Nothing about you is poetry

Skies are dimmer

Stars have no shimmer

Clouds wreak havoc on unsuspecting souls

Clueless and mundane your heart beats black as coal

I tried leading you to water but it left more unquenchable thirst

Loving you had been my unraveling curse

You did this to yourself you know. You left me when I needed you most.

You'd scream every name you could think of at me and tell me I should die then play pretend to everyone else like everything is fine. At night you'd hold that blade in your hand, tempting me to give it a try. You're the worst person I've ever met in my life. If I ever meet you outside of my mind, you'd be wise to run and hide, it was always going to be your or I.

I hate everything about you

I hate that you get to sit in prison while you deserve far worse.

I hate you for taking advantage of me when I was 8.

I hate you for hurting me and my brothers.

I hate you for making my flinch anytime someone raises their hand

I hate you I have flashbacks and nightmares

I hate you for causing me to sleep with a nightlight

I hate you for me being 17 and my life is still f**ked up

I hate that I have trust issues

I hate you that I cry when I hear or something reminds me of you

I hate you for giving me PTSD

I hate you for giving me anxiety

I hate you for giving me depression

I hate you for making me fall for all the wrong people

I hate you for causing me to feel alone and to have a need to be with someone

I hate you for f**king up my life

I hate you for you being in my head

I hate you for making me feel scared

I hate you for you being me in my dreams and making me scared to sleep

I hate you for making me feel guilty for everything you did because I didn't say anything

I hate you for giving me pain

You f*cked my life up, and I hate you for it

Dear Love,

It's me, your better half

Or so I've been told.

With a glass of wine in front of a fireplace slowly rubbing toes.

A patched up blanket and a pillow from the couch.

Me loving you was what it was all about.

A smile, a cuddle, a world of our own.

A message on the phone saying

Leave us alone.

Those moments I cherished until you cheated on me.

No! I'm not marrying you,

Get off of one knee.

You snake in the grass serpent,

Feeding me all of your lies.

While I laid on your skin,

In my pillows I cried.

My goodness wasn't enough

For your cheating soul.

You show off the Sterling,

When you could've had GOLD!

The reason for this letter

is to kick you off this ride.

I suggest you go pack and leave,

While I still have my PRIDE!

Back in the days when I slept

with an 80 proof bottle on the left side of my bed,

the world was blurry, uncertain, with strange emotions

I barely knew what to do with.

I saw him tearing up over a ghost I dreamt about,

I saw her tearing up as I held her face between my hands,

so I helped them, between clean shot after shot,

they never knew about from how well-hid it all was,

as I snuck in the bathroom and punched all of its walls

over and over,

and over again,

until my knuckles were bruised,

the hidden bottle was gone,

and my spirit was torn

with the memories

of all those nights

I completely

forgot.

Gentrification...

It's a sick, sad situation...

Playing the game of real estate,

And cutting out the human aspect

With a scythe...

It's the reason I left Grand Rapids...

I needed a new lease on life,

And I was tired of witnessing

All of the authentic local businesses,

And real people get cut down

For an exchange in capital...

It's not practical...

Gentrification...

It's killed the artist life in so many configurations...

It's not regulated, because it's not considered a thing,

And it's hard to see with all of life's distractions...

But it's there...waiting to strike...

Like a saw scaled viper in the night!...

I saw it happening on Wealthy Street...

The resident African American and Mexican, white poor artists all

Were cleaved

For a new upper class aesthetic

That the real estate agents were going for...

What a fucking bore it all is when

Money is the deciding factor over life...

Gentrification...

It's a sick, sad situation...

Playing the game of real estate,

And cutting out the human aspect

With a scythe...

I saw it happen on Division street

Where the upscale pseudo New York lofts

Moved in that only the rich college kids

Could afford...

But they had a sliding fee scale!...

Let's give the motherfuckers an applause!

They favored the trickle down theory economics

And the human side was forever lost...

That shit could only be understood by the

Highly privileged and the conspirator from the inside

Who choose the right proportion of ethnicity

From a racially biased list...

The lifeblood and the grit was squeezed and many

Neighbors were given the heave ho!...

Not a pleasant way to manage life...

A Falsetto of a human gesture

Disguised as progress and renewal...

And slipped up the patients' arm

Like an I.V. for a dying breed

That will soon be sent to pasture...

The new blossoming artist is introduced

To life through this imploding factor...

It is disgusting, and I pray that something changes...

Where the arts are once again championed,

And we're all not stuck living in our nostalgic cushions...

While the real estate men take a gluttonous bite

Out of the world and won't look back...

I see New York's Big Apple in the trash...

The remaining real human beings will be toppled...

As the rampant Privateers ride on!...

3/22/23

Bunny Villaire

Edit#5

You knew you had me in your grasp. You knew I was right in the palm of your hand, you had me right where you wanted me. You tore a hole in me but I was too delighted by your touch to push you away. You were always hurting me but my brain was the only one that recognized it.

Pick me up, take me away, throw me back on the streets just as long as you come back when you need me. Pathetic, that's what it is. Me needing you and you loving it. I'd never admit it, not to myself or you, that if you had my blood on your hands I'd wash them for you. Ignorance is bliss, ignorance is safety. When you hold me in your arms and I feel the cold metal slicing my back I will only hold you and cry. I don't love the pain, I don't love the fights and long nights. I love you. I love the look it you eyes when you get excited, how you can't stop talking when you're embarrassed, I love every part of you that you try to cover up.

But I hate that I love you. If I love you, then how am I supposed to love myself? Being with you is killing me, my only request is that you do it slowly. My only wish is that I can drown in your eyes one last time before closing mine forever.

I hate you! I hate you so much, but I love you double that. I have o one but myself to blame for it.

Victim,

or so you think

Everyone

has the same callous

words,

as you claim

Denominator, you

Sacrifices, sparse

Just woeful,

weary stories

told to bored,

fleeting gods

They grow weary

of your cries,

As do I

How many times

must your

stinger fly?

There is a

mountaintop

reserved for the

arrogant, single minded

The hopeless,

weak-willed

The peak, it calls

I usher you

from my hair

May its chilling wind

Bring you truths

denied

Let me go

Set me free

No more guilt trips.

No more threats.

I am a woman, and that makes me strong

Let me protect myself

because God only knows,

that you won’t

You tell me it’s Love

but what is love

when you’re throwing your hands up in the air,

dismissing every word,

puncturing your own skin

to punish me

lashing out when I don’t read from the script

can’t you listen to me, just this once?

I gave us a chance

and I was proven wrong

You hurt me

not only that, you broke me down

trapped me,

isolated me

scared the living hell out of me

because when I stayed like you asked

you warned me you’d do the thing I’m most afraid of

and it would be my fault

so I stay and you destruct

then blame it on me

as if I must be punished

for finally opening my eyes

but now I am back

and I regret it so much

it isn’t so easy to run anymore

I let you make me cry harder and harder

as you continued to dig deeper

Keep yelling

Now it’s my turn!

I made promises

early on, when you acted so different,

I let you make me hate myself

because I felt so wrong

The way you twist your words,

you know what you’re doing

You used to make me feel obligated

to withhold our promises

but then I was told

“A coerced promise does not get honored”

and that’s when I opened my eyes

To see

You are a narcissistic abuser

In textbook terms

and you fit the description just so perfectly

it makes me sick

it makes me weak

So won’t you stop!

Sometimes I wish I never loved you

Then I’ll think, I deserve this

but the truth is

no one does

I’m just waiting for the day

I have some strength

to leave you!

You can manipulate me

to get what you want

but how does that make you feel,

knowing I am just a puppet?

Thanks for making my difficult life a little harder. You are an automaton functionary whose decisions are arbitrary, capricious, and devoid of any humanism. You perch yourself in your cubicle and pontificate into the aether without the slightest conscience or ethical sensibility.

After a full rendering of my circumstances, you still decide to punch out the most convenient disposition, then just go off on your little day with no insight into the chain of untoward repercussions you've initiated. My problems continue, thanks to you, while you just check off another box in anticipation of the next hapless victim in your bureaucratic timeline that only pursues an ultimate pension as its reason to be. Meanwhile, your ruinous ruling is a snap judgment, and then you play territorial bulldog against any appeals of reason. Would it kill you to just say yes?

No, it wouldn't. It would go nowhere except to the family it would help. You're an angry, little pip of a person, in a position of power, doing your job carelessly and immorally in the boxes you check. I have to wonder--just who raised you to be someone like that? Maybe I should be contacting them?

I could call you many names, but I'm sure you've heard them all before. Just listen to your last hundred voicemails or so, if you've forgotten. Then go off to lunch with your other willy-nilly automatons and then on to your little grayscale life amidst the black-and-white authority you wield in an otherwise technicolor world.

Oh, and fuck you. Stronger letter to follow.