Tag: ptsd

• Like a hatchet

  You tell me to bury the hatchet
  when I’d rather use it to fracture
  the lives of the ones who took their sharp
  ills out on my body, now remarked
  

  yet, able to see who benefits from such a plea;
  silence the echoing screams
  pouring out of me without fair warning.
  From suffering to scorning,
  not just from the scars of their weapons of choice
  but from the kindhearted ways you, too, silence my voice –
  my only real weapon now that I’ve grown
  up old enough to choose to own
  the damage that results from causing a racket.

  
  So, no I will not put down my hatchet
  because what your request really means
  is to wipe my face and hands real clean,
  fall in line with the “forgiving” others,
  stop being unsightly and such a bother.
  But I’ve tried to bleach my collar and nail beds real white
  I put up the darndest of fights,
  and yet I’ve learned in all my failing;
  no matter what I do, you’re always complaining.
  I’ll never be washed white as snow.
  It’s because there’s no way to erase what I already know;
  that the likes of you and the others who
  so blindly continue
  to cover up dark truth in white linens
  are the realest of child-raping villains.

  The story in my bones, far more spooky
  than the fire burning in me like a fury.
  Despite the risk of speaking, I’m still here wielding
  this hatchet; so fucking unyielding
  is what I became when my parents turned into monsters –
  the saving grace that my broken mind conjured
  in the middle of a terror that destroys,
  creates in living bodies the deepest of voids.
  When just like my rapers, also invaders
  were the onlookers, determined blind fakers,
  insisting they don’t see
  anything wrong with what was done to me.
  They dare now insist and demand
  I put down my weapon on their condescending command.
  

  But still my hatchet remains in my hands –
  I’ll carry it all over this stolen land,
  with it mark up the books, records of all that they took
  from me and the many adult survivors, butt of your insults
  and wary glances from the ones who wouldn’t take chances
  of ruffling feathers by considering whether…
  The truth is that children who ask for help
  have already survived what can’t be unfelt…
  Or, that children who muster enough sound
  to ask why it’s normal for dads on their kids pound
  or why mothers are too sick and sad
  to see the ugliness inside their baby dads…
  Or, that kids who simply say hey,
  I get hit by three set of hands every day…
  Are worth trusting enough to take a second fucking look.

  
  You are the same, like those who misunderstood
  that the truth cuts and tears
  and though bleeding doesn’t always seem fair,
  sometimes that’s what it takes to salvage
  the good left in all the wreckage;
  not just of the bodies who bled as victims,
  but of the ones who, like you, the villains
  who plowed and plundered, raped and broke apart
  innocent bodies left alone in the dark
  shadows of your turned backs.

  
  That’s why I continue to hack
  away with the coldness of my blade.
  For my voice is all that was saved
  when I finally grew old enough to search for ways
  to do more than sit and pray for the body I had before
  I became so badly beaten and torn
  from the inside out, despite your dissociative doubt
  that one so well put-together could have endured
  the process of witnessing in silence all that is impure.

  
  My hatchet, you so greatly fear
  is my proof that I came too near
  to the underbelly of human nature –
  the stuff you turn sterile in lectures
  and podcasts about the ones you deem
  are better not kept in the dark unseen;
  for you’d rather consume and binge
  words about the perpetrators. So cringe
  to think this is how you get off,
  all while telling victims who speak up ENOUGH
  all ready! with the bleach bucket
  to silence those of us causing a ruckus.

  
  With our hatchet-sharp voices, no longer silent
  Echoing on about your compliance.
  With my words I’ll sound the alarm
  About all that continues to cause us such harm.

  September 19, 2025

  cptsd, csa, flashbacks, grief, healing, life, love, mental-health, poetry, ptsd, rape, recovery, sexual abuse, sexual assault, trauma, victim advocacy, writing

  ---

• Just a passing thought

  I think we should break up
  Not because I don’t love you
  I do
  I just know you don’t love me
  The way I want you to
  I know we need different things
  Than the other one gives

  
  I want you to be
  The one I come home to
  But it’s become quickly apparent
  You’re set in your ways
  Independent and often off alone
  Forgetful of the girlfriend
  You say you’re proud to have in your life
  But I’m too far away to be more
  Than just a passing thought

  
  And I’d rather be nothing
  Than less than all the reels you consume
  I’ll miss you
  But I already do
  So I guess the real hard part
  Is letting us fall apart

  September 19, 2025

  break up, life, long distance, love, mental-health, poetry, ptsd, recovery, relationships, trauma, writing

  ---

• Delayed reaction

  I think this is where I leave you
  But is it really me doing the leaving
  When you’re nowhere in sight?

  September 18, 2025

  break up, grief, life, love, mental-health, poetry, ptsd, relationships, writing

  ---

• Could’ve been somebody

  I could’ve been somebody who didn’t flinch or wince
  at every sound out of place.
  Living life in a dream state,
  known to dissociate, disconnect, and escape
  nightmarish recollections of all that I hate

  in me – what no one wants to me to surface;
  find a prettier purpose,
  quietly close the curtain
  on all that was taken –
  like it’s easy to move on,
  sing a happier song.

  If my body could produce
  a sound, lighter, or induce
  sweet melodies from my lips,
  I swear all of me I would give
  to be cleaner and easy
  to digest than all my queasy

  memories and pleas turned into rhymes.
  Believe me, I try all the time
  to open my mouth
  and let out things that won’t make you frown,
  or sob in a puddle; surprised
  beauty like mine is so deprived

  of days where the sun fully shines,
  where what’s lost is behind –
  no more echoes of my screams,
  no more bleeding from the shards of my broken dreams.
  But it’s because I’m so broken
  you love me now like a token;
  so long as I leave unspoken
  how I came to be
  so jumpy and distrusting.
  Should’ve died from the thrusting
  and thrashing against
  a reality too dense
  to produce anything other than
  the broken beauty I command.

  I could’ve been somebody who doesn’t fawn or freeze
  at reminders of his insatiable greed –
  but I’m not and I’m dreadfully tired
  of being asked to put out the fire
  in my soul, burned to ashes
  from all the masses
  of complicit onlookers, now
  telling me to calm down
  every time I flinch or wince or hold my breath;
  like I’m scared to death –
  because I was and I am
  and I’m simply doing the best I can.

  September 18, 2025

  flashbacks, grief, IFS, life, love, mental-health, poetry, ptsd, recovery, sexual assault, trauma, writing

  ---

• Slack

  This stopped working for me
  when you stopped trying…
  I could stay and hold out
  hope my intuition is lying;

  but the realization I had
  the other night all alone
  was that if in my body it feels bad,
  then I know all I need to know.

  In the past it was habit
  to seek answers and reason,
  trust you when you insist
  that it’s a misguided feeling;

  but trust is all I have left when
  young love dies and disintegrates;
  can’t ignore the change in the wind
  or against better judgment wait

  for things to feel better,
  now in this distant cadence;
  vertigo from the teeter
  that shakes me in your long silence.

  Since I’m know for wearing my tender
  heart hopelessly on my sleeve,
  I need all the reminders
  I give to you unconditionally.

  I don’t think it’s a lot to ask
  to hear from you at the intervals.
  Why would you choose to mask
  when love’s willing to catch your fall?

  It feels dumb when I tell friends
  about how unhappy I am.
  Worse, between us the trend
  to in different places land,

  yet somehow walk away
  thinking everything is okay.
  It feels real illogical in my brain
  the way you’re so good to reframe

  my intuitive knowing that
  there’s something you’re hiding.
  It feels more and more like a trap,
  like you’re waiting for better timing

  than leaving me now in this moment
  when I seem so distressed and distraught.
  It’s not my will or intent
  to make you feel like you’re not

  allowed to walk away for even reasons like
  you changed your mind about the meaning
  of where cupid chose to strike
  his arrow that now is appearing

  to fall out of your chest.
  I get it, you didn’t know I was trans
  when you first gave me that yes,
  until morning we danced

  on that first long and tender night.
  But, I’m afraid my big fear
  has turned out to be right;
  it would hurt less if you’d be clear

  that you can’t love me back,
  because I’m not what you thought.
  Cut yourself all the slack;
  no one here is at fault.

  I’ve grown real used to this
  Being the one no one ends up with.

  September 18, 2025

  break up, life, long distance, love, mental-health, poetry, ptsd, recovery, relationships, trauma, writing

  ---

• I’d like a typewriter

  I’d like a typewriter
  so I can’t easily erase
  my mistakes I’d much rather displace
  from your memory of me
  and my talent.
  The idea of permanence no longer abhorrent.

  Instead, I wonder what it would be like if
  we were encouraged to show up and riff
  off the cuff. Let our thoughts in a stream
  reveal innermost grievances and untold dreams,
  as though the permanence of being fully present
  meant less sorrow, regret, and lament.
  Speaking what is otherwise kept silent
  by our inability to tolerate

  anything slower than immediacy.
  No longer meaning in the concept of privacy.
  All the while all of us privately dying imprisoned
  by the swift erasure of cancel culture’s chasm.
  Conditioned to impatient entitlement,
  unbending like cement
  poured into a shapeless mold;
  the kind the warnings from times of old
  have brought to pass, now fully alive
  in our technology dependent minds.

  I wish I knew a way back to
  the days before the first computer
  made it’s way into my first grade classroom –
  before we became so obsessed with sooner;
  because later is now the villain
  our insatiable greed tries to fill in
  with next-day shipping
  and reliance on AI-driven quipping,
  to land us a date or coveted promotion.
  We’re giving all the wrong things our devotion!

  I know I sound really old –
  like the dinosaurs of my youth.
  Had I known how society would unfold
  I would’ve stayed further removed
  from the busy-ness of what today
  is the modern picture of success –
  living beyond our means and fully indebted
  to the ones who promise to bless
  us with more than can possibly be kept
  or looked after with care.
  It’s no wonder our lives are so bare
  when we throw big fits over tiny delays
  in screens loading to keep anxiety at bay.

  We’re more anxious than ever, I’ve heard.
  I wonder why that’s not true of the birds?
  Who so smol in existence,
  abandon our obsession with resistance
  to the natural flow of what’s given,
  not theirs to choose which way they are driven
  by seasons changing and weather
  calling them forward into a new chapter.
  

  The opposite of preoccupied
  with the underlying why.
  Only listen and response –
  the dance with nature of which I’m so fond
  to ponder and ask
  questions that never outlast
  the span of time. For I’ve found in speaking
  with natural spirit guides who see me seeking,
  much of the desperation I create
  would subside if I were willing to wait
  long enough for my silence to reveal
  past the answers I claim are concealed.
  Instead, finding that which I obsessively long for
  lives deep down inside in the place where I store
  some semblance of truth and the wild
  wells of creative power.
  Within me a garden of flowers
  kept hidden well by the endless ocean
  of my soul, also kept alive and in motion
  despite the technology all around.
  Outside me, greed for my inner wellness abounds.
  

  But nature is such a funny friend,
  so nearby and willing to lend
  wisdom in the form of a mirror,
  so that I can see what I already see, just a little clearer,
  past the veil the computers of today
  have created thick in their layers. An array
  of horrid and predicted distortions
  we honor now without any question
  of how we are draining
  the life-force; depleted and straining
  from our cultures and societies,
  so all that’s left is the shell of empty bodies,
  no longer human and fully mutated
  into something we have always hated,
  disintegrated to the dust of our ancestors.
  there will be no one to call us the predecessors.

  That’s why I’m trying to go back to the roots
  I remember from my broken youth,
  even if those roots are also intertwined
  with the technology of a dying kind.
  I wonder if I’ll make it back far enough
  to leave behind all the buying of stuff
  that fills pockets and bellies so swollen,
  fully empty from all that was stolen
  by a deal that seemed too good to be true.
  We’re like the boy in Willy Wonka, so blue,
  nothing left now to undo.
  our fleeting loyalty gone so askew
  and madly in the wrong direction, off course.
  Have we really no remorse
  for all the havoc we’ve wreaked ,not only on bodies,
  but on every creature’s future legacy?

  For those that call earth home,
  I’m unsure of any kind of hope
  worth investing in now
  other than learning to bow
  to the wealth of knowledge
  found in nature, if we have the courage
  to humble our egos into surrender,
  break our ties from the monetary lenders
  that have us by the throat,
  before we let them fully implode
  our own psyches so twisted up,
  caught in what’s unreal, like a once in a lifetime flood.
  Let me remind you, in recent years we’ve seen
  the full power of nature that we seem so keen
  to dismiss and ignore.
  Natural disasters are the powers that came before
  and will come long after we’re gone
  out to pasture.
  Will it take only the worst of disaster
  for us to yield to the nature of Wild
  Living we currently revile?

  For it’s only in following the truth
  of the natural world we so earnestly refuse
  to defer to in our arrogant intertwining
  with a technological Shining
  that will not cease to strike
  once we’re too weak to put up a good fight
  and devour us into obliteration.
  We’ll find soon we made our bed in limitation
  from free and full fellowship
  with the natural world who is more aptly equipped
  to guide us into sustainable future
  where words like these aren’t stored away in controlling computers.

  No, I want to go back to the days
  before typewriters were the only way
  to leave marks on the hearts of my peers –
  the humans I love and hold so dear,
  the ones for whom I truly fear
  danger has drawn deceptively near;
  for the ones who I know, just like me,
  would rather not see
  the effects of their blind apathy.
  The situation we’re in is more than dire!
  Burn it down like an all consuming fire;
  the reality I hope never comes.

  My prayer remains that every day under the sun
  is an opportunity to learn gently all my lessons.
  This remains my ask of the universe, too,
  for you, my beloved; the one I knew
  in a previous lifetime before all this terror
  we play down now like a comedy of errors.
  

  So, I hope you’ll stay with me in rhythm,
  away from the inevitable destruction
  we both are squarely walking toward,
  blissfully unaware of the cost ignorance affords.
  Now you know and so do I
  that it’s our choice to remain in the lie.
  I hope instead you pivot, even if only crawling;
  quietly listening to nature who is calling,
  speaking directly to the depths of our hearts,
  showing us the way back from being apart,
  and into a life that by human standards will
  never measure up to a life of chasing after dollar bills.
  

  All the same we’ll be much better for the wear,
  for leaving behind all that others didn’t dare
  to let go of in their nauseating greed
  for more than more of all our needs.

  Instead, we’ll be the good stewards of
  a life of abundance
  in simply enough.

  September 17, 2025

  community, grounding, life, love, mental-health, nature, poetry, ptsd, technology, trauma, writing

  ---

• Sending love from paradise lost

  Sometimes it takes many words
  to get to the point.
  Let that be okay in your body.
  Because you are perfect
  in your brokenness and survival.
  My hope is that one day
  your body feels less like a tomb
  and more like paradise lost.
  I promise you’re more found
  than you know.

  September 16, 2025

  chronic pain, csa, flashbacks, IFS, life, love, mental-health, pain, poetry, ptsd, recovery, survivor, trauma, writing

  ---

• To the ones who should also be on trial

  When I can’t figure out what to say
  I try to put pen to paper anyway.
  Because the truth of the matter is that
  my silence only protects the man I used to call dad.

  No, these days we’re too grown to keep quiet
  memorials buried inside me like a riot
  that failed to ever organize and rise
  up out of the tormenting lies;

  the ones he told me and so did my mother.
  Family loyalty above all else and others!
  It’s what keeps the immigrant family afloat;
  we’re taught to never speak up or rock the boat.

  And on some level I get it to this day –
  I’ll never know what it’s like to runaway
  from a terrorist government right into familial obligation
  to make something more of yourself than impoverished stagnation.

  That’s the story of the women who birthed me;
  the one of the man who raped me is also key
  because I’ll never know what it’s like to live under
  my grandfather whose anger boomed like thunder.

  But I do know what it’s like to survive
  violent attacks from the ones tasked at keeping me alive
  and being told to hold dear all the terror.
  Being youngest, made me especially the bearer

  of dark secrets turned pretty by all my compliance.
  You see, my sister chose young the path of defiance,
  but that only made her a perfect target.
  We were fucked, no matter how you sliced it.

  I was too pretty, too docile and put together
  for teachers, doctors, caretakers to bother
  ever wondering if there was truth in my timid confessions.
  They each chose instead to leave the learning of hard lessons

  to the classroom of the violent home I could never escape –
  the place where I learned that there’s no love like rape.
  You see, it’s much easier when you hold all power
  as an adult, hoard it up and completely devour

  innocent brown bodies of forgotten children,
  than step in and risk your neck to protect them.
  That’s what they did to my little brown body
  when they said bruises and fear weren’t inflicted by daddy.

  It’s such a chilling thing to think
  that you could be so close, so just on the brink
  of being saved from the stuff of pure nightmare,
  escaping what most would never dare

  to imagine outliving, outlasting.
  The most dreadful casting,
  my family of origin, darker than I’ll ever bring to light
  because nobody in this room could survive such a fright.

  But I did, and I’m fully enraged
  by the ones who will leave here unfazed
  thinking my story is unlike that of kids today-
  after all, only demons could go so astray!

  But I’m here to call out your denial,
  because the ones who should also be on trial
  are not just the ones who birthed and raised me, their daughter,
  but the ones who to help me just couldn’t be bothered.

  Take it from me, the pedophiles who could do
  such unspeakable acts to my children and yours, too,
  are the friends, family, acquaintances you collectively refuse
  to without question destroy and remove.

  Instead, you place greater value
  on keeping face and keeping dark what is true.
  You remember the needs of the raper
  before you ever believe children who cry danger!

  I cried a lot; I’ll be honest I knew from an early age
  I’d die alone in that family, take our secrets to the grave.
  So, I’m not sure now what’s more shocking –
  that I’m alive or that I’m even up here talking.

  Because the truth is for most of us called survivor,
  we often live on in the shadows of our traitors.
  If we’re lucky enough to live past
  the rape and bloody wounding we learned to outlast

  we learn also that our bodies and words
  are not worth protecting or believing anymore.
  So, we stay silent; sometimes even caring for
  the ones who gave us our unwanted violent lore.

  So, as unbelievable as it is,
  I’m speaking now to tear down the myth
  that terrors you’d rather not confront
  if I may be so blunt
  cause scars for which you are also at fault
  there’s many ways to indirectly perpetrate assault.

  Because what happens when your refuse to say rape,
  when you walk away from this stage in utter dismay
  that a bitch so foul mouthed and enraged
  would dare to so directly put on display

  your apathy, your inability to stand up,
  to call abuse and violence in the name of love
  exactly what it really is: no more
  than the stuff of the rapists the came before

  you, and me, and our grandparents;
  the ones who gave us our legacies of violence,
  the ones we pass on if we’re unwilling to look
  into our own dirty mirrors and ask what took

  us so long to see
  that rapers like my father are no different than you and me
  if we don’t unlearn that having power
  is no excuse for causing those in our care to in fear cower.

  That’s right, if you walk around using intimidation,
  leave your entitlement left unchecked cause of your station,
  yours are the hands that help stow and carry
  a darkness into the future we should bury.

  And if you’re one the few left still sitting here
  refusing accountability, let me make it real clear,
  the violence you let out lives on like an echo
  every time you tell a hurting victim to just let it go.

  Maybe what we should start offering in its stead
  are questions that with curiosity are led,
  so that we learn how to help victims shoulder;
  let the pain of others to us be the molder

  of a better version of our integrity;
  let that be what guides our sense of community,
  so that we stop building buldings that look so lavish.
  Caring more for appearance is so fucking tragic

  when we’re called by creator and nature
  to build futures free of unspeakable torture –
  the kind that lies hidden beneath the facade
  of all you’re primed to praise and applaud.

  You’ve lost your way if you think my plea is irrelevant.
  We’re all guilty of excusing the violent
  ways we put each other down;
  it’s written all over this god forsaken southern town.

  My point in all this going on and on is to call
  you forward with all the gall
  I can muster on my first open mic night
  and ask you simply to do what is right.

  Stop leaving the voiceless alone in their fight;
  bring your own darkness into the light.
  Lean into accountability
  to walk and speak gently,

  especially to those in our care;
  remove violence from all we revere.
  Save retribution and unspeakable acts
  for the fuckers who would rather redact

  the flashbacks of those, who like me, made it out
  despite turned backs and adults in power who doubt
  that a child so tiny and pure
  could be telling the truth of all they endure.

  Don’t be like them, so blind to your own blindness.
  Seek above all else, parenting with kindness.
  Leave bruises and fear for other makers,
  lest like a raper you also be taker

  of what isn’t yours just because you carry the burden
  of feeding and clothing small bodies called children.
  Being mom or dad will never give you the right
  to metaphoric or literally beat them into the desires of your sight.

  And if you’re childless still like I am,
  you’re still called to be as defiant
  and stand up to the terror of a culture that would
  leave tiny victims to clean up their own blood.

  The way you help us stop repeating
  a past filled with emotional and physical beatings
  is vowing to be the one who separates –
  no longer letting violence and love collaborate.

  I’m afraid I’m known for being long-winded –
  character flaw gifted by blows from my kindred.
  But I promise I’m almost done.
  Let me boil it all down to one

  fine point.
  Like oil, let me anoint
  this simple and smart
  query onto your heart…

  Ask yourself…
  In what ways can I soften and slow
  And in this way let real love out of me flow?

  September 16, 2025

  abuse, children, community, csa, faith, family, flashbacks, IFS, life, love, mental-health, parenting, poetry, ptsd, rape, recovery, sexual assault, survivor, trauma, writing

  ---

• Let me sit with you

  I don’t mean to be so unappealing,
  healing.
  Like you’re better at dealing
  but you’re not, if this is the last time
  you say that you’ll try-
  at least I’m moving through instead of shoving down-
  that’s the lie you contrive
  when you conceal from yourself
  the truth you can’t fucking face,
  like a fogged up mirror –
  it’s easier to look at –
  when you don’t like your reflection.
  All the work and hard effort calling you forward with intention.

  That looks different than “letting it slide off your back.”
  Every person I’ve heard claim that is hiding behind them a stack
  of unread novels of hurt and dismissed emotions of pain and loss.
  You think tossing them in your lockbox makes you a boss
  not a whacked out wannabe
  trying to be better than free.
  You’re just like me, in need of
  a witness willing willing to look
  with eyes wide open into your books,
  your archives of tragic humiliation
  and harmful acts you acted out in frustration.
  Because we all have sorrows deep
  in our storehouses; dusty, we keep
  piles high of dingy stories we would rather never tell,
  nor have any onlooker see
  that we are just as capable of extreme
  violence and hate, justifying our intent so malicious.
  See, it’s not just the ones who harmed you that refine
  the meaning of vicious.

  It’s you, too, with your chin held so high.
  Like if you lifted it up to the sky
  you’d lose sight of the mountains
  your ungrieved losses are accumulating.
  Hold your head up high on the lie
  that you’re much better at letting it go
  than I am,
  even though here you are resisting the natural flow
  and ebb of joy and sweet sorrow,
  only along for the ride if the waters stay shallow.
  That’s why my depth scares you so,
  even though you claim it’s annoyance
  that causes you to shame and blame and adopt an attitude of avoidance.
  Because to feel and deal means to heal,
  but you’d rather I do this over there,
  far away from your vicinity,
  lest you develop an affinity
  for what it feels like right here
  in this soft place inside me
  where the empty hollow places
  have begun to blooming
  fluorescent and abounding,
  shining bright lights that blind you and chase out
  all the darkness
  that once invited the dust to settle
  in between pages unread and on mountains unscaled.

  That echo inside you is a feeling I don’t miss.
  Neither is that expression lifeless and pale.
  I’ll admit, you wear it so well
  and convincing, like joy
  is just about chasing
  the dopamine and stories to tell
  on repeat about the good ol’ days.
  Into that slot machine go your coins,
  bet after bet that forgetting is the way
  to freedom from ever having to face up to or put on display
  your archives of past hurts and harms still waiting and wanting
  for you to turn the key
  into your own broken heart, instead of carrying on with apathy,

  claiming the past is in the past when it lives right under your floorboards,
  the ones that prop up your soap box about
  how you diy’d your way to restore
  this fixer upper you call home now.
  But I see thru you like an bat with sonar.
  I see the echos and hear them holler
  at you to slow down long enough
  to heed their warnings against becoming just another follower
  of the legacy you were born into –
  the one of abuse and divorce and dying with stored up hate,
  while convincing yourself the cancer and body aches are just coincidence.
  Don’t mistake
  your denial all the while soothing, for a path to the freedom you claim to have found and live by,

  when I can see you’re so consumed by pages you refuse to dust off and read,
  afraid the task will hold you down, cost you time.
  But it’s refusing to sit and hold tenderly
  pages that need to be seen –
  you tell yourself and me too that you know the secret to getting by
  higher than high –
  when this is the lie that shackles you to your own dungeon,
  the lowest of lows.
  You stay detached and defensive;
  mask it with laid back and easy going shrugs,
  like you’re too cool and elusive.
  Your cares quietly remain in the background unhung
  until you explode them internally or towards me.
  This is a dance I’ve already done.

  Before you when I was married
  to the glitz and the glamour;
  another white man in Charlotte
  carried, buried by the successful clamor
  of the same sauce you’re selling –
  midwestern versus the South;
  either way, I can tell that bbq tastes real good in your mouth.
  You’re pitching hot like a door salesman,
  but I stay quiet long enough to also see the outcome.
  Man, you can’t tell me it didn’t hurt on the way out.

  Because the lies you feed yourself are not sustainable.
  Take it from me –
  I nearly died before thirty,
  choking on salesman bbq drool,
  using me like a tool.
  Fuck trophy wife! What he wanted was a doormat for life,
  the kind that won’t ask you wipe off your feet or the fog off the mirror.
  It’s just the way you fixed the lighting that makes you think you see clearer
  than my teary eyes worn and weary
  from doing the legwork to carry
  my own dusty books out the door.
  Read them first, felt the horror,
  before actually letting go.
  This! Is what brought me nearer
  to you … or the next man…

  I’ll be honest, it’s not looking good for you,
  if your spewing at the mouth while insisting you’re past the past isn’t a clue
  that you’re actually afraid to turn the key,
  unlock the deadbolt and enter,
  light up your own archives
  and dismantle
  and unravel
  your own stories. Feel between the lines,
  until feeling higher than high comes from sitting in the lows,
  not running away from the past you already know you can’t out-go,
  outrun, outsmart or out-argue.

  That’s why I’m standing here asking you one last time
  to stop trying to wine and dine your way into my heart or your own ending,
  and instead light the candle, hold my hand
  and read me something sad, long and rough,
  ’til you feel that impending
  release of what you’ve buried and insisted you stopped carrying
  so long ago, like it’s not written all over your sweet face.

  Can you really loosen your grip
  if you refuse to pick up the pain in the first place?
  It’s relative, so stop chasing the story
  coming from out there. All the vendors
  trying to get you to spend your hard earned money
  on their promises of success and happiness,
  when the secret they won’t tell you is written on these pages.
  I’m begging, pick up your own books and learn
  from your own archives stored up aching
  like Aladdin’s buried treasure. Stop mistaking
  rubble for your own genie
  waiting eager, willing
  like I am to take that magic carpet ride.
  The ups and downs, lefts and right –
  it’ll turn your stomach upside.
  Down here with you, I’ll stay,
  if you need ’til the day that I die.
  Promise, I’m in no hurry.
  I’ll stay as long as it takes
  to get it all out in the open.
  This is the freedom I’ve chosen –
  to be seen fully broken
  but still here,
  like a dog the sounds of a higher frequency.

  That’s why
  in this moment all I can say is fuck your complacency!
  Fuck your stories of elated recency!
  The drugs you use to get high don’t fool me!
  You’re not better at consistency!
  Fuck, there’s just no way you’ve let it go!
  Because if you had, you wouldn’t still get so hot
  when something in the present makes the echos from below
  impossible to claim you’re not distraught
  by a past that caught up
  despite the molly and lsd.
  You cannot hide from
  the cobwebs I see, even through your thick walls
  lacing beautiful patterns to safe-keep
  the archives into which I beg your permission to leap!

  September 13, 2025

  life, long distance, love, mental-health, poetry, ptsd, recovery, relationships, trauma, writing

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• I tried to die

  What’s the point of being so beautiful?
  If broken –
  It feels like a trap
  Everyone can see something I
  Will never feel.

  What’s the point of being so broken
  If my lineage
  Dies with me –
  All the suffering and surviving –
  Just to end it on
  Beautiful, broken me.

  What’s the point of trying
  When it’s always my fault?
  If it’s not this, then it’s that –
  Never right, always wrong –
  Not all, but enough to
  Deserve this sad plight.

  Because it’s sad to be trapped in a body
  So perfect and beautiful –
  The envy of all.
  For one reason or another,
  So much to covet about
  The body that traps me
  To relive the memories –

  Of how I tried and I tried
  To get it all right,
  To be believable and good,
  To be understood,
  And to prevent the danger
  From ever arising,
  When all I lived in was danger
  Upon danger and danger!

  I should not have survived.
  I should not be here today.
  So, who cares if I’m too broken
  To take a hit and be gay?

  I’ll never get it right.
  I’m giving up the fight.

  This is stupid and dull
  I’m feeling done and tired
  Of always being told
  It’s my fault,
  Just try harder.

  September 7, 2025

  dying, flashbacks, IFS, life, love, mental-health, poetry, ptsd, recovery, suicidal, trauma, writing

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