Hate Speech

Stranger conversations have been overheard by
Passersby
But hearing those words
Uttered into the night
Sent a bolt straight down
My spine

That such darkness can clog
The human heart
Is no great wonder
To me

But to be
The unintended recipient
Of such fleeting
Enmity
Is something no amount
Of preparedness can
Cushion

Just as no amount of
Armor
Can safeguard a soul’s fragility
From being
Publicly flogged by an
Invisible whip

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Like November

You were dark
like a crisp November day
cold and beautiful and confident
touching me from the inside out
and oh how good it felt to have you in my head
to hear your voice call me baby
to hold your icy hands
knowing this could not last forever
but you were never meant to be permanent

Temporary

Temporary;
Quick and painful
like the way you went from
holding my hand to
holding my throat
like the instant joy and
sadness you could make me
feel
turning me on
and off like a light switch
like the hole
your absence punched into
my heart
when I only wanted
your presence
and all that I had ever felt
came bursting through the flood gates

Temporary;
Short and sweet
like the way your lips wrote
love poems on my
neck and left me
breathless
like the sound of your
tired voice calling
me ‘baby’
like the fire you
lit in my
heart that tried to
keep me warm

Temporary;
Like the way you
said you loved me
that never had
me convinced

Your Pain Isn’t Beautiful

Your pain isn’t beautiful.

It’s a cankerous sore that

demands to be felt

that opens old wounds

and litters new dreams

until your only focus becomes

the suffocating pain

that consumes your being.

Your pain is toxic.

Your pain is a deadly cancer

and romanticizing your sadness

will never make it go

away.

Thoughts before I drift off to sleep

I lay here
wishing this sheet
wrapped around me were
your arms
and this deafening
silence was filled
with the gentle caress
of your breath
yet all I am left
with is this paralyzing
wave of emptiness
and the
willingness
to find
comfort in this
relentless instability

A Weight of its Own

I used to feel an aching sorrow
in my chest
as if every mistake I had ever
made had been piled on top
of me

and although I have since been
relieved of that weight
I do no feel light
I do not feel free
Like a soaring bird heading
to find warmth

all I feel is anticipation
for a journey to a
destination I am still
uncertain of
and that is a weight
of its own

Moving On

I constantly reopen old wounds
hoping that maybe they won’t hurt as much this time
hoping that maybe I really have moved on
but perhaps I’ll never “move on”
as much as become accustomed to it
too well acquainted with the cuts you
left on me
too familiar with this painful
instability
to ever let them fully heal

Red

I am red,
like an ambitious flame,
angry and rising
and my voice echoes
loudly,
demanding to be
heard over the
endless whispers and
incessant cries
that fill the void in my mind.
I am fire,
like the crackling of burning wood and
long forgotten letters.
I am heartbreak,
I am passion,
I am rage,
and I tear the world apart
with my pen.

On Beginnings

I like beginnings,
beginnings of books and movies,
of life stages and relationships.
There is nothing so final and concrete
about beginnings.
In the beginning,
everything is new,
a great unknown we try
to understand with excitement
and fear.
But endings,
endings are filled with too
much pain and often regret.
At least one can remain
temporarily ignorant in the
beginning.
That is what I miss the most,
not knowing how it ends.

This is not how it ends

It starts with a tear
a gut-wrenching heartbroken sob
that forces my whole body to tremor
sweating with anxiety and pitiless emotions
which sends me head first into what
my therapist calls a “spiral of doom”

Degradation and self-deprecation
consume my being
and I can only think of how
lonely I feel or how
I’m not being loved or
fucked (in the more pleasurable sense)
or how the only person who ever
cared for me threw my love
away

But perhaps that’s why it hurts
to know my efforts will
always be greater
my love will always be fuller
than anything anyone can
offer me