A Vegetarian’s Beef
Dinner time
Not again
The scent of death wafts through the air
Blood
Unnecessary murder flashed before me
Chop it up
Fillet
Season
All for my family's consumption
The smell makes me sick
Hold in the vomit for a little longer
Soon it will be cooked
Eight people gorge on this while I
Sit in the corner
Bowl in my hands
Hoping it will soon pass
Can't look my husband in the eye
His enjoyment sickens me
(sometimes he names them)
But I will not put my beliefs on others
My heart breaks
I hate dinner
My head feels light
Is it bedtime yet?
Dishes done
Blood gone
No evidence of massacre
I can breathe again
Dinner's done
DH
Right person wrong time
Untangling the truth entwined in lies
When his eyes met mine
He was all I could see
Past, Present, Future..
Unfortunately my future was vague as I had nowhere to land
Our time was fleeting
So I lied and twisted narratives
Sucked him dry of love
I took but gave so little
Breadcrumbs
Left him weak and brittle
All these years later
The narrative of us runs over in my head
a USB found from those times
Fuck.
His hand on my neck
Our lips touching
Always had a hand on me so I could be sure of him
He loved me
I loved him
When love falls out
Trickles down your face
Into a river of tears
An ocean of fears
Flood in
Where does the love go
What is the secret
Everyone else seems to know
Every time I see his name
His face
My heart feels what it once felt
Any person I have ever loved
Imprinted on my heart for eternity
The love wasn't lost
Just put in stasis
To light a flame from time to time
Never to cease existence
Just redirected to his happiness
And hope
For both of our hearts to be full and at ease
As I look at this USB of memories
Scraps
Scrimping up scraps
Outside of a local museum
Scraps
Of food
Scraps
To eat
Scraps
To sell
Smoke
Scraps
For
One
More
Fix
To stave off
The hunger
The heat
An Inimitable opponent
Energy flows everywhere
All at once
Too much
Crave the quiet
Too intense
For delicate souls
One
More
Hit
To make it through
Another day
Of
Pounding solitude
Some comfort in conversations
With strangers
Telling of plans to fix and build
Strangers grimace
Hurry away
Some
Barely Look
These strangers find solace that their lives look much different than yours
Privileged
For you are the unhoused "homeless" bum
Their reminder that it could be them
You are "unloved"
Haven't heard from family for years
For fear of catching disappointment in their tone
Resentment swimming in their eyes
Eventually you wonder what their eyes look like at all
It all fades a little more
With
One
More
Hit
Plans to crumble a wall thwarted by local authorities
Drop the hammer and chisel
It blocks your happiness
From flowing
If only it could disappear
Everything might be different
You feel too much
You crave the quiet
Last night you went out searching
Walking further than intended
Enjoying your euphoric high
The one you chase with abandon
You wandered a little too far
Searching for something
In the middle of the iron tracks you found it
Quiet
You breathed it in
And then it hit you!
This That Binds
Why is it always the people you want to stay
Leave this world too soon?
Leaving loved ones behind
Encumbered by grief
Without a voice to hear
Once more
And yet
the ones who hurt you the most
Live the longest
Just an hour away
Spewing lies
To make themselves the hero
And you the villain
In their version of a fairytale
Mum died
Dad lived
What a cruel twist of fate
And it keeps turning
His absence in life a constant reminder of a hoax called childhood
Facade of fake niceties
Shattered dreams and promises
Where I learned monsters
Are real
Her absence a reminder that what was good and pure can not exist in this hell we call earth
It will be swallowed up
She was too much for this world
Misunderstood
Unloved
Abused
An absence of a body that bound her here gives freedom to a spirit that soars
For we are more than this body that binds
I hope she is everywhere, flittering in the air
Fulfilling every dream
Chasing sunsets
But selfishly
I wish she was here
With me
Her little one
Drinking morning tea
Hugging and rubbing my back
Unwaveringly proud
To help me make sense of this cold world on fire
A world that has broken me too many times to count
A fragile broken bowl
Bound back together
by fire and gold
I too am too much for this world
But this is my superpower
My mother told me so
Late-Night Spiral
Would you catch me in a freefall
Could I feel you reaching, trying to pull me back
Is this alienation I feel a fictitious figment of my own fucked-up mind?
The dark covers me like a weighted blanket
Making it harder to breathe or see anything
A haze of grey buries me
Do you hate me?
Will you leave me?
I'm not strong enough this time
The weight of it all becomes too much as I try to reach out for a hand to hold
But how will you know to grab it when all this time
You've been right beside me; doom-scrolling on your phone and reading "essential" articles that are more important than
saving me from my bipolar self
I just need you to hold me
It's my own fault really
All I want to do is scream LOOK AT ME
But instead I just give you a kiss on the cheek
Give you a smile
Turn over
And fall
further
and further
into my own disillusionment
I pop
Melatonin
Gravol
Benadryl
Acetaminophen
Whatever it takes to fall asleep
So I can stop ruminating on whether my impending death will be the end
or the beginning..
Daddy’s Little Girl
The first man I ever loved was my dad
He was a small ineffectual man, who drank, sang songs and on his nights off would go dancing with my mom
He also had a red hot temper
A hard working man
Charming
Everyone loved him
I saw the whole world in his eyes and listened to his every word
I was proud to be his little girl
He wanted me to stay small
I wasn’t allowed to eat too much because I might get fat
Like my mom.
‘Must not eat’ I thought to myself.
Carefully calculating morsels of food at 7 years young.
Barely able to stay awake at school and have enough energy for dance
I couldn’t grow taller because I needed to stay small, smaller than his 5’2” stature.
But I grew
Everything grew
My breasts, my hips, my height
I tried to prevent it but nothing worked
A finger down my throat might do the trick
I wanted nothing but to stay his little girl
I could tell things were changing between us
He didn’t want a teenager
I had to stay his little girl
At the edge of 14..
My mom left by provocation and I was told by my dad we were going to live with his new girlfriend and her son
In shock I gathered my things
It was all going to be fine
I just had to trust him
So I did.
Like always.
But it wasn’t
She decided it was her life’s mission to make me small and insignificant to their lives.
Abuse. Neglect. Gaslighting
I spent many nights alone, idol and frozen waiting for him to come home.
Anxiety set in
He was my best friend once and I had no idea what I did wrong
He chose her.
She was tall and looked like a stereotypical stepmother from a Disney movie
All she did was yell and throw things at me
And he let her
Depression set in
It was official
I was no longer his whole world
His little girl
Disdain and anger seethed out of him whenever he spoke to me
Barely looked at me
His words picked me apart little by little
Until I was small and ineffectual
Insignificant
He couldn’t see I was killing myself for him
By the time they kicked me out at 15
In the winter
I had no home and no house left to go to
I was alone, broken, afraid.
Small
So so small
My light dimmed
Used. Abused. Shattered.
He lied to me.
It was all supposed to be okay
So you see, no man could ever break me now
No
I was broken long ago
By the ineffectual man, who stood at 5’2”
My dad
Untethered
Iceberg eyes shoot towards me like spears piercing through my soul, exposing me.
Knocked on my metaphorical ass
I feel naked, aware, terrified
Alive in their presence
Immediately I question
Am I a fraud in my own life?
My hand says “taken” but my eyes say “take me away from here.”
If only we met before I went down this very straight and narrow path.
Still, if you asked.. would I ruin it all for you?
I try my best not to stare in awe when you speak- so passionately about the topics you feel so strongly.
Words tangle in your tongue and the exuded passion makes me weak.
Years have passed since we last saw each other, yet I’m undone once again by your intoxicating presence
Utterly and completely
Untethered