Marriage Song

Uncertain.

I can’t make you.
I can’t save you.
I can’t see the boy you were.
I’ll never know the man you will become?

Because it’s not certain,

not in-sight.

Tired of being the bitch-wife, bitterly

you look at as mom.

Tired of “being” right and being told I’m “wrong”
Such a tired Wedding Song.

Slime Trail

you have
such a tendency
to poison the air

under the dome alone

some people are mirrors

you just dont want to look into

but hand me down
sunshine and I’ll start
flirting with goodbye
you cant nod into the sky

the giantest wake up

simultaneous sighting of
future past and present

its obvious you are dealing death
if I hate you, I hate myself
loitering slime trail
your failure never dries

just because you got right
and now cant get unwrong

there are bizarre shapes of survivors

Seventeen

It hasn’t been the same since they changed therapy rooms. She hasn’t been able to be anonymous and obsessively poet doodle, short tight bunches of truncated prose, ugly word combinations uttered in her head as the energy from the room swirls and colors and dissipates. She is afraid that she says too much. She is afraid she doesn’t say enough. She realizes talking is granting help just as much as listening. She makes the ugly brave request to talk about the abuse. To try to actively get to that part of the gigantic sore in the innards of her mind.

Do they always say innards? Never outards?

The week she asks for this discussion she leaves group shakily optimistic and somewhat regretful. While driving someone honks at someone and she is now in an aggressive driving situation. And that settles it. She has asked for trouble. She is now under attack. You see, he even controls the cogs of the universe, weaving the very loom of the fabric of fate itself.

Don’t tell, he knows, he knows. He keeps his promises.

He even finds a way to affect her lover’s behavior. She cleans up other messes too. She is the master of cleaning up messes, of walking on eggshells, even tap dancing on them. But the bad things keep multiplying and threatening to topple all her safe towers.

She is aware she shouldn’t need towers. But now, all her stuff is here.

A reprieve is granted and she gets another week to avoid the talk, avoid her own bringing on of pain, she has scraped herself till her ions are charged and magnetic, bringing the bad with her every attempt to be safe in a world she feels can only be UNSAFE, dragging around floating space garbage-like woe.

***.

The talk goes worse than she ever thinks it could go. The expected number when thinking about HIM, but an unexpected number for her lover.

This cannot be so and she is angry. She is not still a victim she is wrong and she is angry and the woman is wrong and group is wrong.

She thinks she can tell her lover, to prove them wrong. That his reaction would not be the angry unsure reaction of an abuser. She doesn’t think this man is an abuser. He is the abuser. She means was, she thinks to herself.

Unlucky seventeen.

Concordant

I don’t have trauma,
I have history.
Protection is suffocation,
perfection too hard to keep.
I’ve buried my treasure too deep,
forgotten the veritable weep.
When I regain my true self,
I wont be afraid to use words.

This Is Why We Say Good-Bye

Im not teasing. Im frustrated. Its hard for me tolerate so much negativity and self pity. Im sorry but thats just the person I am. Im sorry youre having a rough life. I cant help much.

My Numb(er)

In group today, I didn’t get there early so seating was awkward. I hate having my back to someone. Finally, I asked to move and could see everyone.

I admitted my number, my weight. The reaction was harsh. Or not expected. You’d think it would have a soothing effect. I’m the worst. You know? But I felt more resented for calling it out.

The session flew and that made me sad. I like how safe I feel there.

 

Wish He Would Too

I guess because I can’t say no. Is that why? my mouth is always full and my eyes always dry…is that why I cry? Why I can’t see the top of a hill from the lowest dark little valley. Is that why I feel it’s so hard to be me? Why I can’t stop medicating my pain, why I can’t sit with it a while, get used to its sting? Because I’m a nicer mom, when I’m sober and a smarter wife and maybe even a better person so I wish I’d stop filling my mouth and my body. And I wish he would too.

Triadic Self

i find myself here again. and fault myself for that.
i know i gone and fucked up again. i fall and all. i crash.
i am aiming for the bottom when I go back to the top.
and start again.
old habits. old friends.
my flaws, like rabbits
darting behind solid objects. i lack progress.
its obvious and true. without starting again.
i disgust my next false start. again and again.
doom. till. death? get busy living and making decisions
accruing debt and getting wet. confront the month
on each bloody turn. get it right. get it now.
is this the same lonely rock in the same puddly spot light?
possibly under a romantic lampost prostrate on a lumpish dias?
my victim doll cutie lips
non-protecting bystander lint dervish silent pretty girl
abuser i am monument to pain verbally sensitive
controlling none

i’m willing to pay for relief

We Are Going To Live ( So I Am Not Alone)

“It’s ok to tell me the good things too.”

The Builder says in one of our bed time conversations. I do make my husband out to be a monster. I do. Because I’m hurting and alone a lot and I don’t want people to think I’m ok. Then, they might leave me, might think I’m ok.

Someone has to be looking for me. Someone has to look OUT for me.

But there have been changes made. Things are better, and I am hopeful.

We are sober! I have a lot more energy and this strange sense of guilt and fear has slid away.

The babies, I feel so much more love for them. I am still craving my poisons, obviously. An addict is always an addict.

I am in group therapy. He is going to meetings.

It’s all emotional hard work, but the good kind. We are going to live, and that’s final.

Inaccessible Diagnosis

She makes me a promise
she knows I need. She knows
I won’t hold her to it
if it’s not meant to be.
 
There, a dancing in the place
where we are dilapidated falling down
houses of a ghosted neighborhood.
In a deserted thicket of forest
 
we run and get out of breath
as we chase each other and play
with our skirts bunched up and scrunched
by childish fingers gripping convention.
 
She knows how I get there.
She knows how I came.
She knows how to get there
and how to remain.
 
In comfy grass, heat bug symphony
notes tickle her nose.
I will join her with clean
feet and leave her dirty.
 
Buried there, by our roots
a treasure of two.
A measure, a brew of all
that is true.