I keep throwing up memories
no one asked me to keep -
bruises shaped like questions,
the sound of my mother’s scream
lodged behind my ribs.

No one tells you grief can rot
when you don’t spit it out.
That love, untouched,
ferments into something sour.
I carry it all in my throat ~
half apology, half war cry.

You say,
“I want more of you.”
And my body says,
“Are you sure?”
Because more of me
means bloodstains on carpet,
means fists instead of lullabies,
means learning how to disappear
before I ever learned to speak.

I was fed fear in childhood portions,
taught to flinch before I felt.
I watched my mother
burn down her mind,
and still tried to build homes
in her ashes.
I held her wrist
when she begged me not to.
Took the pills. Took the gun.
Took the fall.

I was not built for softness
but I do crave it.
Every tender thing feels foreign,
like wearing someone else’s skin.
But you touch me
like I’m not ruined.
And that’s the part
that makes me sick.

Because what if you mean it?

What if love doesn’t have to be
a wound I pick at just to feel alive?
What if you stay?
And worse - what if you don’t?

This is my mourning sickness:
grieving safety I never had,
while choking on the possibility
that I could finally
be held
without having to shatter first.

Attend to your wounds,
mark your losses and
bear your scars - for each
borne wound is a win,
a sacrament mark
of survival worth
the celebrating,
worth wearing on your sleeve.

Jesus intended his wounds,
counted the cross a weight
worth bearing, not counting
his wounds a loss, but a cost
worth paying.

So, He now wears each wound,
each scar a sacrament,
a celebrated win,
because his wounds won you.

Lightning lives
between your fingers,
flashing silver inside
a handful of night

suturing blood
with exigence
through a needle’s eye,

with one hand kissed
by a shower of shrapnel
and the other twisted
in an infinite thread

tunneling light with
sublime precision.

Your needle
closes each gap open
with the cloth of Love
being woven

and each gap closed
holds me in this
lancinating tension,

as I slumber deep  
in the currents of
your halcyon arms,

this world remains
tender and unbroken.

I wrote to you to speak,
I don’t know if out of love,
or so you would reject me.

I wrote to you with love,
but in a negative way,
inviting disaster.

A disaster that would hurt me,
that would punish me.

Because she didn’t love me,
because she didn’t know how to love me.

I felt alone,
but I also didn’t let
anyone accompany me.

It seems I hurt myself,
because I was the first
to reject myself.

A wound marks me,
from a distant time,
which over time
had only been reaffirmed.

I did something foolish,
to harm myself,
and guilt placed me in your hands.

I did something foolish,
I invalidated myself,
so that you could love me.

I did something foolish,
a kind of
self-sabotage.

I did something foolish,
as if handing you the power
to hurt me.
Without response,
without defense,
hoping to wake up.

I sacrificed myself for your validation,
giving you everything,
without ever finding you.

Since I didn’t see
what I was hoping for,
I gave even more.

I repeated the cycle
so many times, to extremes,
affecting your interest
and causing emotional exhaustion.

Creating dependence
on your love,
as if mine didn’t matter.

I surely criticized myself,
surely devalued myself,
surely waited for you to leave
to release this burden.

I let you dominate me,
I didn’t say what hurt me,
so you wouldn’t leave for another.

I accepted unfair conditions,
prioritizing your desires,
never seeing my own,
accumulating resentment.

I no longer knew who I was,
I lost everything of myself,
I didn’t love myself,
nor could I be loved.

I didn’t allow myself to move forward,
I didn’t allow myself to love you,
this fear running through my veins
didn’t allow me to find you.

I will no longer open my heart to anyone,
I stop searching for you,
I don’t want to hurt myself again.

Deep inside my heart,
I knew this wound
could be healed.

It is just a small wound,
one for which I am responsible.

My great love, I will find you,
my favorite girl,
when I finally learn to love myself.

My great love, I will find you,
to play like children,
to have a healthy love.

silence that fills
an empty room
no people left,
just memories.
their fights, their screams
and that first kiss.

they both poured from their empty cups
they broke the cup
and gave the glass

and piece by piece,
and stitch by stitch,
their love has morphed
into deep pain
just open wounds
that bleed in vain

it was too hard,
for them to see
the masochists
they came to be.

It happens with all the holes and wounds: they grow their own face, mend their gap, heal their rifts - those new skills of yours are but entities that emerge: to give shelter, to stand guard, replace the old, thicken the crust, weather this human storm - through and through.

But will the skin ever return to its soil? It linger on forevermore.
How tight is its grip? How hardened its sappy brooks? When will it nourish those delicate roots anew?

These thoughts arise as doubt breaks free. It pours and flows as I gaze down and lower still. Shadows seep and leak as the wheel spins and drills the soul evermore hollow. Anonymous is our tree of life, but it keeps faces in store.

For it happens with all the holes and wounds: they bleed, they mend, they heal - and what don't they do as I stand here, as I bend, as I kneel - as I carve their seats in shapes of departure. These skills thicken under my feet like growling tremors.

My past was but a dream - ready to slide and crumble like a leaf.
My weariness is universal. My knowledge, heavy. There cannot be a conclusion. I am growing thin.

Let me feed those roots anew.