 These are things I tried telling you.
I loved you, still love you in spite of your traits. You drive people away. This is not The Frog and The Scorpion. Sometimes, you have to love yourself enough to change the things other people don't love about you. Your easy excuse for loneliness is an easy excuse for sympathy. You can prevent this from happening. I don't think you can do it alone. I cannot be the one to aid you. You may not mean to make people feel badly, but you do. You unintentionally belittle people and balk when they refuse to be small. Fiercely bright personalities dim around you. You take their light make them fear the shine. I was afraid of myself of my capabilities my talent my intelligence. I was afraid of the consequences of overshadowing you. I thought you saying you loved me was enough that I didn't have to love myself. I was afraid if I loved myself, you'd leave. It turned out that I learned to love myself. I left. I know that you hurt. I always wanted to soothe that. I think I did but it cost me so much I ran out of currency. You need to work on being comfortable being loved. You need to be ever mindful of the damage you cause and work against it. "It's hard to see." Look harder. Don't blink. I would have spent the rest of my life with you. Even if the rest of my life meant taking it from myself next to you. Think about what it would have meant to wake up beside my body room temperature and sallow.
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 When did all of our talk become small?
Diminished by our quotidian communique We mention weather and food Meetings and traffic A gloss to cover the wriggling things underneath We used to discuss them The denizens in the dark Shined bright lights in milky eyes Asking why They shrank from us But we were undeterred A united front Against the things that sting Neurotoxin sucked out Before paralysis set in But they've evolved ahead of us Grown more potent Deeply camouflaged They're surrounding us We can feel them We can pretend we've won Knowing all the while The tables have turned We should hold each other While we can still move  I woke screaming
Pursued like prey Unable to elude The one behind me I woke screaming As hands clasped around my throat Tightening I heard myself croak A peeper in the marsh Nobody paid me mind I woke screaming My heart running a lonely race Beads of sweat grown cold In the center of my bare chest My eyes shot open In the thick of dark My tongue sandy in my mouth I reached for water and drank Washing the tang of fear away A taste I never acquired As in my dreams My cries are not heard There are no arms but my own In which to wrap my trembling form No matter that mine are the only pair I know won't hurt me I draw knees my knees up Close my eyes Risk a return to the place My voice fled My body failed My breath thinned 2016 was a beast. It was feral and uncompromising, taking everything but rarely giving back. It was a year I knew would be hard. I rang it in with my dearest friends, but also with the person I knew would no longer be called spouse. I couldn't foresee all it would do, though. It visited horrors upon me and everyone I loved. Things nobody could ever imagine happening came to pass, but we weathered them. No sooner would we catch our breath than another blow would land. Death, illness, injury, financial strain, sadness deeper than many of us had ever confronted.
2016 taught me resilience. It taught me transcendence and the power of anger. 2016 showed me that civility and the tucking away of dirty corners have no place in the world. I'd rather be honest and trustworthy than have everyone like me. I learned what my body can bear and, above that, my soul. I tore everything down, examined it closely, decided what was worth keeping. I peeled back beautiful veneer and exposed the rot beneath. I refused to allow it to be pretty again, but also refused to become ugly myself by calling it by its name. I walked away.  Five thousand, four hundred, and sixty nine days
I woke up next to you Smelled your breath of warm milk Heard you stir Your breath quicken I see photos of you Of us You never liked it Always made a face Unless I caught you unaware Those were my favorites You were my favorite I was my least But I tried I can count the days I've seen you since On one hand Marveling at folded fingers Marking milestones without you  The boy harvested bones
The room cold Bathed in flickering fluorescence An antiseptic tang mingling with the meat His fingertips free They stung But freedom of movement took precedence He thinks of happy things As he cuts Dividing skin from skin from muscle from hard, white bone He imagines himself small Protected from what the world offered Little legs pumping His father jogging beside Then behind As two wheels spun finally on their own beneath him He turned his head A fleeting mistake His dad beaming in the moment The veil of disassociation falls away Slips to the floor He turned his head He saw her face She had been young Not quite beautiful Her cheeks hollowed and sallow now As he tugs Hands grasping the column of her femur Wrenching it loose |
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