There is thunder in my bones where you lay.
Your memories dissolve like salt into a wound.
To this day,
If anyone calls me 'Red,'
I will rain down like the storm cloud you always hoped I wasn't.
My collective tears will burst from the dam
Until not a spot on your soul is dry.
I will tear out the tendons, remove the connective tissues.
You wanted to make me yours,
To erase the personhood until I was pliable for your will.
To some extent, you succeeded.
Your memories are stored in my body, trauma.
The bleeding is internal, is not visible, is just as deadly,
But I have staunched the flow.
There is thunder where you lay in my bones,
Lightning where you touched me.
I am tearing you away tendril by sticky tendril.
I hope you feel the sting inside you.
This girl is not your object.
This girl is a hurricane.
This girl is the end of your world.
There are words for what you did,
****** assault, ****,
But they are not sufficient for the way
My psyche floated out of my skin.
You counted on the scars keeping me bound,
But you had only started the storm.
I am a thundercloud, a lightning goddess,
Made from the sun, wind, and ocean.
You called me 'Red' like my hair,
But I am 'Red' like my temper, like fire.
Try me once more, and I will teach you not to play games
With young girls.

I feel like a remote.
A tiny remote in the hands of a giant
Toggling through channels
Accidentally pressing every other button than the intended
I have no control
I have lost sense of where I am in space
I am helpless
Vulnerable to the choices of the giant
Constantly fluctuating between states of fear
And peace
Never knowing when each state will change
Never knowing how long I will have peace
Before the fear arises
I am just a tiny remote
In the hands of a giant.

A previous apartment
An old town
Nothing but silent buildings and hollow walls
Yet my mind equates these
Empty spaces
With memories of freedom
With feeling alive
So I start to yearn for their physical presence
And once I'm there I feel disappointed
Because although I'm where I used to be
I'm not the same as I was
And that sense of self-assuredness
That sense of relief I'm seeking
Doesn't live in the drywall and clean pavement
It lived somewhere inside me then
And I'd like to believe that
Somewhere deep down
It's still alive
Just waiting to resurface

I am but ashes
In your fire,
Consumed,
Until I stopped providing you oxygen
And fizzled you out.