The Closed Off Lover

He refuses to offer
a piece of his heart,
he cannot trust
it'll be kept unbroken.
He keeps his feelings
belted smart,
no chances for emotions-
they're left unspoken.

He offers his rut,
fresh and mastered.
Decides it's the most
he wants for now.
The heart that's growing
a case on him,
is being plastered
at the mere longing
to exchange a loyalty vow.

There is hope he will
change and offer more-
with no guarantee of
his final choice for a future.
There is hope, at the depth
of a bruised heart still sore-
she can keep holding him together
like a silk threaded suture.

The Secret

Sometimes, when I dream of you,
the other stars fade.

The Sun and Moon make love,
and eclipsed sonders evade.

Venus & Mars cuddle up cheek to cheek,
when I worship you in my bed.

The secret of loving you,
explains how the universe was made.

Undone

His fingers are removed from inside me
his hand taken out of my pants
the pain fades away
until it never
happened.

I remove his ugly old tshirt
my blue lace blouse is back on
comforting against my skin
I walk out of his house.
I've never
been there before.

His phone number
leaves from my phone
digit
by digit.

His smothering
cigarette
beer breath
mouth
walks away from me.
He has never
touched me.

His texts fly away into nothing.
He has never
contacted me.

I have a picnic with my friends in reverse.
We regurgitate cake until it's whole,
then take them back to our houses
out of our ovens
until it's batter.
Just ingredients on our shelves
that can be made differently next time.

Everything happens in reverse
until it hasn't
happened.

Until it's better.

No Longer

//I can no longer distinguish--

pain from pleasure;
abuse from affection;
contusions from caresses.

//Embraces could be delivered--

in tightly-clenched fists;
words of affirmation in abasement;
trust in forced hands.

//I can no longer tell the difference--

between love and hurt;
dark bruises and soft kisses;
belittlement and support.

//All i do decipher is the aftermath -

the tears,
the marks,
the aches;
hot showers soothing
stinging skin,
shaky knees and
trembling hands;
the nauseating guilt;
encapsulating,
overwhelming fear...

and the sickening inability to just walk away.

The Colour Thickest of All

Close your body into mine--

for it's 4am and the rain is lashing
down, potholes in the sidewalk
swell from the weight of the
water--

endless.

But we're sleeping under
the mango tree
we planted together when
we were seven?
You're snuggled against my bony chest.
You're safe inside my arms.
But
Who are you?
Why did I pick you?
What was in you,
That I fell?
Heart first and aching--
my curled toes and chafed elbows following course?
Do you deserve
my blood?
My bile?
My sinews?
My stitches?

Turns out you're the dopamine designed to destroy.
Yet I find haven now--
it is the crinkled yellow seed of a rose that spreads into bloom--
tended by tender hands
and allowed to keep its thorns,
despite the danger they hold.

Love, I name it.
Destined to droop.

But I am a careless pickers of hearts.
Savage and ruthless.
I trample my own garden as
the delicate puddle of blood
chokes your throat as you gag,
tasting of smoked salt and rust.
I scream.
We dance out a scene. Yet,
It hurts to see you die.

My pockets hold secrets of death,
a small vial--
the eye refuses to linger on.
But on and on it does.
Like a tongue missing a broken tooth,
lapping over the scar tissue hungrily.

We deserve it, I whisper--
as the second vial goes down.
It takes thirty minutes to bleed out
and I count each one down
with a passion you made me
hide from
Myself.

As life slips out of me
in the colour thickest of all,
I think about those nights--
when you held me down and took me.
I refused to close my eyes
somewhere around the
eleventh time
as you whispered in my ear
with wine stained teeth.

I refused.
Because I plotted.
And waited,
waited,
held my breath
as if it were made of pure gold.
As if air were diamonds.
I will get back to you.

Now I watch you shudder
and take your last breath.

I take the rope from my picnic basket
and wrap it around the mango tree
we planted together when we were
seven? 

And for the last time,
I snuggle you against my bony chest.
You're safe inside my arms.

At  4:34am I kiss
the shallow cheek of Death.
My only regret being not doing it
soon enough.

A roar from the crowd--
"More! More!"

but there is no More.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Could-haves

Generic poetry
And a Father who left me

Generic photography
And a Mother who I believe loves me

But how can you die, before being born? 
Sometimes I imagine myself trying to commit suicide in the womb,
On the 8th month my Mother was pregnant with me,
The man who never sat me on his shoulders,
Never made my family breakfast,
And never brought me in to 'Bring your Child to Work Day',
walked out of the door and carried with him all the could-haves of my childhood.

How the human body reacts to Trauma

sometimes,
when i tell stories from my childhood,
i spit out the first age that comes to mind,
because half my life is desperately scribbled out,
in an attempt to deny the past.
sometimes,
when i see something too close to a half-forgotten fear,
an almost-familiar face or
bruises in the shapes of fingertips or
a certain brand of cutlery or
the most trivial tiny things,
there is nothing i can do
but remember
and remember
and remember.
sometimes,
when someone asks me what my worst memory is,
i laugh through the cobwebs
of all my half-buried remnants
of a hidden childhood that
i will die before i admit out loud
woven between my teeth and tongue
and never answer.
sometimes,
i play old images of faces,
people i’ve tried to forget for years
over and over again like a broken record
and i hope that
my dozens of contorted expressions
of fear and pain and begging
follow my ghosts to their graves.
sometimes,
when flashbacks become a common ritual,
i do not let myself cry
and i dwell on the thought
that i deserved every word
every hit
every second
and i still do.
sometimes,
when i cannot sort out what is real and what is not,
i decide on the comfort of denying it all,
because i am built, now, on lies
shaped in the foundation of a safe home
i did not live in.