Awakening

In the daylight
his hands no longer creep around door frames.
she moves unchallenged, without fear,
like her eleven year old self
in a white nightgown
skipping barefoot on hardwood floors,
ponytail grazing her suntanned shoulders
carefree and untouched.

But when the sunlight fades
the moon rises
igniting memories she longs to leave behind;
his hand tracing her skin
settling with a fistful of hair
at the back of her head,
his breath in her face
shouting words she could not hear
in the deafening rage

Tonight, fear's shadow lingers
but it is the summer's heat
that wakes her from her slumber.
Her body glistens with sweat,
crickets pierce the hollow night.
She glances at the amaranthine sky,
sees her future refracting
in the light of the waning moon...


Tonight, she'll wash his sins clean.
She walks unclothed,
sand beneath her feet,
toward the alluring waters.
The midnight ocean breeze anoints her skin
as she lies breathless
awaiting the tide.
Her inhibitions sway in the ocean's current
craving an end.

Tonight she is neither deaf nor mute to the wail of the ocean
A thousand photographs
over the years,
Somewhere during it all
she lived, danced, survived.

But not tonight.

Mad Scientist

the parts of her are categorized;
alphabetized for reference,
lining the shelves of a sterile lab
among the white coats and petri dishes
There's frailty, hope, innocence,
misunderstanding, sensitivity, sexuality,
vulnerability,
and lastly, a vile of will;
its color faded to a milky blue
of the crone’s eye.

simmering concoctions,
white lines,
and age old lies.
his angry fists
always impending...
she braced for his blow
strangely comforted in the finality of the violence
which sent the ingredients of her,
the sum of her
to the floor.

jars of her,
formerly labeled and tidy,
crash, ooze and spill,
mixing
reformulating the confusion.
as she bleeds helplessly into herself,
on a cold, cold floor
unnatural and unexplained
a new creation arises.
a clone of the girl
he once knew

she is useless to him now.

Labels

Labels

I am labeled a
little girl
seen and not heard, dressed in pink and pretty smiles
emotions veiled so I cannot rant the truth
and the seething bitch in me is curtailed.

and when you failed to be a parent,
I was labeled CASE #125774

reduced to a number-
the little girl doesn't exist anymore-
the rooms are overflowing
so he fixed me a bed on the floor,
slithered inside me and made me his whore
and when I played nice with wifey, I settled the score
only to be labeled abandoned...
it's printed on every inch of me
as I am passed from one home
to the next
one bed
to the next...

a pivot girl at your request.

Label my body
too this, or not enough that.
I will not be dressed and objectified,
like some paper doll.
Label me Angry… Damaged… Dirty…

I will peel them off, pick at the residue
and dangle them adjacent to the snapping, licking flame
and watch your insecurities and ignorance,
your pride and your prejudices, curl into smoky spider webs

and I will tear through them every time.

Swell

My resistance was swelling
held down
my mind is fading now...
I see it happening-
I've been here before.
Before
Before

My resistance was swelling,
(or at least I think it was... maybe it's rage. I'm a little unclear, or maybe unfocused... how did I get here? was it one drink or two and who the hell are you?)

Held down
by alcohol and calloused hands, rage igniting and inciting while his hands are delighting, creeping here... and there.
I'm feeling heavy and tired of fighting.
I'm almost gone- fleeting, flickering, fleeing- a trick I learned the first time...
My mind is fading now...
teetering, shifting, slipping, drifting-
I've found the intense numbing peace of empty thoughts, but soon they
Escape
me.
Spinning, slight swirling, twirling of the room, my eyes are out of focus,
then
Shattered.
I try to find my way back, but something has changed. It's becoming clearer now, and happening too fast-
Penetrating
I see it happening-
something tells me to disappear, but I don't, I can't- she is familiar to me,
ashamed of trusting, while he's lusting and thrusting...
forward

I've been here before.
not here, but here. The room is nicer this time around.
Once upon a time
this child's bed held stuffed animals that offered comfort
now it overflows with his
emerging emissions emitting the casual omission of permission.
Almost like before,
almost.

Before
There was no alcohol...no numbing peace, no
Escape.
just the cold penetration of his eyes,
his cock,
filling me up four times in six hours
not subsiding, but persisting...
the room whirling and twirling
like Van Gogh's Starry Night...
into unconsciousness

Before
I said I would never let it happen again, but here I am watching
with my own eyes this reprise between my thighs
as he whispers "Ohhh. God.", followed by exhausted sighs.
And this time I'm left with a prize, swelling, protruding, projecting.
And I can't help but think, as long as it's still my decision this sweet derision needs revision-
and just like that
Life
was sucked out of me.

the locked ward

don't touch my hair, she screamed
as my fingers
reached between
the golden waves
and pulled out again
clutching locks
of still tight curls
in my fist,
my mans fist
compared to the size of hers,
knotted and fixed on the sheets


i relax my hand and let it roam clumsily
in awkward lumbering steps
over her paper white skin
it must feel like i'm made of sandpaper to her
my skin looks dirty
my healthy glow seems indecently diseased
in the sterile blindness of white washed walls
and steamed sheets
my throat tastes of silence
the kind that chokes you quietly
because you dare not even splutter and cough
to break it free

and I know that she's not there
that she's away
where none of this can hurt her
looking past the walls
of her tomb into the
tv lined prison walls of her head
where the reality of death blasts out
like a sing a long chorus
the whole audience can join in
where the final credits
aren't really that final
but just a break between
two episodes