Aeon

i starved my soul 

while i watched your ego 

grow fat off the sustenance 

you never shared. 

You fed until only 

my gaunt shell remained. 

Bones & skin, 

sucked clean, 

picked dry;  

a scant shadow 

of the subsistence

i once held.  

You stripped me clean 

of the parts of me 

that were once

beautiful & full. 

*****

You spoke the words 

obey

&

submit

as demands; 

sharp as needles - 

piercing,

delving into flesh & skin. 

Pain inflicting pinpricks, 

drawing blood

like puddles, 

waterfalls; 

tiny rivers flowing 

from my veins.

How you wished those words would cut; 

leaving gouges, holes, 

empty caverns. 

Space to place chip trackers

for your pleasure. 

How you loved to watch my every move. 

I’ll make you better

you ensured. 

You’re so broken on your own.

*****

The words he spoke conjured into being 

a fog of uncertainty; 

thick & flammable. 

That once appealing spark -

his intentional design. 

A malicious ignition

i was lead to believe was malignant, 

just, 

true.  

The fog turned smoke, 

consumed & swallowed, 

lapping at my consciousness, 

identity lost in my mind. 

Unfamiliar, foreign, strange - 

impossible to navigate. 

It was entrapment in my headspace. 

He spoke away my defenses, 

& my doe-like reliance 

kept me trembling, 

small & unsure 

in the raging forest of fire. 

An arson carefully crafted. 

How sickeningly deceptive when the arsonist 

masquerades as the hero. 

*****

i should have realized 

that the nights you 

slept the soundest 

were the nights 

i was ripping myself apart 

with racking sobs, 

soaking the pillow 

right next to you. 

It was your lullaby 

& you knew precisely 

how to get me to sing. 

*****

The words that i never spoke, 

the shimmers of doubt, 

a halo type of conscience, 

too hard to easily access, 

yet still speaking to me; 

indistinguishable - 

a distant, muffled echo, 

& an urge to get away...

these were the parts of my life 

that drove me to madness. 

Like freedom calling my name, 

a muffled scream from the back of my brain, 

drowned by the overstimulation 

of crafted lies that my life would be made better.

i was trapped in a deep unending hollow, 

like a soul gone absent, 

tiptoeing across a tightrope thin lifeline, 

an eggshell fragile form of escape. 

i was left balancing on the edge of insanity

just trying not to fall in

while you continued to push me, 

hoping that i would.

*****

When I met you, 

you overwhelmed my senses. 

Out of words,

consumed by overflowing emotions,

i felt in color. 

i sensed you as a deep, pulsating red - 

shifting, flowing, ebbing -  

like a watercolor puddle in my mind. 

The artist adding more vibrancy,

drop by drop until the piece was saturated 

& the ripples no longer emanated obscuration. 

The water stilled 

& reality came into view. 

i thought that red meant love. 

It was too late before i realized

i was just a bull 

charging at a flag. 

*****

i thought the fireflies were fun, 

nostalgia of chasing, easy capture; 

a gentle care in the degradation of a mason jar, 

holes created out of affection. 

They appeared like sparkles across my vision, 

gilded & wild, 

yet fragile & dependent. 

I used to marvel as they glowed, 

tiny flares of beauty 

like cool fire against my skin. 

Maybe that nostalgia, 

a longing for lost memories, 

turned me too much like those fireflies.

Easily captured, fragile, dependent. 

Were you surprised when my fire started to burn? 

*****

Do you feel the scars 

as your fingers trace over my shoulder blades? 

It was you who clipped my wings 

to bone & raw flesh. 

Does the blood drip down your fingers 

from the wounds you left there?

Can i trust that you’ll caress me as i regenerate? 

Bear some burden of the weight 

pressed down upon me. 

Outgrowing you births an exhaustion; 

an infinite heft.

But you just relish in the holes. 

Make them deeper. 

Pry them wider. 

Can’t you see the feathers drop around me? 

Slivers of your doing.

New growth - stilted & painful. 

Soft down, grown through twisted tissue & scabs 

for you to pluck it all away

with your deception that this time

would be soft, redeeming, 

different.

Oh, didn’t you know? 

A phoenix grows stronger, 

once she has made the decision to combust. 

*****

I wondered why I kept finding myself 

sobbing on the kitchen floor; 

warm tears spilling on chilled hardwood, 

pooling in channels & seeping under boards. 

They’re still a little warped, 

the liquid afront softened their hardness.

The lifted edge still left - 

hardened again, a callus blister remaining

after the floods receded -

a reminder that pricks my toes 

& snaps at wool fibers of socks of friends. 

How many times it took me to realize 

that this ritual was comforting, 

emotional expulsion like hot liquid defeat

& removal of all the cells once damaged 

by your presence.

But also because the coldness

felt a lot like your touch

& it took time to regenerate 

to a form that no longer needed it.

*****

Nostalgia is a lying whore

who sits in waiting in the hollow of my clavicle

& while her scant presence is undetectable 

to the human eye, her weight is heavy. 

She lays in waiting until the perfect moment 

where she can cloud my vision

with rose colored images, altered from the past 

& prick my heart with pangs of feelings -

manufactured; 

woven from her silky lies. 

Nostalgia is a whore 

who whispers counterfeit voices in my ear

repeating, repeating, repeating 

fragmented truths in the hope

that she can bask in the glow of 

her arson. 

She tangles her taloned claws in my hair 

& breathes melodies down my neck. 

A siren luring victims  

into tampered thought by thought 

until I’m driven mad by memories 

non-existent. 

Nostalgia is a whore.

*****

Who are you to masquerade 

in your paper crown 

demanding self importance? 

Your self-righteous screams 

fall on deaf ears. 

Your pawns have all left.

I used to see you as a king, 

an identity demanded - 

your desire for a kingdom 

blinding you to the destruction in your wake. 

A primal conquest, 

fueled by your hunger to conquer. 

But you’re just a little boy, 

tantruming because his gifts weren’t good enough 

& his guests lacked plenty. 

Turn yourself down, sir. 

Your reign has ended. 

I’ve usurped you in my own mind. 

*****

The memory of you 

has been reduced to a scent: 

cheap beer, 

wet dog,

flooded basement,

gasoline. 

In every dive bar I breathe in your fumes

& even though you aren’t there, 

your existence clings to every 

sorrow-filled hole I walk into. 

I guess the joke is on you 

that it no longer makes me miss you. 

That smell no longer pierces my soul. 

It’s a reminder of what I no longer need. 

It’s a victory cry, an anthem 

of what I am becoming. 

*****

It’s like waking up. 

One day you notice 

that the colors are a little brighter, 

shapes a little clearer 

& the words that seemed okay before 

resonate at a frequency

that shakes you to your core. 

The part of me that awoke 

was a part I thought I lacked. 

You can call it courage, 

or bravery. 

Really it’s just the becoming 

of “me.”