how we broke
how we broke
how we broke
we were

we were made
no

we were born
we were born made
made
for each other
like the flower
blooms
made
blooms
made
blooms, made, to bloom
from its seed
the formula of life was written
and you were my blooming
you opened my eyes to the light
to the aridness of the dark
but
I saw you
linger
even as you taught me hope
how you toed the shadows
thumbed the seams
of life
to give death
a peek

and I shuddered
for I know it then
how I loved you
that's why
I learned to love goodness
for I remembered how
every time
the darkness spat you out
the blood
was too much to clean
it had to be burned
prayed away
commanded
warred with
your blood or his, as well...

I learned to love the light
but in time
I would learn
I loved the light
so much
for saving you
that I
learned you into forgetfulness
into regret
I learned you into spite
as, despite how I loved the light
because of you
I learned, I only loved the light
in the end
the darkness ate all that made you
visible
to my heart
visible

but I still knew you
knew you
I still knew
you were all I ever wanted
dreamed of

even in loneliness
abandonment
even in the arms of a thousand lovers
fragrances beyond aroma
beyond memory
beyond touch, I felt them
and in the midst
of the tumult
the waves of their sating
the kaleidoscope of *******
a thousand sighs
a thousand hot, sopping shivers
a thousand moans, all whispering,
tenderly, my name,
all in your voice
your voice
in your voice they chorused
and I was abloom
with the hearing of you
in their thousand harmonies of one you,
I loved you, all over again
and realized how,
though I love the light
the darkness in it,
what brings contrast
meaning to all the joys of life
what brings purpose
is how you, in your darkness
are my darkness - that you do not complete me,
you empower my reason to live
and I see you, unliving,
never knowing love
as it is the curse of your being
when you are with me,
you forget the dark
you forget the pain of what awaits in it
and you cling to me,
like breath in the lungs
like blood in the veins
our clinging is,
       what IS

and you become the light
you become it, as I
become the dark
to give you breath
to give you force in your heart
that it may be again
that it
your heart
may beat again
I become the dark
I lose the light
that you may see me
beyond the glare,
catch a glimpse of me, again
for when my light is lost
I know you will abandon me
call me cursed,
unholy, for what need a man
a thousand holy ululations of wives enthralled
to hear his wife
scream in the dark
that she has lost herself to dark princes
who ever would be princes
for kings they never became
and never would become
patricide of the light, they earned their keep
as princes
fallen, with you they played,
in your womb, and your blood they drank
that's why,
a thousand was plenty enough, to drown out
the sense of loss of you, from the abandon of me
that you purchased your pleasures
I made love, made marriage, made home,
with a thousand women, as still, you were never lost to me

still you were what bloomed again
with every peace found
I kept a part for you
every new light I loved
I loved you greater
I love you still
I love you as the time of day loves itself
right in the moment
in the present
where, when we first met
first kissed
first made our way, across the altar
made love, in those presents
I am present
with you, your presence is with me
I know you
love you, in the midst of our present
our every present
you are the gift of living
in my heart, my soul
my spirit,
the morning birds are your laughter
your touch
your will to love me, despite all we've suffered
you are eternal
and I am nothing
if not faithful
to a woman who has never been
what anything is worth
giving up on
for
or to, when you are that weight, on the scale
I am the balance that never tips against you
I am that one flesh, weighted with you
for to abandon you, would be to not love myself
and so, that that I love myself, has me loving you,
I wait for when you, yourself, will love you, too,
for maybe, if I'm lucky, for the first time, you will
finally, begin to love me back, for the first time...

... maybe

Lord,
you tell me to serve you,
but I haven't heard even a whisper
about this path and purpose
you intend me to pursue.

God said
“love your enemies”
but he didn't tell us
what to do when it hurts,
when a piece of your heart it attached to every kind word and gesture
that then gets picked apart
and shredded into shards that shoot
right back at me.

Our Father affirms
how we must forgive our trespassers,
but he didn't tell us how to repair the damage,
how to stop being taken advantage of,
or how to stand up for ourselves.
He didn't tell us how to end the the cycles,
just how to continue them
by turning over your other cheek
and not withhold even your tunic.

Jesus preached
about how we should love our neighbors as ourselves,
but he didn't say what to do when you’re full of self-hate
or when nobody cares that you care about them
because they're too busy trying to get someone else's approval.

He also said
"Don't let your hearts be troubled”
but he didn't say what to do
when they don't listen to you,
when there's so much at stake,
when your world caves in,
when you're cast aside like dust
but the world still wants to much,
or when you're just not happy and you don't know why everything is so hard,

or when you're wide awake at night,
knowing
the ones you care about the most
could be on the verge of breaking
their skin.

It would've been our 1 year today
But I ended it in May
I still don't understand why u lied
And when i confronted u u still denied

that u didnt do anything
What happened to giving me the “ring”
I guess this is what I get for trusting u again
Was I really that naive then?

I don’t think its fair
I thought u actually cared
And the thing is i knew
that what u promised me wasn't true
But i gave u the benefit of the doubt
And now all I wanna do is shout


I dont hate u but im still mad
I havent seen u in months and i'm glad
Because i know i would say something
What u did to me felt like a bee sting

I wish i never met u
And what i went through
I will never forget
I remember how upset
I was on May 29
But u seemed fine


I still remember the look on your face
I know the exact place
But u probably don't even remember
What happened in december
It would've been our 1 year today
But i had to end it in May

I sit here and I think about what happened. The pain that I felt. The betrayal that flowed through my skin. Anger started to bubble, it started to burn until I became a living fire. The fire was unstoppable because I knew that I could overcome the world. The strength of this fire sparked my inner energy. It let me become someone that I had to always shove down deep inside the walls woven in my skin. The walls that took me a long time to build. Each day would go by and with it the energy and the time to build those fire proof walls. I built those walls because I knew that I would need them someday. I knew that I needed to be stronger than the fire I would build.
I had to experiment time after time and each time I did the fire burned too much. Then finally I did not care about the fire that burned within. I did not care that it ripped through my veins and filled up the rest of myself. It melted the walls and broke down all of my nerves until they were in submission not to feel anything. Not to feel pain, but only the fire that burned within, the fire that burned them.

You're not listening to me
Highlighting for the next bullet point
to use in the next arguement.

Left me with the responsibilities
and you still have the audacity to say
"I love you"
within the same conversation as
"I can choose to wake up and not love you anymore"

The last dig you could give me
is the last time I saw you, you were helping my best friend move out and on without me.
You both spun tales to delude from the truth.
A betrayal that extends past the lifespan of our relationships.
All I got was a phone call
"This is the wrong number, isn't it?"
meant for the man who sabataged what we had.

I don’t see you as my brother.
You cry for her,
you cry for her to be able to move in,
you cry for what she’s going through,
and how bad her mom and stepdad are.
You say she sees my parents more of a parent than her own,
you say she sees how good they treat me..
That’s funny.
She thinks they were always good huh?
She thinks they’re perfect to me?
Hell.
Even you think so, don’t you?
Must be nice to forget.
I bet you don’t remember those summers,
those summers where it was just me and mom,
where we fought everyday,
and I’d end up hurt.
I bet you don’t remember the night before my 14th birthday,
where mom beat me for not waking up from my nap to clean my room.
Where dad came out too and beat me too,
I had bruises and welts all over me.
I couldn’t wear my birthday dress because of them.
I had them for a month after.
Why didn’t you cry for me like you cry for her?
I know you knew.
Why didn’t you do anything?
That's when you stopped being my brother.
That’s when I stopped expecting from you,
that's when I stopped needing you.
That's when I became an only child.

It is hard being a child,
let alone an adult.
I hate growing up.
I always hated the thought of it,
of leaving childhood behind—
when it was never a place
I could rest.

I was promised something better—
a new life beyond that god-awful trailer,
where the walls were too thin
to contain the hurt.
I was promised love,
safety,
a body and mind
without bruises.
I was promised the world.

But promises are just words,
and words crumble under fists.

I am not ungrateful for what I have,
but I am ungrateful
for how I was raised—
how I was brought into this world
only to be broken by it.
Adoption was supposed to be a rescue,
but even kindness can wear a mask.
And when the masks fell,
the truth cut deeper
than any wound I’d known before.

Now, I carry more stories,
more bruises
from my adopted parents
than my biological ones.
More words screamed at me,
until I was so weak,
I wanted to leave.
A child, eight years old,
should never think about dying.

Parents should be a sanctuary,
a refuge.
Mine were a battlefield.
I learned to fear growing up—
to fear failure,
to fear never being enough.

I have accepted it all:
the blows,
the scars,
the pain repackaged as love.
Because love
was something foreign
until I met my first true friend,
my first real love.

With family,
there was only war.
And in their house,
I counted the days
I thought about dying—
more than I can recall.
They failed to protect me,
to shield me from others’ harm,
and their answer
was always the same—
an empty hug,
a hollow “It’s going to be okay.”

But they never meant it.
In every argument,
they used my scars as weapons,
ripped open old wounds
just to watch me bleed.
If they understand the weight of trauma,
why do they
bring it up
to bury me deeper?

Do they really love me?
I don’t understand,
and I don’t think
I ever will.