What if things weren’t so perfect

 

What if things weren’t so perfect
and your jeans were a little wash-faded
or your bed was left unmade just for a day
and your skin was allowed its flaws
your teeth its little asymmetries.

Among Blossoms

 Summer haze, summer gaze, summer daze; Snuck
back to me on unexpected days, in unexpected ways,
It lingers still, what was once there, twice there,

You'll Think You Forgot

 You'll think you forgot
how it felt once upon a time
to feel touch unwanted
masked as summer rain
droplets of love tainted 
by raw discontent

You'll think you forgot
how it felt once upon a time
to live through it
to remember it again and again
years later when you think it won't
it will still affect you more than you accept

You'll think you forgot
but forgetting is not how this works
time may blur the image
but the feeling will always remain
devastated, cold, raw ache deep in your chest
that it happened and could happen again

But be gentle with yourself
for wherever you may be
and whatever whoever may say
it will never have been your fault
but the fault of the one creating flaws
destroying hope and harming that

which should never be harmed.

Say No, Love, Maybe They'll Listen One Day

 Say no, love. Maybe one day they'll listen.

---

Or maybe not - maybe they'll ask again and again until you give in. 
Coercion. Say no, Love. One day, maybe one day the feeling may fade, that you said no and they never listened - and now you aren't sure - and now you wonder. Is it all in your head?
Did you make it up to feel something - but is this something you really wish to feel?

Lie there, quiet. Maybe then it will all end.

Maybe it will never end - a loop. It plays on repeat in your mind year after year. Sometimes you remember in the middle of the day - sometimes you have to leave the room when all these perfect strangers joke about it.

They'll joke about it, those who experienced no such thing.

Oh, how they joke, but they've never felt the full weight of a man on top of them. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to look, so you close your eyes.

If you're lucky, he'll turn you around, so all you see is everything except him. But he's still there, right there, right behind your back. And you'll be scared, but you think, just for a moment, that next time, if you say no again, he won't ask and ask and ask again until you give in and you lie there like a dead fish, motionless, soundless, coerced. 

And then maybe there's a next time. 

Or multiple times.

Cold hands. Warm room.

Spinning.

The room spins, love, if you think about it. Your vision will blur again, but not from tears, nor fear - he isn't here anymore after all. You don't talk anymore. You don't talk and you won't tell anyone what happened because you know your side of the story is the side they don't want to hear.

But what were you wearing? Oh, my heart on my sleeve. 

And it was fine - only now it bleeds.

You took a beautiful thing and tainted it with distress - so listen when she says no. 
Youth is no excuse here.

You should have known better - or not. This one's not up for debate.

There are no blurred lines. Not with 'No'. Loud, quiet, repeated, resigned.

"But I only asked again to see if you've changed your mind."

But you only asked again until I had to change my mind.

Say no, love.

Even if he doesn't listen.

How sick I feel just thinking of it, even as the years go by - my fingers cold, the room so warm, and my stomach in knots for all the no's you did not acknowledge. The don't's, the don't want to's. 
Asked until I gave in, motionless, soundless, the weight of a body heavy upon mine.

The weight of a body heavy upon mine.

The weight of a body heavy upon mine that I did not want there.

That I did not want there.

And as the years go by.

And as the years go by it gets hazy in my mind - but I wrote it all down so it remains exactly as it happened back then - never shared - but unchanging so if I decide to read it again one day I will know if I lied. But I will never read it again, I know, because it plays in my mind still and that is enough.

I wish it would stop, but it never stops.

Not as the days go by.

Not as the years go by.

I was talking about you some time ago to someone I know - I told her what you did, no labels, no accusations. Just what happened - she was the first to say it, right to my face and the world, maybe it did end. Just a little bit.

What you did.

It wasn't fair.

I trusted you and you turned that trust into something you can never get back.

Say no, Love. Maybe one day they'll listen.

And, well, if they don't, then it was rape.

It was always rape.

 

Where the End Begins

 This is where the end begins;

When I let my pen spill ink of what I truly think
Of you, of us, of everything.
Apocalyptic, cathartic yet gentle winds
That do whisper of us to the universe;
And it must know, the purity, the mess,
These ancient texts of who we are, who we were.

Memory-Morgue

 

Cold it is down here in the morgue
Of all my memories long gone by
With nothing left but their clouded image
Deep within in my mind.

09122003

I was born holding my father's dying hand
Knew early on that the dead don't wake
Not after the wake
Nor after daybreak
Though day after day I did believe
Through the clouds of grey
He did look down upon me