Can the dead forgive?

I wasn’t killing myself for you, or because of you

it was because of me

because of what I’d become

of how and who and why

I’d been used

so extremely

but I gave it away, rather

you couldn’t stop me

it was like I was in a race to empty myself out

and once I was hollow

(and oh baby I was good to the last drop)

I just couldn’t look in the mirror anymore

it reflected such understated hostility

the upturned curve of my almost smile

“WHORE” it said and nothing more

and I can’t deny your role in helping make this beast

this pantomime of womanhood

“blossomed” is such a sickening word

why don’t they just say it, come out and mean it

something is stuck inside you

and sometimes you bleed and sometimes you don’t

but the you, that you were, is uncorked

and you lose a little more everyday

you just keeping leaving yourself

and it’s all because one boy

said something that made you think he meant it

or you simply couldn’t stand the loneliness on the other side of the bed

and that’s how it is and how it goes for every girl

or so I suppose

but not everyone kills themselves

and that makes me weak

or worse

at least a little broken

and this broken thing can understand the necessaryness of forgiving you

of letting you go in peace

but it seems so unnatural to forgive myself

I am dead afterall, can the dead forgive the dead?

Can the dead forgive?

to be clean

I think I’ll go live in a convent in the woods

hide away from the people that know

and the people that want to know me

stay pristine like

a glacier or a desert

or some other uninhabited place

because to let someone inhabit you, to really let them in

causes cracks and tears and irreparable damage

but if you close yourself off again, move it all out, you can become clean again

almost

then that’ll be me

uninhabited and unloved

and happy

because sex makes you stupid

and love makes you stupid

but religion just makes you weird

Orange

The color on my finger nails is orange, but not the orange of an orange that you might find in your local grocery store. More so the orange of an obnoxious southern sports team. It is cracked and flaking off of my shortly cropped nails. I can never seem to keep my nails looking pulled together, but then again I am not “pulled together”. Must everything about me reflect and reflect and keep enlightening the outside. Can I not keep some secrets to myself?

the days after

The day after is a thick wool blanket over your senses.

You wake up with him still next to you and the urge to vomit and curl up in the corner emerges like a snake from a basket

You pretend sleep, you wait for him to leave. You do not cry.

You force warm soup, procured against nosey grocers’ eyes, down a swollen throat

bruises thick and sick purple, green and yellow strewn across your body.

you notice a black eye, a bruised cheek bone, and yes, there! on your stomach, a perfectly preserved bite mark

Sleep.

When Monday arrives and you have to venture into a life that no longer fits over your form. you feel vulnerable and soft in a steel suit.

But you do not cry.

You tell few. not all. and beg with them for understanding. Their anger is at him. but you feel it like an air raid.

Everyone wants to know why you aren’t smiling. but it’s all shouting and blame. Fingers pointing and crescendoing in your head.

Weren’t you the one victimized? Weren’t you? were you after all? But every man you thought you could trust is the face over you. Is the forearm on your pink soft trachea, the rough voice barking commands into the darkness.

Didn’t they all do this to you? You can’t remember? This is how it is. the days after. The world feels shaky and full of groggy headed puddles you fall into constantly. is it tipping over or are you?

P.S His dick is HUGE!

Get off of me! You thick bag of hot wet sick! You ooozy puss filled sore. Get off of my chest and out of my head. I’m douching you away, sweet vinegar brine to kill the last remaining traces.  Last night I watched my lover do yoga moves on the hardwood floors.  As he raised his legs high into the air in an impressive handstand, his shirt fell over his chiseled face to reveal his chiseled abs.  I did not think of you.

or a lover

whose legs were whose in that mess of flesh that rolled around on the ragged dun blue comforter. Whose hands were yours and mine? It was I that curled into you like the comma before a “goodbye”  but you held me there, like a placeholder or a bookend or a lover.

I will kill the man who invented Bombay Sapphire!

I was almost clear of it. you. I really was. I’d very nearly sheered off all the parts of me that you had touched and left some lingering sticky trace. Of course explaining why I was now bald and missing the tip of my nose was complicated, but worth it. and now you selfish, thoughtless, bastard, you invade my world with a few gin soaked words and I can’t believe this might all happen again. My god! It will be a bloodbath.

Survive this

Don’t worry so much over and about all the things you’d say to him

if only, if only you ever see his green eyes coming at you again some day

Because he’ll never hear them

all those words already dying on your lips

his ears may only be a few miles away (with the rest of what you used to love)

but his heart is with Atlantis

Let this one go

chock it up to childishness, fool-hearty innocence

anything at all

just know it can NEVER happen again

hold that knowledge closer than his memories and you’ll

survive this

Did you know…

You massage your temples furiously and extoll about Harrison Ford having dysentery during the filming of raiders of the lost ark and how he bartered for that famous scene where he shoots the mad swordsman in black. And I love you and I love the way you know what you know, cause you know it all. Your hands cut paths in the air while your mouth forces new ideas into my head. It’s not like the hands on a  clock’s face, your hands are flesh covered mountains. My face is an ave maria, my face is a exaltation to all that is you. And baby there’s no shame in that.  Just keep talking blue eyes, you’re so excited to be telling me whatever you’re telling me, andI’m so content to stand hear and listen. Let it be like this for a little while more, cause there’s no shame in it babe, there’s no shame at all.

this is a confession of madness

I’ve considered kidnapping you

I know, it’s a bit strange

but something I feel, you might appreciate

I would invite you over, under the false (but not really,we’ll get to that later) pretense of fucking you, finally

and then tie you up and duck tape you and then curl up to your

big heavy warmth and just stare into your eyes

and play with your hair, pressing my nose into your scalp

inhaling like some addict, I could curl up and sleep then

finally

because I haven’t slept in days, not since I was last in your arms

with you snoring lightly (read heavily because lightly sounds more romantic, really you snore like a freight liner) curled up holding me like a giant naked toddler

God how I wanted to crawl inside you I loved you so much

But there’s always that terrible aftermath

of pulling away

leaving you so comfortably sleepy

naked and vulnerable

I kept leaning down to kiss you and smell your hair one more time, one more time, just one….more…..time

If I had known it was the last time I would have stayed longer, I would have forced you into some agreement

so now I have to resort to kidnapping and hostage situations all in the name of love and really good shampoo