allinthen

Áve María, grátia pléna- One. womb to our mother’s shaking hands. my birthright was to love you, she says this family is sugar cane suckers, a generation of plantation house birthing suites passed down like wedding rings, brass and sour tasting marriage to marriage, home is only where i can hold you and you feel safe Two. womb to our mother is weeping again. does she know we can see her this time? it’s not so bad, it’s not so much worse, see, see this one says goodnight and leaves, see this one doesn’t scream see? why is she still crying? Three. womb to our mother, our father. the ideal family

he says ‘age is just a number’ and i know the years in which my body has grown out is shorter than the number of years between us but he looks at me and sees something more than what i am right now, he holds my hand and calls me ‘doll’ and i think if i can pretend to be older, he can pretend his hands have not touched women twice my age i say ‘this is my choice’ even though my mom still has to sign her name next to mine when i ask for birth control and i feel like an adult because i say ‘yes’ and i mean it and he doesn’t question the intent behind it or how i was just learning what sex

dear you, there was that time at the beach. that's when i knew that whatever decisions i made, i would get back to that feeling. it was the throat-closed, closed fist, 'i would count every damn piece of sand if you asked me to' desperation that i hadn't felt since the last person who fucked me over as well as you did. i was the addict and you were the- 'we'll be fine. together, right?'. right. you knew that next morning what i meant when i said together and that scared you, didn't it? i wasn't saying things in an abstract sense that all your other friends liked, i was babbling 'i love you' and trying not to puke and fuck you for saying it ba

I. you and i are a repeated sadness a noose hung on the back of a door asking to be let in, let go II. you tell me i ruin things when you get drunk enough and i think of old temples all the prayers that had slipped from people's lips there wonder if they recognized that even sacred spaces crumble eventually III. you have eyes like icarus and a heart like zeus and your fingertips burn but hera and i both understood the power of staying even when it hurt, even when you are too barren to give anything other than devotion and your tears. we knew the price to pay for loving someone with a heart big enough to take in the world but still fe

i want to send you everything i've written since this is the only way i can communicate with anyone anymore but in this format, it is impossible to hide the ugliness gnawing under my skin you'd see all my open wounds, the places i have been bandaging over and over until they've becoming gaping holes with flimsy plastic coverings i've never written you any beautiful rosy lies i can only say 'my love' when i am being scathing (you are not mine anymore and i'm not cruel enough to call this love) my best works will be a suicide note and the letter i sent you trying to tell you which bits of this were your fault we're both samson in our story,

i was supposed to be apologizing to you but i turned it into poetry which is just as fine but you don't see beauty in words you see the end destination of the sentence. for instance: i am in love with you. i wrote out what that  meant to me three different times today, my angry love, my weeping love, the love i have for you even know that i know it is no good anymore (my expired coupon love) but you see the words in white picket fence stop points. i am [you are the trophy wife, you are his lovely, slightly distant prize and he takes no mistresses but this emotional unavailability may as well fuck you both and get it over with. he tells you th

All of my worst memories stem from getting drunk with you. That should probably tell me something, but these are the only times where I can get you to hold me (the only time where i’m glad you’re taller) so I don’t question the stolen liquor we’re drinking out of chipped coffee cups. Sometimes, I feel like we should do something more exciting than sit on the floor of your room and talk about nonsensical future plans. Yet, it’s still the most exciting thing I’ll do for months so I let you name our nonexistent cat and pretend to enjoy talking about things we'll never do and the cliche name. (another cupful

give me back my pursed lips, crinkled up with my childhood sadness, too red to see straight when you saw my wagging tongue, why was your first thought 'beg' my mouth stays clamped, tongue chewed down so i don’t taste the bitterness you planted there return to me my claws, those sharp talons you replaced with bloody fingernails so i could rip myself apart and ignore how you were slowly emptying me with my own anger and misguided passion affection still feels like a knife that you’re slowly pressing into all my lovers hands i just want my ability to feel without touching your name in the process

I should stop saying 'I love you', even if I mean it. Because I do, I mean it too much. I mean it with every early morning text message I send you and with the soft looks I give  too freely because sometimes I forget that I'm not allowed to feel this way anymore. Some part of me knew what an awful combination we were. I cared about you too much and not enough where it mattered; you wanted parts of me I couldn't give so you settled for the scraps I gave you until I resented you for that too. I knew we were over when our arguments turned from us yelling to you begging and me crying in the arms of people who felt just enough like you to make it

let me be clear: bruises are meant to fade so your fingerprints aren’t still pressed to my hips or my thighs but if i squeeze my eyes hard enough i swear i feel you pressing down hard enough that i’m still choking out ‘no’ two years later that i can’t help but gasp for air around anyone who has your fingers or lets me believe that safety isn’t a compromise for consent: ‘yes’ not grabby hands and cartoons and changing the sheets so my mom doesn’t know how i ashamed i am to be so needy that i can’t even wash off the way you called me ‘beautiful’ like it was forepl