The Words I Write

I have a small white scar, years later, from where it rubbed sore into my skin.

There is still blood seeped into it, sitting in a box even now. I held on to it.

My devotion. Scarring myself, splitting flesh and weeping blood. A whispered command, tripping over myself to follow.

She never asked for the hair tie back. Never mentioned it again, not in the weeks I wore it or the months after I took it off.

Prostrating myself at the feet of someone who isn’t looking.

Waiting for attention to fall on me again and hoping I had done it right this time.

I can see the end coming and hopefully it doesn’t tear it out at the roots. Hopefully a controlled burn not a wildfire. Hopefully I still come out with some part of me intact.

The artist saying: “Trust me

Let me take you apart piece by piece until the sum can’t be seen

Let me crack you open, see what’s hidden in the deep

I’ll deconstruct every bit of you to raw materials

I’ll break you down to something easy to digest

Let me look at you so I can start putting you back together

Let me build you up, reconstructing you in light

We’ll find the truth of you and smear it across your skin

We’ll put you back together in a way newborn

Let me make you of honesty

Let me show you to the world as you are in my eyes

I’ll show them the beauty I see in you

I’ll show you how wonderful you are”

And now it’s five years later and your face in staring back into mine. Brown eyes short hair and a name on your lips I can’t place anymore. A hand rakes down my skin and I don’t know who it belongs to. We whisper words they would cry at and laugh. I thought you were gone. I thought I was done missing you. You weren’t supposed to haunt me anymore.

Five years and I can’t picture your face but my skin remembers the flash of the camera and I feel your words casting over me. I wanted to feel loved so I fell and hoped the crash would feel like comfort. You stopped following me and I can see you on every corner if I look hard enough.

Your face in every memory and dark hair dark eyes we were supposed to stay soft. A sorry for things we both wish had been left unsaid but they weren’t and it’s been years and I still wince if I’m not careful of the angles. You walk by and I smile if I can pretend the current isn’t there and you are swimming through the tapes like they are nothing.

Taller now and you are so much older and I wish I had been wise enough to walk away. Hands hot on my waist and I want to scream so I laugh and laugh as if the blood will wash away. The truck rumbles and I am convinced you are kind. My skin can not feel where you touched me if you touched me if it happened when I wanted to go home.

Red streaming over your shoulder and I wish I had gotten to touch it at some point. You can’t see me and you were trying so hard to be seen. Light eyes heavy with something dark I couldn’t have helped carry if I tried. Four years and I still can’t say who was supposed to be sorry and I am.

Your face is staring into mine blue eyes too bright to look into. I never thought I would be back here after all this time and I never thought it would be your face I see. Hands too big too soft and I was never supposed to have to walk away. My words were never loud enough and silence says nothing when no one knows how to listen you were supposed to be the one that listened.

I could let flame catch the edges, taking them into the air. The ashes would scatter far and wide where others can see. I could let them rip from my throat until they hear me. They would know what has gone as dark becomes light and the empty is freed. I would let them fly until the heavy is out. Hands holding what they put inside and it would feel justified. I could let them burn in a wildfire haze, cleansing me like tears never could. It would be so bright they couldn’t hide.

You were a wild child until the end. The worst influence, barreling in at the right time. You grabbed my hand and we ran into the flames together.

You had a good soul. Bruised and tender after it all but still good. You reached in to me and I wanted to be something tender with you.

You blew smoke in my face and I relished the burn in my lungs. An addiction that still haunts me. One I can’t think about without thinking of you.

You made my heart race. I wasn’t supposed to want you and you broke the rules to make me. I was gone for you from the first touch backstage.

You burned me because you had been burned. I hold no blame for either of us, I had been burned before. My fire touched you and I wish I could take it back now.

You have a permeant place in my heart. It aches endlessly but it is so warm. I do not regret carving into it for you; I would not change having you.

You birthed my bad habits from yours and they hurt so sweet. Risking it all for a rush we couldn’t ignore and I can’t ever seem to feel the same. For you I gave up sweetness and you made me feel alive.

You drank away your demons and now I drink away mine. A lesson in trouble I can’t forget. I drink for you and for all the things we meant to share.

Sharks circling before I get wet and yet

What if it’s fins or razor blades

When up and down look the same sometimes it’s better if you’re the one to jump

In first

What if you weren’t the first

When you had been bleeding for months and they ripped the bandages away

Is it your fault when the blood hits the waves

After months of aching

When the pain only gets stronger when you remove the blade

Sometimes you can’t tell whose hands you’re holding

And whose are holding your neck

What if your net was making you scream

When it falls away you can splash or burn

Only one still feels like being held

You can think a shark a dolphin if you only look once

Even if you know the true shape all the same

Whose fault is it when the waters turn red

What if you can see the boat going under

Is it suicide to fall into the arms of murder

When it’s hurting alone or being hurt sometimes it’s worth not being lonely

So the fins are circling

And I am already bleeding into the waves

Can you blame me for falling in

Dear heartbreak can you remember your confession? It’s been years and I can still feel the fear at your feelings. Your words felt like nails in my hands even as they brought salvation. My tongue burned with unholy fire and I felt you become my undoing. Our summer love was soft and sweet and secret. Do you remember my mother’s words of warning even as your parents couldn’t know? Has scripture ever made you so afraid? Our hands found each other in darkness and you lead me through the valley more times than I can count. We shared stolen kisses while Disney played and prayed your father wouldn’t peek in. Do you wish we had waited? Could you tell the secrets made me a sacrifice? You broke my heart in the fall and it felt like Gods wrath had found me. Months of dancing crashing down and I worshiped you through it all. For I so loved you that I gave my everything and I perished for you to be everlasting.

I say it like a joke. I let the words roll off my tongue like it’s easy when I have to force them out with my breath. I say that I can’t tell them now, that I’m saving it for when they ask on their own. I tell them that we can play truth or dare and I will finally have an answer. I say I have found my deepest darkest secret and I’m not saying I can tell them it.

When I tell them I found it I’m saying I’ll let them know someday. I’m saying that my walls are coming down slowly but just not yet. I can see it’s a darkness now and not a light so please wait for me. Please wait until I can put the darkness where you can see. Please wait until I can split myself open and tear it out for you because I am still healing from the times parts of me were stolen. I have found my deepest darkest secret so let me find how to share it with you.

My deepest darkest secret was not something I had known because I couldn’t see that it was deep or dark, only that it was secret. I couldn’t see how far down I had locked it away until I felt safe enough to explore again. I can only find it now because it’s no longer mixed in with everything else. It’s the deepest and darkest only because you have let me shine light on the others. For every thing I find I have not yet told you, a hundred layers have already been peeled away. We are getting to the core of me. I am finding it hard to let go.

There is no carefully prepared expression or creases of worry. It is soft. It is beautiful.

I let myself be selfish for a moment, drinking in this sight just for me. When you wake, there will be a second of gentle bliss before the weight of it all settles in. I wish I could hold you here, give you a taste of what you feel now. But your eyes will open and this will disappear, so I settle in what I have for now.

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Of course it’s wasn’t my choice but you were supposed to stick around. Maybe not for me but for everyone else. You were supposed to make it past 20. You were supposed to become a star. You were not supposed to be right. Not about this. What right do you have, coming back around to haunt me now? What right do you have to be haunting me even now?

Still I’m unsure of mourning you. Didn’t I forfeit that many months before? Didn’t I mourn you once when the love between us faded? But I loved you and I never stopped loving you, not completely. You left me and I mourned you once. Do I get to mourn you again? Do I have the right anymore? Why are you still here.

You’re still hurting me and I’m happy here. This wouldn’t have happened if you had stuck around. But you left. So why are you back? I already see you everywhere I go. I see you in them. It makes it hurt to love them some days. To hear their voices repeat the same Vines you used to quote daily. To watch them love all the same things you did. How can I move on when you are haunting everything I do? When you keep coming back? Don’t I get to start breathing again without you stealing it away from me?