Saltblood Psalms

My deep breaths fuel my heart
Just one more night
After another
What a chore

A force of nature
To be here
To stay
To feel everything

A life of suffering—
I thrive off that shit
Like a brutal winter
My heart is raw and unfiltered

I dove deep to see her
The sacred red
Of the swallowed sea
She’ll find me
Begging
On plastered knees

She just wants to be safe
Satiated
Saved

Sacred Beauty, Silent Battles

I was taught to be beautiful, no matter what I was going through.

A sacred ritual passed down—lipstick, clean clothes, perfume. Even in despair, my outer world had to glow. I’ve mastered the art of seeming fine.

High-functioning depression means I show up glowing—
even when I’m collapsing on the inside.
Because I was taught: no matter how you feel, look good so no one would know.

People assume I’m okay because I look okay.

Because I’m pretty. Because I dress well. Because I smile. Because I post.

But that’s the mask. That’s the part I learned young:
if you look put together, maybe no one will ask too many questions.
My mother raised and instilled in me to always show up looking good—no matter what. And so I did. Even when I was quietly dealing with depression, eating disorders, suicidal thoughts/attempts, a bottomless abyss of self-hate etc. I never wanted anyone to know. I just wanted to survive.

And now that I’m older that’s backfired. Now when I say, “I’m not okay,” people respond with, “But you look so good.”

As if beauty is proof of wellness.

As if pain can’t wear lipstick.

Not all sadness screams.
Some of it moves quietly—wrapped in silk, masked with laughter, walking through the world unnoticed.

High-functioning depression is being praised for your strength, carrying sorrow with elegance. All the while drowning in silence.
It’s shining bright, yet being invisible because you’ve mastered the art of seeming fine.

It’s exhausting.

Black Sheep

I can go anywhere and find home on my skin
Resting in dew
What’s new
When strangers are blue
Sketched and watercolored onto blocks
I’m an iridescent rock with moss
I wrap my locs when I’m around em
Pretend I’m Medusa, not a bit hesitant
And my shadows vow to move exactly how I move
As I pretend to blend in as if I belonged here
I dodge small talk
I know real voices, true hearts
I’ve mastered how to mirror; starting over less foreign than I
I knew I was alright
I was a locust bite, bitter
In the cool hybrid air
I made my way through the stolen
What I gave away could never keep up
My gift was melted and sculpted
Sometimes I’d call it love

Winners war

I’m not sure of what I am feeling, my heart can break, my ego; callous
What keeps me asleep is a range to run
Emotional in wake I bake the sun
Holes of bittersweet spit up, you nuzzling my breast till numb
Turning in, on and off
Tuning off, out and in
I attempt to sing those sensitive songs, I pretend with oneself, playing once upon a time
There’s no where to go as my soul is magnetic to your salvation, even here the space of our bodies deafening
I don’t know exactly why this fight takes flight, ideal is a winners war; no casualties

October 7, 2021

More trauma, more anger. You’d always ask if I was mad at you. Was it not what you wanted when we repeated “No”. You had to go and get yourself killed. Well now you have it. I am so f****** mad at you, and I hope you know it. I’m so angry at you, and I feel at the core I always have been. I’m pissed off at this soulless body. Explain the voices or rather the voice of you that haunts my mind attempting to console me after destroying me. I’m not enough, and nothing I ever do for anybody will ever be. 

How could you not stay here for me, for X. My sun adored you and you left him. That same day I texted you a picture of him and told you about how I see you in him. How could you abandon us in this way. We saw each other all summer, you pulled up to my house whenever you wanted. I gave you allcolades told you I was proud. You were doing better, wanted to be a father, a grandpa, and you did your best. So why didn’t you fight for us, why didn’t you protect yourself, why didn’t you open your eyes and count your blessings. 

Right now I sit beside you and you are unresponsive and I swear you’re here because your vessels reflexes are acting up. The way you continue to see right on through all the love that surrounds you is nothing different than how you denied it our whole lives. Maybe we were truly your problem, maybe I. Never good enough.

Honestly f*** you. Though I still wish you peace, just know I won’t have it.

I’m sorry too. You said you’d be here, that if I needed anything… My whole life, you just keep breaking my heart

October 15, 2018

I pray this is the last time I have to break my mothers heart… I can’t think of anything… What is the way? I’m trying to make a relationship work, everything in me tells me it’s wrong, but something is telling me not to give up.

The most difficult part of healing is the era right before the climax when the voices begin to sound the same and you must learn discernment. It becomes a strain to hear the truth; to know right from wrong.

This baby inside me is right, right?

What am I going to do?

Prepare for either and decide later I suppose.

I really need to show up for myself now. I have to prove to myself that I can do it, that I will be a successful mother. That I can be me. Whoever that is.

I pray to find myself.

June 24, 2018

I miss being comfortable in my body. Every mourning I wake to discomfort and nausea that can last hours.

I miss wine. I miss being able to eat and not eat whenever as I pleased. This baby is taking away my freedom. I am a slave to my baby.

By choice with trust of course though.