I tried to love you with everything I had.
My love stirred up the darkness,
Shined a light and
Woke up your demons..
They didn't want love from me..
And one day I realized
Its because they wanted love
From you.

My inner child shrieks and cries violently
As if we’re in a car that’s going off the cliff.
I sob as all the words I can tell her are,
“If this ends,
All the pain ends today as well.”

What's the fear that feeds the ink?

Who holds the censor pen?

Blacking out lines before they're uttered?

It's my dad, calling my mom "dramatic".

It's my mom, hurt in her eyes, saying "how could you". When I didn't mean to, or I didn't know, or I didn't properly gauge her reaction in advance.

It's online misunderstandings, always assuming the worst intentions: that I'm bad, or bigoted

That I'm dumb, uneducated or boring, redundant or mean.

It's previous partners and broken hearts

When what I couldn't give was mistaken with cold-heartedness, or stinginess or uncaring.


The good news

The truly good news

Is that I am non of those things

And I'm watching, as I speak

I'm watching that pen run out of ink

With long ash blonde hair
freckles dotting my face and shoulders
rosy lips and cheeks from the sun
I am a young girl again
Laying on the Atlantic ocean shore
my back pressing into the soft sand
Letting the waves roll over me
laughing hysterically
as the salt water tickles my tummy
and I plug my nose

It was at this age I smiled cheek to cheek
without worrying about the layout of my teeth
I didn’t consider myself lonely
I had quite a lot of fun with my imagination
Not yet the age where I was preoccupied
with image or my emotions
Just living like the waves crashing over me

i’d really love to thank her
for being so, so strong.
for not taking our life
when everything was wrong.
i don’t know how she did it,
the flashbacks paralyze me still.
must have been nothing
less than strength of will.
even sometimes now
i’d really like to back out
but i hear that small girl screaming,
“we can’t just give up now!”