I Try To Unwrite It

Sometimes I reread the poems I wrote for past lovers and feel like… this was too good for them. I try to take it back

Too tender. Too raw. Too sacred.

Bitterness shows up first.

Memory comes next. 

With it the soft ache of truth.

I remember why I wrote it, the little universe we lived in for a while. 

And I remember.

I remember it was theirs. Because a version of me meant it.

Even if they didn’t deserve the whole poem forever.

Some things are real just because they happened.

And some people get lucky enough to be written about.

The love was real, so was the poem.

So I give it back.

Blotchy, Dry, Aching

I’m suffocated by spirits.
I just sit in my nest.
I’m blotchy,
dry,
aching.

Wail and cry and sob.
Wail and cry and sob.
Wail and cry and sob

— from Repetitions of Ruin  
(incantations from the same wound)

Ripe and Mean

When we went without
I forgot my name
Things were not good
We’d be ripe and mean
We’d beg and fight
Skin splitting
Play tug of war with our faces
Growl through negative space
I am awake
I am awake
I am awake
I plead
insanity
I give
him control
Still
painting him in contrast

Collapsed

When I experience grief
I open and everything enters.
There is no space.
I’m suffocated by spirits.
I’m blotchy, dry, aching.

— from Repetitions of Ruin 
(incantations from the same wound)

Nest of Sorrow

I just sit in my nest.
And wail and cry and sob.
I’m fragile and I delight in explosion.
At the edge of grief
I’m swallowed by it whole.

— from Repetitions of Ruin  
(incantations from the same wound)

I Wore You

we had the same conversations like it was yesterday
i wore blue for days and days straight
i wore all my fibers as you
i knew you were blue too
i fasted
i was corrupt
you wouldn’t let my burn touch a thing
you laughed in the face of it