I cannot write a poem about this.
Ā The words are there, but I am not, and the backspace key attracts my fingers until the words are suddenly gone. There is too much to say, but I said it between hiccupped sobs on a sheet-covered couch Iāve slept on too many times to count. She held me and I cried and woke up feeling less than real.
The eruption left no emerging life; just a crevasse wanting for sutures and an emptiness louder than my stomach.
My hands are beginning to shake as I force this down and suddenly control is a few steps away, but I donāt want another scar.
The ones I have ā I donāt want to bleed again.
I told her this through shallow breaths and I wonder if our hearts broke at the same time.
Ā I cannot write a poem about this?
Ā No rhyming words, no pentameter, to make this any prettier. Iāve bitten my nails, pinched my arm, doused my skin in glitter as good as any band aid.
(It doesnāt make me love myself more)
I am not the same girl I was in June ā she is long gone. The missing posters blow away with autumnās approaching breeze and it is okay: She was too happy?
Mermaid hair with faded colors suddenly fills me with dread; chop it all off youāre different now ā it takes everything from me.
Surely Iāve earned this.
Ā I cannot write a poem about this!
Ā Like a broken record I go forward and backward and stand still until my lungs give up; cardioās a bitch. I should stretch more right?
Iāll never be flexible enough to get this right.
I want to touch my curves with tenderness and trace the rivers that stretch in wonder because this is all I have; this is my body.
It should not be a prison.
(this house is one enough)
My bedās an island in unfriendly seas and the sharks are not far out ā āyouāll never make it aloneā they jeer
And mournfully I agree with water in my lungs
Ā I cannot write a poem about thisā¦
It is too much to read; too much to write ā
