I cut my heels with a shell,
her concave, smooth white surface
slicing open my body to the world.

I thought I'd see the ocean,
with all of the water in my body flooding out,
hearing every salty breath,
and smelling the frothy turquoise, foamy mess;
I thought I'd finally become one with her,
and it'd fill in the rest of my thirty percent frame.

I wanted to be like water,
but I had forgotten all the pollution,
and so through my wounds came bottles of nothing, plastic rash strings, shattered glass,
an allergic, asthmatic shutdown,
my body flopping and deflating
like a dying fish.

I didn't realize how much
comes with being like the water.

A bitter boy you are,
with twisted words and twisted fangs,
sour lips and ****** knuckles;
boy, you sure do love a good fight.

That's an awful lot of snickering
for a guy who's surely bluffing,
and I'm quite certain you know
as well as I, you're full of ****,
but your tangy hands and acid fingers seem so daunting
when you cast out all your hateful "truths".

I'm torn between all the love and all the hate,
it's inevitable that they'd congeal
into a sordid mixture
and so it was a bitter boy
spoiled.

Promise me a rose,
with its subtle, sweet scents,
its soft touch,
and its beautiful presence,
oh, and please,
don't you worry,
I'm well aware
your promises always wilt away.

I feel my energy sifting
out of my limbs and torso
like a broken hourglass
draining onto the floor,
and the grainy sections
and the grit sits in between my toes,
void of structure
as it collapses.

I don't want to patch up my cracks,
pick up the sand and glass,
or even take the time
to figure out what happened;
I've given up
and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

Have you ever seen a tap dancer
sit on a stage
with their legs crossed,
their metal plated shoes
facing away,
and their sound stolen?

No?
Well, have you ever seen a girl
sit on her bed
with her legs crossed,
her feet tucked, hiding,
buried away,
and her voice silenced?

Don't tell me the dragon's been vanquished,
surely he has more fight in him!
I would have guessed
he'd shoot me another riddle,
make me run in circles
wondering who would die first;
I would have thought that
I'd spend my whole life
with a sword in hand,
chasing after him.

Is it true?
Has he fallen off his plateau, his crevice
crumbled before him?
That brute lizard finally gave up?

What's left behind him,
I'd try to see and delve into his caves
searching for clues if I believed it,
but something makes me think that
just because he's dead to me,
doesn't mean he's been vanquished.

Don't tell me the dragon's been vanquished,
it's surely not that easy!
I had thought that maybe,
he wouldn't give up his bed of lies,
tossing and turning,
his chest bellowing with flames and smoke,
I expected a temper tantrum or
roaring deceit, screaming acid and blood,
and I imagined my sword
falling to his feet.

It does bother me greatly
That my plights might be,
Well,
Shunned, misunderstood, ignored,
Or that my words are inert,
They will not, can not, touch the reader.

I am inherently scared my poetry only means to me,
And yet, I find some tiny shard
In all of my worry,
That says it wouldn't matter anyway,
It's okay to only write for me.

I've been limping because of them,
but I've seen others paralyzed,
tortured,
or burned alive by them,
and I'm so scared
that next time,
I'll be torn apart,
and then no one will be left
to protect the next victim.

I despise how abuse is always
littering my airspace,
always tainting
the water I drink,
and always rupturing what's left of me.

I had this preconceived notion,
unfortunately,
that once you've been abused,
you'd be wise enough to escape
another abuser,
but boy, how he showed me,
how they all showed me,
how stupid I am
to have believed that.

I want to imagine,
though how useless it would be to do so,
what it would have been like
to love someone
and to be loved by someone
genuine, for once.

I must confess,
I don't think I would know
how to accept a love
that isn't corrupted,
or perhaps,
nonexistent,
and that pains me more
than my delusion that
I could stop them from hurting me.