i feel little bits
of the universe
crumble around me
feel like i am stuck
in rewind
watching the same movie
over and over, every
terrible thing
while i cook dinner
clean the kitchen
take out the garbage
listen to the headlines
one punch, another
feeling like a lace tablecloth
laid across a landmine
and i'm realizing
there are so many ways
to be undone
to be brought to your knees
to do your best
to be your best
and to lose it all
anyway

there's almost a punishment
in healing, an unraveling
a relief and an unrest
in the weaving
in the rewriting

settling old wounds,
finding new ones
hidden in the outskirts of
thigh sized bruises
in puddles of blood
spreading out wider than
dinner plates, oceans

it's just the way pain seeps into
the bones, the cartilage
seals itself into the veins,
an unwelcome teacher,
a treacherous friend.

i just imagine some other version of me
out there in some other universe
a soft, silly girl unmarred and whole
and i am so, so envious of her.

i could hate you
i could wish you the worst
(sometimes, i do)
i could summon karma nightly
on your behalf
i could remind you every day
of the ways you harmed me,
permanently altered me

but i'm tired, you know?
tired of the visceral memories of
this night or that night
tired of the way it
suffocates me
even years later
tired of you having so many
pieces of me still, tired
of trying to untangle the love
from the violence
tired of ever knowing any part
of you

mostly, i just hope you look in the mirror
one of these days
and realize the man looking back at you
would finally make good ol' step dad
real ******' proud

if i were really honest
i'd tell you about the rage
the angry little girl howling inside me
begging to be let out
how i'm afraid she'd never stop
if i did
i'd tell you about the apologies i'll never get
the apologies i'll never give
all the unsaid things living in my bones
i'd tell you how my friends
drifted away when the Trauma
made me unpalatable
how pulling myself out of the rot alone
was almost more painful
than the Trauma itself
i'd tell you about the days the girl in the mirror
looks so unfamiliar
how words don't seem to fit in my mouth anymore
how the space between
worse and better starts to feel like
an unscratchable itch
but not nearly as unbearable
as the girl living in my skin five years ago
and how i miss her and how i hate her
how she probably hates me
buried under years of therapy and medication
and deep breathing techniques and
have you tried meditation?
yes ma'am, i have meditated myself into a
near constant state of TV static
and once in awhile that girl
tries to change the channel, remind me
of the weightlessness of giving in
to the doom spiral, to the drinking, to the drugs
to the boys who will do nothing but
destroy what we've built

but to tell you the truth i wouldn't go back
not to that girl, not to the girl we were before
she mutated into existence -
not even to keep the most painful things
i've ever lost

a grief
a gift
a collision of moments

do you have any idea?
do you think they said
hello
to each other

on the way out,
on the way in?

do you think maybe
it was never supposed to be mine

always meant
to be yours?

i have allowed
too many careless hands
to cradle my soft, scarred heart

none so careless
as my own