Committed to Memory

I’m not usually a “trigger warning” person, but this references abuse pretty specifically so read with caution if you have a hard time with domestic violence and things of that nature.

 

He appeared again in my dreams
speaking through my current lover, his antithesis
a phantom dimming the gaslights
and in unconscious moments
confirming sinking feelings
that haunt me when awake.

And I bury them deeper
further down with every hour
every day, my hand
on the shovel unearthing
layer after layer of dirty
laundry, from a growing list of things
unclean.
He made me feel filthy;
tarnished like second place metal.

Fuck your chicken soup,
I need lava soap for the soul
and skin I don’t want to crawl out of
every time someone looks like him
looks at me like him
walks, laughs, crosses the street
smokes a cigarette, gives a hug,
dismisses an opinion, gets too drunk,
says, “I was blacked out, how
do I know that even happened?,”
puts their hands around my neck,
my head into a wall,
and flashes through my memories
taking me back to somewhere
I never wanted to go in the first place
a broken home and a sick nostalgia
the blurred lines of consent transitioning
from dream to nightmare.

Questionable Decisions

She sat up, an apparition
on the edge of my bed and rose
white, wispy, semi-transparent
hot breath on a January morning
where everything begins again
before fading away
into microscopic droplets.
She disappeared into the air
through the floor of my apartment
deep under the soil beneath,
returned to being
such a part of everything
that I can no longer separate her
from the rest of it
though I’m not sure
if I’ve ever been able to
for more than an evening.

I think she likes being that way
an indiscernible and indefinite lover
choosing the indiscriminate, so far removed
from feeling anything
as to get a leg up on pain.

And in the brief moment
after her departure
I’m left with an ache
both for more and less
which is all she’s ever claimed to offer me.

Redundant Mulch

Another Reddit writing prompt, albeit in poetic form which I do more frequently. I don’t know how I feel about this one.

[WP]”It’s no use watering dead flowers”
by inWritingPrompts

For as long as I care to remember
I’ve tended this garden
of ours, at one time
overgrown with daffodils
orchids, lilies and roses.
I’ve watched the sun
on every petal,
painting them warm
after we sowed the seeds
together, the product of our labor
exploding into radiance every spring.

But for a long time, now
it’s just been
me, and the flowers
are one with the mulch.

I guess I must have forgotten
even hope can be false
as I was mixing it into the soil.

Not Being a Dick About It

Another writing prompt musing.

[WP] Most people drink to forget. You drink to remember.
byu/siartha inWritingPrompts

My mother is a drunk.

She called me last week to apologize, again, for that time ten years ago she told me to kill myself. Well, not so much as told me, but agreed when I asked her if that’s what she wanted. I think, at this point, she’s just happy when I decide to call her back.

You see, I told myself I’d write fiction, but I can’t even write about alcohol without her face popping up. So I’m gonna have to meet you halfway on the falsehoods. Life is often easier in half-truths; all of that reality at once could kill you, too many lies much the same.

You see, her mother told her the same thing she told me.

Now I strive to be kind, generally speaking, but I got a vicious mean streak. I can feel it lying dormant under the surface. I just bury it, deeper and deeper, until one day I open my mouth and her voice comes out.

“Can you please serve a purpose?”

I don’t drink much, not like her. But when I do, it helps me remember what it’s like to be someone who’s suffered so much that they can’t go one night sober.

It helps me remember how to forgive.

And sometimes, to pick up the phone.

Habitually Restless

You can only love like you’ve never been hurt once.

The rest, that’s something else.
And it’s healthier, hopefully
and it’s rational, but it leaves
your mouth without saliva
and a thirsty, calloused heart
as you’ve now learned
to measure the dosage
no risk of pain
or much of pleasure, just enough
to keep you hanging on
little loves, three times daily
and never all at once
after the first few months

and you hate
this flattened passion
the remains of it
as it once was
without a basis
for comparison, uncharted
like an island
where you discovered their palms
their caves, their waterfalls
their piranhas and venomous snakes.

When your map is complete,
and the security is suffocating,

you start building sails for fun.

L is For the Way You Deal With Me

I don’t write much about the clumsiest of four letter words.
For me, its usage is typically an exercise in being
hyperbolic – it trips off my tongue like Xanax
in a flailing acrobat, flopping awkward toward its target and spreading
both arms wide like a drunk hug, never knowing
if it’s through sincerity, anxiety, or societal expectation
that I’ve swallowed this choking hazard.
But I’m learning, or relearning, as it were, what it means.
My new definition is self-taught, a tightrope anchored between
my own self-doubt and the patience of this teacher’s assistant
while I remember how to carry myself and engage
in a series of endless revisions.

Catalogue Entries (Revision of No Contest)

It’s the best
when the light from the ceiling fan
hits your shoulder blades like sand dunes
gilding your mild tan, smooth skin
over muscle and dashed
with the occasional sunspot I hope
never becomes cancerous.

It’s the best
when I tell you a joke
about Hellen Keller
reading a basketball for twenty minutes
and in your infinite wholesomeness, you
entertain the possibilities
of spherical braille.

It’s the best
when I ask if you’ll still like me
if I’m dying, to which you say
of course
so I say okay what if I’m not dying
what if I’m just a little bit I don’t know
maimed
and you reassure me that yes, even
if I were recovering from a coma,
you would still be there
and trust me, the recovery is harder
than the deep, indefinite sleep.

And if I were to die, get maimed, be comatose
I trust in your honesty when you say
you’d adopt my ferret –
you’re really the only person
he would want to live with,
and in that notion, I second him
while I add to my collection,
categorizing memories and polishing moments in time
of all the ways that you and I
are improved through being us.

No Contest

It’s the best
when the light from the ceiling fan
hits your shoulder blades like sand dunes
gilding your mild tan, smooth skin
over muscle and dashed
with the occasional sunspot I hope
never becomes cancerous.

It’s the best
when I tell you a joke
about Hellen Keller reading a basketball
for twenty minutes
and you,
in your infinite wholesomeness,
entertain the possibilities of
spherical braille.

It’s the best
when I ask if you’ll still like me
if I’m dying, to which you say
of course
so I say okay what if I’m not dying
what if I’m just a little bit I don’t know
maimed
and you reassure me that yes, even
if I were recovering from a coma,
you would still be there.

It’s the best
when the only way to write about this
is to capture a series of moments,
bathe myself in clichés,
because the best does not exist,
it is not a contest, merely a collection
of all the ways that you and I are improved
through being us.