They usually come at night
When fighting the battle of sleep
I recall the window, green and purple blankets and sheets
I am a walking video tape
Broken VCR rewinds
Without being touched, my brain is the television on which it repeats

Classroom desk, The Color Purple, Letter one; repeat
2:00, surprised, they usually come nighttime
Video cassette jostled in its compartment, forcibly rewinding
No, please let me go to sleep
The thoughts take my limbs and bind
them to my sides, wishing for the refuge of sheets

How I want to burn those sheets
Maybe the tape would no longer repeat
Take the memories and unfasten
them from my mind. It was never at night
No sneaking into bedrooms, sleep
wasn’t any harder than usual, only rewinding
When we were home alone, rewinding
Inside those sheets
I wonder if he could still sleep
Does the repetition
Haunt him at night?
These memories belong in boxes sealed
in ***** basements like ****** up Christmas presents not meant to be opened, tightly wrapped
Red ribbon on the spool, rewound
like the film tucked away in a cellar without lights, dark as midnight
Upstairs, I am safe, a breeze from the open window blows sheets
of watercolor paper sprawled on the table with repeating
brush strokes. The chair next to the window is a fine place to take a nap.
Here, ill recordings do not interrupt my slumber
Bandage
I’ve read that victims will often put themselves in situations that repeat
the traumatic event. Time is the one thing I cannot rewind.
I sit in a room of strangers filling out sheets
about healthy coping mechanisms. I think of my hard-bedded room; on the wall there is a nightlight

But still. Some nights, it’s on repeat. The boxes open while I sleep.
Some nights my head is still a video tape
They creep up the stairs and into my sheets when I’m not looking. Like tiny spiders that know how to push the << button.

Ⅰ.
Her paintings often worried people
outstretched hands and cooing voice
“Are you alright?”
“It comes and goes in waves”
You see, that was her specialty
Composing masterpieces out of emotional turmoil

Ⅱ.
The Artist found her new muse within the heart of a Bibliophile
Stacks of books bowing the wood on a stained white bookshelf
Her favorite; a black bound Salvador Dali collective
Ribbon bookmark frayed by the teeth of an orange kitten
The bibliophile’s face filled the Artist’s sketchbook pages
The finest work of art in her mind’s eye

Ⅲ.
She fills the bad nights with smoking good **** and drinking cheap liquor
Her feet touch the floor for the first time in 3 days
Hair knotted and joints crackling
Empty pizza boxes litter the floor of her studio
Blank canvas next to dried paint
“****** up attracts ****** up” she said, paint scraper in hand,
How ironic the Artist cuts herself with her tools

Ⅵ.
She remembers how they made love on a mattress without a frame
Fingers brush across bodies leaving behind colors of flushed skin
Like an anatomical paint-by-number
They breathe smoke into each other’s lungs
The Bibliophile said “You are my favorite drug.”
A deadly mix of *******, *****, and marijuana
“You keep me on my toes and put me on my *** all at the same time.”

Ⅴ.
She squeezes her thighs into stretch denim
Attempting an imitation of normal
The Artist stares distantly at the blinding white of blank pages
The thoughts of the Bibliophile tickle her amygdala
Begging to run rampant across canvas
Time heals all wounds
She calls bull-****.

I.

He has a habit of picking flowers
and putting them in waterless vases

He plants poppies and marigolds on his bedroom floor
Nettles grow where his feet fall

He becomes another bloom
Without sun nor rain

He lies down in the green
Withering

II.

When he is happy
It feels like I'm putting my tongue to a 9 volt battery
He rushes through my veins
Shocking my system
Sparking me up like a cigarette
Giving me energy I've never known

When he is depressed
It's like drinking battery acid
His kisses spill darkness into me
My body attempts to filter the black tar
Leaking from his lips
There's a heaviness that doesn't go away

It lingers in my chest as he does when he's happy
Tiny flower buds atop
Little floating feathers
Growing
Tickling
Filling me up

When he is sad
They do not float
6 tons of flowers and feathers still weigh the same as 6 tons of steel
Crushing
Crushing
Withering

III.

My love lies bleeding
Among the green sprouting around him

You cannot purge darkness
Into porcelain with fingers down your throat

How am I to pull these weeds
Fighting the vines twisting inside me, whispering

"Lie down beside him
And wither too"

I can't stop thinking of it
How the razor feels so cool in my hands
Fitting so perfectly between the grip of finger and thumb
How it appears from nothing
Pink
to
Bright red
Beads of blood pooling along the fine line of open flesh
The cold burn of alcohol
The soreness and sting with every step

I can't stop thinking of his blood
What if mine looked like that one day
How strangely romantic it would be
to bleed out the hurt together

I woke up craving it
He kisses me hard before I leave him behind in my dreams
It does not hurt during
Only after
perhaps these dreams are much like razors

I woke up craving to open myself up
clavicle to stomach
pour myself out over white sheets
the stains wont come out
My mom would throw them away

The place where i once felt safe
has grown teeth and a devious grin
come in my friend, while I chew you like gum
and spit you out when the sweetness has subsided

Was it ever
about you?

I can't stop thinking of your arms
How they wrapped around me that night
Braille of a story spelled out across them
I run my fingers across the raised surface of scarred skin
There's so many
It's nostalgic
I felt your breathing deepen

Sleep
This world has been cruel to you
Sleep
With arms safe in my palms

It's sort of tragically beautiful
Two souls threatening to break at any moment
Lean on one another
We know what it's like to be broken

Sleep
I'll be your pillow
Sleep
I'll be your razor

Cut into me
And take what you need

My therapist calls you a mind-******
You know how to get under my skin
Into my brain
And scramble neurons

These months are the hardest
The detox
When every cell inside of me is craving you
Your name appears once more

Finish me off next time, would you?