Sometimes I can’t imagine normal adult things happening to me
Like buying a house, a new car
Being a bride in a wedding.
Getting a “big girl career” beyond retail.
Wanting kids.
Because I haven’t had normal things happen to me.
I was robbed of many things,
A childhood,
Development.
Love.
And a lot of the time I forget I’m 26,
Wearing a made up, misplaced childhood,
Still locked into teen age.
It’s not a resurrection of the dead.
It’s a reimagined gift to myself.
I am my own body guard, protector, nurturer.
I am allowed a childhood.
And I am allowed to have adult things happen to me.
I’m 26.

I’m sorry that I don’t want kids
I’m still a kid myself.
July 2022 was my birth.
Age 25 and flung into blinding light.
Ripped from the suffocating womb that I had been shoved into
And incubated.
Squished, pushed, moulded,
Deprived of nutrients
From my mother,
From him,
And also him,
And my dad,
And the list of contributors is extensive.

I’m sorry I can’t commit to giving you the grandchild/ren
That you so desperately want.
But I’ve only just been born,
Yet I’ve already done my time.
I have two sisters.
Two kids.
Two souls I’ve grown, nurtured, sheltered, loved, taught.
But didn’t birth.
I’ve already been a parent.
And I’m sorry it’s not in the correct way.
I didn’t choose it.

Today has a weird air about it,
It’s sunny and bright and still
But it feels like mourning.

Is this preemptive?
Premonition?
Or a soft surrender to all my trauma.
A delicate laying down of flowers,
Soft cloths,
A blanket of tears
For versions of me that never survived
Or who were taken by the darknesses.

The seascape in my mind
Just became dark
Filling with morbid clouds
And fiercely black swell.
All of a sudden it switched
And the tv static that only my ear drums can conjure
Became forceful and loud.
In an instant,
Conversations I never imagined,
Spoke loud and vividly.
“I can’t leave my bed today,
Im dreaming of killing myself”
Why?
I feel intoxicated,
And nauseous.
I feel unsafe,
And I can see myself
Dipping under the waves.
Why?
Send the coast guard,
I can feel my lungs draining.

I think we were buried,
******* and yearning before we spoke.
A cosmic connection strung out
Over thousands of years,  
Millions of experiences.
Just waiting for the tension to give in
For the spell of gravity to take hold
And pull us back into each other’s arms.

Or maybe it is much less.
Maybe it is just chance,
Change,
The right time.
Maybe it just is.

It’s the memories of your fingers dancing across my skin at all the places you’d touch me so carefully.
Maybe you’re aware I’m already broken,
Gentle to avoid further damage,
Or maybe your first language is softness, delicate understandings of how to move with my body.

It’s a dark night.
And I sit here,
Cigarette choking me.
But I realise I have learnt so much.
One thing I realised,
Through the tortured delusions,
Is that I am strong.
You taught me strength.
To crawl through the mud,
Dust my bones from the ashes,
They didn’t dissolve in the flames set alight by you.
You taught me,
I can unbury my head,
Push out the heavy smoke
And breathe.
Especially when the lights are gone
And nothing seems tangible.
You taught me to grab a hold,
And pull myself out.