My money
My body
My books
My clothes
My time
My love
My secrets untold
They pull and rip and shred to pieces
Tearing and smashing and breaking
Claiming me
Borrowing
Taking
Stealing
Lying and smiling
Disappearing
My thoughts
My words
My heart
Unheard.
What do you tell yourself
Every night before bed
Which allows you to sleep
As sound as the dead?
“She got what she deserved
And she saw through the lies;
I committed no wrong
I’m not the bad guy.”
Inhale your phony guilt
Exhale your pseudo life
Your truth has been revealed
By your double ended knife.
I will NOT call you names, like pathetic asshole loser dickface motherfucker. No. Even if there is a deep and delicious desire to say to you, “you are a purposeless and wasteful space of a human who only exists so the people of the earth understand what evil and darkness is.” NO. I won’t say any of it. Not a chance.
What I WILL say is:
I am kind.
I am loyal.
I am trusting.
I am courageous.
I am brave.
I am honest.
I am intelligent.
I am a good person.
I am a good mother.
Remarkably good, in fact.
I have a pure heart, a loving heart, a bold and open heart.
I speak freely, I speak truthfully.
I am a daughter, a sister, a colleague,
I am a writer, a storyteller, a risk taker.
I am STRONG.
Strong enough to battle demons
Strong enough to carry humans
inside of my tiny body
and bring them into this massive universe
Yeah – ME. I did that.
I fucking did that.
Strong enough to be kind to unkind people
Strong enough to be alive
Strong enough to be HONEST
and RELIABLE
Ywa – and I am beautiful.
Darling I am GORGEOUS.
Have you SEEN my smile?
Anyone – ANYONE – would be lucky to have me in their lives
because I am good.
My parents are PURE. And I am PURE.
We are imperfect and we are sinners
But we are PURE OF HEART
And that is exactly why I know I will be okay
Because I WILL say: I am EVERYTHING and ALL of the things
Cruel intentions
The pair of them had
What they saw in each other
Made their victims quite sad
Contorted and twisted
Their minds intertwined
Blind to their sins
Casting shadows on their crimes
Callous disregard
For inculpable scapegoats
Eager to drown the vulnerable
Who merely tried to stay afloat
Cutthroat and dirty
With blood on their hands
They got away with gluttony
Euphoric in the sand
Cashflow in, misery out
A trail of transgressions left behind
For a friend they disposed of overnight
Her pain and suffering far from their minds.
The worst type of person
to be in a relationship with
is one who chases after you
in hopes of securing your love,
and when they do,
they drop you quickly
like they’re suddenly disgusted
of devouring you.
And when they need someone
dependable,
they call on you
as their saviour.
She wakes at three
in the morning
sweaty and confused —
Heart rapid fire
feeling black and blue
Plunges her hand under
the pillow
to check for her phone —
Head wrecking ball
feeling alarmingly alone
No missed calls
or messages
capsized by her panic —
Hands earthquaking
feeling episodic and manic
blue alone manic
rapid wrecking earthquaking
waiting waiting waiting
plunging into fire
capsized
into blue panic
Heavy heart
Heavy head
Heavy hands
“Tell your father he needs to stop drinking,”
the mother told her daughter.
The daughter wrote a note to her father
and taped it to a bottle of rum.
It read, ‘daddy, please stop drinking.’
When the little girl checked the bottle
the very next day,
the note had been torn off —
only the corners with tape remaining.
“Tell your daughter-in law to take out her husband food,”
the father in-law said to the mother in-law.
The daughter in-law placed her husband’s food
on the table, and asked him to eat.
The husband ignored her
Dropping cubes of ice into his glass —
Clink, clink,
the rum poured over the ice,
into the soda
Swirling into the same shade of brown
Behind the mist in her eyes.
“Tell us mommy,” the daughters said, “is daddy sick?”
The mommy looked at the daddy
laying asleep on the bed,
skin thin and yellow —
a papery sheet over his diseased liver.
She looked back at her little girls,
Into their curious, warm, brown
eyes
And saw herself in them.
She reached out,
extended her arms and embraced her children
for a long, long time.
The roses had withered and blackened
Lips still crimson —
helplessly unable to let go.
You opened the door
Quite literally
I rang the doorbell
And there you were.
You opened the door
And something changed
Like winter to spring
There you were.
You opened the door
Yet I didn’t walk in
I stood there frozen
Because there you were.
And who was responsible for what I had found?
Was it serendipitous or divine?
An answer to a prayer?
Karma? Destiny?
You were just there.
You opened the door
And I fell to the floor.
“Why”, he asked me, “why stay?”
I looked away, not knowing what to say.
‘Maybe’, I thought, ‘it’s time to let him go.’
What do we really know?
He saw my pain, he took my hand.
“Come with me,” he said, and it began.
I followed him into his world; blinking, not from the light but because it was a terrifying sight.
The darkness, the frigid wind. It was bleak and it was grim.
Someone laughing, sent chills up my spine; it wasn’t the contagious kind.
He was gone; my heartbeat quickened; “where are you?” I called, my limbs all stiffened.
Sobbing, I heard, ran towards the sound. My screams piercing through me as I saw what I had found.
He’s in pieces, broken, blade in his hand. Crying tears of blood, unable to stand.
“I can’t, I won’t!” I said, “I won’t let you go! You’re coming with me, don’t tell me no!”
I gathered his pieces, broken heart and all, sew up the wounds so he could stand up tall.
We ran, hand in hand, I thought I saw the light. “We’re getting out of here!” I told him, “I’m ready to fight!”
Back to my world, it was getting close. He let go of my hand and said, “it’s no use.”
He was giving up, consumed by the darkness. He began to fade, blending in with the blackness.
“No!” I cried, “I know why you should stay! Your world is a cruel one, heavy without hope. But there’s another world out there, one you can cope! Let me bring you back there; I’ll stay by your side. Please, little brother, please don’t die.”
He wanted to choose life, he wanted to stay, but the world had failed him, persuaded him another way.
