How do I heal when the pain and shame you caused was not an accident?
When we four convened around the kitchen table to tell the same stories, the same details.
We'll never truly know what goes on in your head.
How do we heal?

I drove home at 4 am last night, scared, alone.
Outside reality, outside of time on stretches and stretches of empty, barren roads.
Silhouettes flickered peripherally as I held some feral, desperate creature chained tight in my chest.
Shifting, aching at the weight of anguish yet unfelt.
I wished for the urge to scream, but my face remained calm. Numb.
I wished for tears, but they wouldn’t, couldn’t come.
Matter of fact memories of hands and teeth on my body won’t spare my mind's pleading eyes.
No soap could ever cut through the grime.

I came home to my lover’s arms.
They kneaded flesh that would not feel
They wove time back into this madness, where nothing is real.
They left at dawn, and half-awake I let them go.
At midday I sit, exhausted. Alone.
How can I heal? How can I feel?
Why does it hurt more now that I know?
When before it was brushed off, excused, let go?
It was uncomfortable, bothersome as an accident.
But you knew better. That knowledge chills, it builds walls in my head.
How do I heal?
How can I pause when the world never stops, and who can I tell?
What do I say?
So many told me not to; I did it anyway.

Rigid gurney, frigid stare
I’ll lay still to prove my love
Scalpel to skin, the only way
No choice left, snap your glove

Cut through fabric, flesh exposed
Your lash mark burning, buried
**** and press on pressure points
Check for broken capillaries

Saw through ribs to bare my heart,
There’s a faster path to follow,
Cut your way up through my stomach,
Check for what I didn’t swallow

Blade to throat I’m forced to speak
Tears trickling, blood gushing
Grimy finger prints all over
You see them in the chambers you’re crushing

Carved up carcass inside out
Too impure for your desire
Toss me aside in your disgust
All I that I did wrong was lie

You watched in sickness and relief
As you pulled me apart and scoffed at how used up I’d already been
And I gripped your wrist and pushed myself into your knife
To be sure it was enough for you
Can’t you see I was letting you win?

Just leave me here to die
This is why I lied

After you’re through with me can I do it all again?
After you’re through with me can I do it all myself?
After you’re through with me can I do it all again?
After you’re through with me can I do it all myself?

Gifts in utero, or perhaps vice?
Primordial blessings formed with a price

Watch the hourglass turn, never to come around
Star children all burn up before they touch the ground

It’s time to take your formless shape
Opalescence often fades
The rest of us they all call names
But I have far to go, so far to fall

Let me thank your fingertips,
Firm caress against my lips,
Please accept this loving gift,
Yours to do with as you wish.

Persistent touch around my neck,
It keeps me in your gentle grip.

Paint a garden on my skin,
Dewdrops on a rosy flush,
Strokes to wear the canvas thin,
Make me pure in willing blush.

On the longest, darkest night,
To pass the aching countdown until dawn,
We lit a candle to give us light,
A gentle flame to burn until our agonies were gone.

With wordless prayer upon my lips,
Of moonlight skin on flowing sheets,
In all the life that it has given,
Never did scarlet taste so sweet.

A path of blossoms in the dark,
Bloomed from worship of mouth on skin,
To beckon Death with gentle fingers,
Tell me, how could this be sin?

Let me soak up your burning blush against my skin as you lie with me,
Let me tell you
It is with you, my love, that I am clean;
It is like this when we are free.

He told me all the wonders of the world,
All the smoke-filled ponderings and philosophies,
Yet he himself was but a wretched worm.

Young but wary,
I’d walk past the mushroom without a bite,
And walk into the flower garden level headed.
Drawn as I was to the roses,
Lovely hues,
Too classic for so whimsical a place.

But oh what a pleasant surprise to be serenaded by a pretty stargazer.
Who trilled in lilting soprano,
Blossoms rounded in the curve of treble clef,
Shrill and wonderful
Such that even my skin listened

And what would I give to linger in the garden,
But the journey and path continue on.
After all, the smirking cat said nothing about staying,
Perhaps the smile will carry on.

A click of a lock at curfew cut off the chaos of the day,
The last pulse in the longest piece we’d had to play,
Stillness and silence until tomorrow’s dawn.

Until a string broke in the room,
A final sigh before the creak of drying wood,
The trio rocked and murmured ‘til my tears subsided.

The Sultan would spare the enchantress,
But I still wept, because I knew
That ten doors down, in her own prison,
Scheherazade was weeping too.