The darkness is surrounding me like a curtain of misery,
Locking itself onto me so I couldn't remove it and emerge as the woman I am supposed to be.

But who am I supposed to be?

Perhaps I'm convinced that this is the only me I know,
But I look at myself in the mirror every day and grimace.

I know that face,
Those eyes are unmistakable, the jawline too, the lips with bow of cupid, the nose. . . I know that face.

But the person inside is someone I am not.

I know this. I FEEL this person trying to get out like a rat stuck inside of a cage.

I propose a toast!
To throwing myself on a journey of self discovery and the ruthless unveiling of the fraud I am now!

I will never allow myself to be smothered by these unapologetic thoughts of disaster.

This time it's going to be my choice.

And I choose to feel alive again.

6 years ago you would have known
Exactly what I was doing
Exactly how I was feeling
Simply based on what I posted on Facebook.
Every detail of my life was there in black and white for the world to see.
I was an open book,
I made it easy for you
Because you didn't have to ask.
5 years ago you would have known
Who wronged me and how,
But you would never know how I was trying to fix it.
When my world was falling apart and I didn't know what to do,
It would be made apparent
Because venting my frustrations and clicking "post" was my way of letting go
So I could do what I needed to do.
You would know that I birthed my children,
But nothing of how my labor went
Or what my experience was afterwards
Because you never asked.
4 years ago you would have known
Who I was spending time with and how often
You would know more about my kids than I originally intended to share.
You would have known I was hurting then
But you wouldn't know why
Because my vague asides to the internet
Lacked the details you needed to render a fake response of support and admiration
Although they were given anyway.
But you would have never known the struggles I faced then,
Because you never asked.
3 years ago you would have known
about the things I found interesting because I shared them with all of you.
You would have known
That I had been hurt by someone I thought the world of,
But quickly recognized wasn't worth my time.
You would have known
That my kids were my world
And I was in love with someone good for me
But nothing more than that
Because the only thing provided to you to gather your opinions were pictures involving events we experienced together
Appreciation posts
And nothing else
Because you never asked.
2 years ago you would have been reminded that my cats are just like my children,
That my kids were growing too fast
And I was struggling to keep up.
You would have known that my relationship was wholesome
And everything I had been looking for
But you never would have known how badly I was battling with myself in life
Because you never asked.
1 year ago you would have known
That I had made the decision to move away from everything I had ever known
And loved
And every single one of you that barely know me anymore
Would assume this was the greatest decision I had ever made for myself
But you wouldn't know what I went through
And learned during my time there
That caused me to move back
Because you never asked.
In my present life,
You will never know who hurt me,
You will not know how my kids are,
Which bridges I am mending
Or which ones I've set on fire,
What I am doing to better my life,
Who I am involved with,
How I am feeling,
Or the things I am experiencing
Because you'll never ask.

g.a.
swallow the blood of the covenant
between you and the lord, they said,
but the wine tasted too sweet. the wine
tasted like a cancer that i had to wean off.

t.h.
fall out boy should write a song called
"welcome to your own personal hell",
and it should tell our story of betrayal.

t.p.
the silence is a loud house guest. i could
not sleep at night because of it. your hands
felt like i was grabbing onto stones, onto
something hard and unfamiliar.

j.s.
i swallowed my words, which replaced my hunger
aches. while i grew skinnier, you swallowed your
animalistic tendencies through another.

m.t.
do you ever feel afraid of not fitting back
into someone's life like you used to? but
i learned that once something is broken,
the cracks will still remain.

n.d.
a time bomb
t i c k i n g
tick
tock
tick
tock
every time i spoke, it sounded like a threat
but nothing i could do would calm him.
i made sure i was at a safe distance
before the explosions happened.

t.r.
an eye for an eye
an ear for an ear
you ruined me
so in turn
i had to ruin you

c.h.
the words you spoke weren't enough
for the green grass on the other side
to look like a crime scene. kind words
do not bring back dead people. kind
words do not pay off jail bonds. kind
words did not stop depression.

r.m.
there was something so captivating
about taking you off the path of salvation
of maybe being your calypso, but penelope
had other plans for us.

a.a.
i want to build a fire from the ashes
the other lovers left behind. i want the
tragedy to fertilize a garden from your
chest, to crack you open painlessly.

you came into my life like a comet,
like a ball of fire, like something
beautiful that i want to put my faith in
and also perhaps set fires inside me.
and maybe one day, i can stunt your
doubt and block it in it's tracks.

i want to persevere
through the trials
so this yields a fruit
that nobody else could create.

Happiness and laughter use to fill the void in my heart where love should be, and I never had a worry in the world.
You respected me enough then to let me know where you were and when you would be around again, but communication turned to my own ignorance, except of your design.
Our "I love yous" were like clockwork, we knew when they would be said and how often, but they began escaping our mouths less and less until it was uncertain when they would be said again.
Instead of being affectionate when we could be, the distance between us became larger in scale, and we may as well not touch at all.
Would our embrace hurt like being served a 3rd degree burn? How wrong it all began to feel almost suggested so, but instead, the empty feeling I have while standing by you says everything.
Commitment morphing into disaster, romance transforming into resentment, and I crawl into my bed at night wondering what went wrong.
The sad thing is, I had it all planned out in my head. I had created a new folder in one of the best destinations of my memory and titled it "Our Life."
Unfortunately, nowadays that file is not found and I struggle to accept the deletion of such fond ideas.
Perhaps my creativity has dissipated, but I consider myself an artistic being so that can't be.
Perhaps my memory is corrupt or I never saved my thoughts in the first place, but I memorize material like a straight A student studying for an academic decathalon therefore the possibility does not exist.

The scenarios play out in my sore, overworked mind until the correct one makes a connection...
And I know that the next time you leave, you won't be coming home.

I've come to understand why some people do not find hope in anything, at any time, in any place.
The constant disappointment when you love and lose something precious to you is too much to bear.
The weight of every failure you've ever had to face drags you down to the dirt; the taste of soil is filling your mouth as you try so hard to get back up again but keep getting buried even further.
It's almost like the time you went to bed and plugged your phone in to charge only to wake up and discover you forgot to plug the **** thing into the outlet in order to get the desired effect.
We're a society of broken people built on shattered expectations because no one knows how to keep their word.
If you love something, set it free because nothing is worse than getting caught up in hoping that love will go somewhere when it never mattered to begin with.
Those you consider close to you will leave you sooner than you can beg them not to, and you'll find yourself groveling in the dirt you constantly pull yourself up from.
You'll start sleeping on the couch again for two reasons. One: Your bed is too empty to sleep in alone. And two: if you keep sleeping where you rarely get a wink you'll end up sick enough to pass away unnoticed.
But you try not to get your hopes up for someone to fill that empty place in your bed or for that unexpected sickness to come around.
You just sit and ponder on the conclusion that you've conjured yourself, but are too cowardly to set forward: you're better off in the dirt.

It gets easier to recognize your demons when you're alone again.

I** am the rain on a sunny day, destroying everything that is remotely happy,

Absolutely revolting as I cling to unstable dreams of loyalty.
Masked by a dishonest smile, I strive to become the positive person everyone wants around.

A court of jesters surround me to justify my hilarity based on their singular opinion.

Carved out of the ivory of life, I break to shambles under immense amounts of pressure.
Unforgiving poetry escapes my mouth in the most destructive way possible.
Nothing I say can justify the horrid choice in vocabulary I spread out on the table before you in a fit of rage and misunderstanding, and now
Tomorrow is another day of regrettable instances and apologies that mean absolutely nothing to you.