unfurl my past devotions
like clues on a table,
scrutinize the corpse’s life,
ask about her type
and hear the larvae gossip
“light-eyed arsonists”
interrogate the dry-eyed suspects
and ask them why they spoke in bullets,
why they cannonballed into her chest,
and how they raised a warzone
from a blooming garden.
detective, if i had known it’d end like this,
with me facedown in a shabby bed
and my ghost wailing from the roof
for justice (or revenge),
while watching the world continue to spin
despite how violently i departed from it,
i’d like to think
i would’ve ignored the text messages,
i would’ve kept walking past
—the wraith of my heartbreak
haunting me each time
i dare considered a third
or fourth chance.
detective, can’t you understand?
they strike me like matches
against sandpaper
and wonder why the city burns
and my inner child seethes.
i was just a spark they toyed with,
but i love men who point
their guilty fingers,
and it’s always at me.
they could never be blamed
for the forest fire,
for the body in a coffin
or the ashes in an urn,
an overdose in a junkyard
or one more dead girl.
Tag: abuse
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one more dead girl
abuse, anxiety, death, depression, grief, heartbreak, life, love, love poem, love poems, love poetry, melancholygalaxies, poem, poems, poetry, quote, relationships, sad, sad poetry, trauma, writing
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your father didn’t tell you
your father didn’t show you how to cry. it doesn’t have to be private and it doesn’t have to be quiet. you can tremble and sob, and i can hold your quivering hands when you want to punch them through bare walls. you can talk and talk. or you can say nothing, nothing at all.
your father didn’t teach you how to love; it doesn’t have to be booming voices and blood. you can be love poems and ambient songs. you can color your nails seafoam and fix a hundred cars. you can pour your insides at my planted feet and we’ll watch as a brand new you grows—your courage blooming.
your father didn’t tell you that men could be beautiful like posies—beautiful in your words and actions, beautiful in what you create, in your Sunday-morning smile, in your strength.
your father forgot to tell you that strength comes in many shades, not just bottled-up blue and scarlet rage. it can be patient pink and passionate peach, loyal lavender and gentle green.
your father should’ve told you, you don’t have to be anything. you can rise like the sun and descend like it. you can crumble like clay in my arms when life is too tough to take. you can be right, you can be wrong. you can be sometimes happy and sometimes sad. you can learn from your mistakes and you can tell me about your dad—about how he was a black cloud on a day already bad. you can confess how you’re terrified to become him, how you want to be different. tell me how your heart feels broken and we’ll figure out ways to mend it. your heart’s safe here, i promise.
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a kiss without consent
a kiss without consent
is not a kiss you have to count
when a friend asks if you recall your first
and they ask how it felt.
a kiss that left an aftertaste
of shame and regret, like a scar,
is not a kiss at all
if it feels like you’re marred.
i beg a God who i often resent
that you learn how to kiss clean lips
without reproaching your own
for the time someone’s unwanted tongue
slipped through your mouth,
like a thief slinks through a home,
despite how many times you said no,
no, no, no.
abuse, anxiety, depression, melancholygalaxies, poem, poems, poetry, quote, sad, sad poetry, trauma, writing
