To harm someone You need presence Volume A door slammed with enough force Can knock the air out of you Without ever touching your ribs Accusations cut sharper than Belt buckles matched with An equally sharp tone In the suffocating pressure of Someone else’s anger Tracing warnings into my skin There’s no doctor for that No ointment or polite language That makes it digestible You can’t ice the memory of a voice Breaking you down like it was Dismantling cheap furniture You can’t rest away the sensation of Your stomach seizing when someone Drops a shoe too loudly In another room

42

My throat is a battlefield Where screams go to die They crawl up like Spiders with broken legs Then fall back down Into my chest cavity Banging against my ribs Like caged birds Until their wings snap And feathers clog my lungs My hands are earthquakes That never stop Fingers twitching like Live wires against my skin I press them into my thighs And bruises bloom in the form of Purple flowers watered by adrenaline The shaking moves inward My bones rattle like Wind chimes in a hurricane My heartbeat is a drum corps Marching through my temples I can't tell if it's love Or terror anymore A relentless percussion That makes my vision blur At the edges like watercolour Left in rain My inner child is screaming Inside my skull Her voice is sandpaper Scraping against bone She claws at the inside of my throat Until her fingernails break off And scatter like shrapnel Through my bloodstream She's trying to tear her way out Through my mouth I swallow her back down Drowning her in my stomach acid My skin doesn't fit anymore It's two sizes too small And made of barbed wire Every breath stretches it tighter I swear I can feel it Splitting at the seams Revealing something underneath That doesn't have a name I'm simultaneously too much And not enough My body is a contradiction of physics Expanding and collapsing In the same instant Like a star dying in real time The explosion is happening Inside my chest The implosion is happening Behind my eyes And I can't tell which direction Is up anymore Time moves like molasses in winter Thick Slow Suffocating But also like lightning Split-second and blinding Past Present And future Collapse into this single moment I'm everywhere I've ever been And nowhere I want to stay My breath comes in gasps That taste like copper Like I've been chewing on Pennies or blood Or maybe both Maybe I've been eating myself alive Starting with the soft parts Working my way to the bone There's a pressure behind my eyes Like someone's trying to push Them out from inside Or maybe pull them Back into my skull I can't tell the difference anymore Between pushing and pulling Holding on and letting go Staying and leaving Alive and Dead My thoughts are a traffic jam Every single one trying to exit at once They're all going in Different directions And none of them know The destination Just that they need to get there Now Immediately Yesterday The space between my Shoulder blades feels like it's been Hollowed out with a spoon Scooped clean and left empty Somehow still heavy Like someone filled the Cavity with lead Regret The weight of every word I never said My jaw aches from clenching Teeth grinding down to powder Tongue swollen from being bitten To keep from screaming Speaking Existing out loud There's a vibration in my sternum Like a phone set to silent A constant buzz that makes My whole chest cavity hum With something that might be rage Grief Or both Braided together so tightly They've become the same thing My fingernails have left Half-moons in my palms Little red parentheses Marking where I've tried to Hold myself together by squeezing So hard my hands went numb But numb isn't the same as gone And together isn't the same as whole I'm a live wire in a puddle Dangerous and drowning Sparking and sinking All at once Forever

0

Sep 28, 2025

Sep 28, 2025 at 5:03 AM UTC

Sorelle

Pressure

My throat is a battlefield Where screams go to die They crawl up like Spiders with broken legs Then fall back down Into my chest cavity Banging against my ribs Like caged birds Until their wings snap And feathers clog my lungs My hands are earthquakes That never stop Fingers twitching like Live wires against my skin I press them into my thighs And bruises bloom in the form of Purple flowers watered by adrenaline The shaking moves inward My bones rattle like Wind chimes in a hurricane My heartbeat is a drum corps Marching through my temples I can't tell if it's love Or terror anymore A relentless percussion That makes my vision blur At the edges like watercolour Left in rain My inner child is screaming Inside my skull Her voice is sandpaper Scraping against bone She claws at the inside of my throat Until her fingernails break off And scatter like shrapnel Through my bloodstream She's trying to tear her way out Through my mouth I swallow her back down Drowning her in my stomach acid My skin doesn't fit anymore It's two sizes too small And made of barbed wire Every breath stretches it tighter I swear I can feel it Splitting at the seams Revealing something underneath That doesn't have a name I'm simultaneously too much And not enough My body is a contradiction of physics Expanding and collapsing In the same instant Like a star dying in real time The explosion is happening Inside my chest The implosion is happening Behind my eyes And I can't tell which direction Is up anymore Time moves like molasses in winter Thick Slow Suffocating But also like lightning Split-second and blinding Past Present And future Collapse into this single moment I'm everywhere I've ever been And nowhere I want to stay My breath comes in gasps That taste like copper Like I've been chewing on Pennies or blood Or maybe both Maybe I've been eating myself alive Starting with the soft parts Working my way to the bone There's a pressure behind my eyes Like someone's trying to push Them out from inside Or maybe pull them Back into my skull I can't tell the difference anymore Between pushing and pulling Holding on and letting go Staying and leaving Alive and Dead My thoughts are a traffic jam Every single one trying to exit at once They're all going in Different directions And none of them know The destination Just that they need to get there Now Immediately Yesterday The space between my Shoulder blades feels like it's been Hollowed out with a spoon Scooped clean and left empty Somehow still heavy Like someone filled the Cavity with lead Regret The weight of every word I never said My jaw aches from clenching Teeth grinding down to powder Tongue swollen from being bitten To keep from screaming Speaking Existing out loud There's a vibration in my sternum Like a phone set to silent A constant buzz that makes My whole chest cavity hum With something that might be rage Grief Or both Braided together so tightly They've become the same thing My fingernails have left Half-moons in my palms Little red parentheses Marking where I've tried to Hold myself together by squeezing So hard my hands went numb But numb isn't the same as gone And together isn't the same as whole I'm a live wire in a puddle Dangerous and drowning Sparking and sinking All at once Forever

137

I memorised this house’s percussion Before I learned to speak Survival dictated it My bedroom door doesn’t lock None of them do A house of false privacy Where boundaries exist only in theory So I learned to barricade myself with silence instead To make myself so quiet that they forget I’m here To breathe so softly that the air around me remains undisturbed I became a ghost in my own home long before I learned to detach The walls are thin enough that voices carry But thick enough that words get muffled Just the tone remains Sharp Accusatory Defensive Pleading A symphony of dysfunction in four-part disharmony I press my ear against the cool plaster sometimes To feel the vibrations Anger has a particular frequency It rattles your molars if you press your jaw to the wall just right A house full of translators for people standing three feet apart

0

Sep 16, 2025

Sep 16, 2025 at 11:08 AM UTC

Sorelle

Contraband

I memorised this house’s percussion Before I learned to speak Survival dictated it My bedroom door doesn’t lock None of them do A house of false privacy Where boundaries exist only in theory So I learned to barricade myself with silence instead To make myself so quiet that they forget I’m here To breathe so softly that the air around me remains undisturbed I became a ghost in my own home long before I learned to detach The walls are thin enough that voices carry But thick enough that words get muffled Just the tone remains Sharp Accusatory Defensive Pleading A symphony of dysfunction in four-part disharmony I press my ear against the cool plaster sometimes To feel the vibrations Anger has a particular frequency It rattles your molars if you press your jaw to the wall just right A house full of translators for people standing three feet apart

24