Honey its been a while but i know you exist between heartbeats — not quite joy not quite grief, just the long inhale before either arrives.
you lived in a house where silence carved the hallways out of not being chosen so i know that you wear sound like an armour,
for when the room goes quiet the ghosts start speaking in full sentances and you are left with no language to bury them.
you answer messages in your head, smile at texts you never send and mourn connections like you've buried them with your own hands — even tho they are still alive
just not with you.
you wage a war between
reach out
and
stay safe.
between
i miss you
and
don't look at me.
you stand still.
mid-sentance
mid-dream
mid-you.




your house is a mess- your head is worse
wondering if this is healing or you are just getting really good at pretending so you bolt the doors
and you don't dare let anyone come in.
your mother used to say that the cruelest is the hour when you must beg the stars to remember your name — you'd then say
that the pain is a fruit, bitten too soon
and yet so sweet, so knowing.
because you know you must remember everything
and overcome it.
for if you don’t overcome it, you will always be the child whose soul never grew, the woman who kept apologizing for needing too little, and loving too much.

Long are overdue the deeds you owe to yourself.

-V

I promised to always love you

Not realizing I doomed myself 

Because I still love you so much

Even when you stopped loving me

Why do you cry?
Isn't this what you wanted?
To be all by yourself again?
No?
Then why did you push everyone away?

Why didn't you ask them to stay?

Stupid rabbit.

He doesn't want you to cling anymore.

Let him love other people.

Let him go.

I've seen the care you give to animals
From the smallest rodents
To the biggest dogs
You gave them love and homes

I should have seen the signs
I was only a person to you
When you broke my home
When you took my love

You loved animals
More than your own person
Yet you left me
Like a wounded animal

I was born from the absence. Each door shut with a lock, a mirror reflecting back, and the quiet of the room becoming a verdict of my time. So I begin to orbit around like a moon, grasping for gravity just to stay near. I beg for pull, the proof that I still matter, even when I’m not in the room. I ask more questions than a survey. Not because I’m trying to pry, but because I’m throwing my anchor overboard. Stitching myself into the moments between us, before even the moment itself forgets it existed. And yet, I still notice. The shifts you make beneath my weight. The way the joy across your face tightens when I ask once more, Where have you been? Who all was there? What was I not included in? It’s as if smoke is filling my lungs, and I blame the room if it slips through. I want to know all that I can, because once, I knew nothing. And that nothingness hollowed me out, left me so quiet I echo when I’m left alone in the silence for too long. I see how I steal your breath when you try to breathe. How your time gets stretched thin by my persistent questions, my mere presence,
this velvet desperation for belonging so complete you’ll forget I ever even asked. But I’ll probably still ask. I always seem to ask. Because when I think of it, if I’m not fully part of the moment, was I ever really there?

Spiraling

I'm spiraling

Can't eat

Can't sleep

Can't breathe

Imagining things

What do I do with your rings...?

Weep.... sink... hallucinate... repeat..

Take a break.. fall apart.

I gave you all of me, but you tore me apart

I tried too hard; you left me with a broken heart

I almost relapsed the night you walked away

Kinda shocked I'm still here today

I still see you at school

Thought you meant it when you said forever

Guess I was a fool

..I miss when talking to you was a matter of when...

Not whether

STOP; Take your clothes off, it'll be okay, I swear, I'll climb on top
DROP; I don't want to get naked, I'm innocent! I refuse, please stop!
& ROLL; No one will believe you, you're too young;
And they will look at me and think "he's way too old"

STOP; Do as your told and none of this will hurt; I'll be gentle, now get on top
DROP; I don't want to be under you, I don't want to be above you, please, stop!
& ROLL; DO AS YOU'RE TOLD LITTLE GIRL, I'll treat your body like a piece of gold
None of it will hurt if you just obey! But I don't want to be on your pole!

STOP; STOP FUSSING, turn around and lay on your stomach;
Take your shorts and pull them down, if I do it, I won't stop
DROP; Why are you doing this to me?? What did I do to deserve this? PLEASE STOP!!
&ROll; I'm getting sick and tired of listening to you cry and whine,
So shut up and do as you're told!

Been through this with so many different men, I swear they're all the same
I told people, but no one listened because I was too scared to give up their names
So now, I suffer with complex ptsd, and undiagnosed adult ADHD
nightmares that wake me up and cause severe social anxiety,
Forever broken, forever wounded, never healing, forever ******* up mentally
I became an addict for the longest time because of this abuse, especially sexually
I was self harming, trying to overdose, trying to run away;
But with nowhere to run, and no one to tell,
because no one believed anything I had to say

I'm healing now but only as a recovering addict
I turned lesbian for a while and that only covered up the pain
With a woman I really didn't know who she was, pretending with a smile
Swore to myself that I was done and over anything or anyone with a ****!
But here I am, finding myself loving someone who took me away from all this
Someone who treats me like the person I deserve to be, the person I need to be
So how come I'm trapped in this mental spiral of all my wrong doings?
Of all my past relationships and all my past abusers?
They wreck havoc in my mind like the sinking titanic ship
Oh god, those nights where I just wanted to hang myself with my very own whip

STOP; Don't let anyone take control over you! SCREAM AND SHOUT STOP!!
DROP; Don't let someone tell you that it's okay, it's normal, it's fun,
KICK THEM SQUARE IN THEIR NUTS AND RUN WHILE YELLING HELP HELP HELP!!
GET THIS MAN AWAY FROM ME AND MAKE HIM STOP!!
& ROLL; NEVER ONCE AGAIN WILL I BE HUSHED, SHUSHED, OR THREATENED NOT TO TELL,
Because everything that's in the dark eventually comes to light,
and that will be the day that these stories come out and are told!!



Stephanie A. Ludwig
04/18/2025