a month to live

I sit here and wonder how we found ourselves here
How did two intelligent, but wounded people
With incredibly elaborate defense mechanisms
 Convince each other
To let the other in
a little more than anyone before
As I hold you the world just feels right
I feel I can simply exist
peacefully
I never really thought that possible
And yet there’s this passion and energy
That courses through us
I feel alive and awake
There is perfection in the complex simplicity
Of these moments
We dare to smuggle away
But there’s a time limit here
A ticking clock
That’s becoming a little harder to ignore
Each day spent
Is a day lost from what could be
Maybe that’s it
Maybe this thing between us
Is what happens
When two dark, cynical romantics
Who live on tales of tragic star crossed lovers
Who hold onto the beauty in the darkness and pain
Who firmly fear settling for safety and the ordinary
Are given but a month to really live

I feel broken
trapped
 by memories
of things
that should never have been.
How do I explain
my inability
to be free?
how do I explain
when I still have
trouble accepting
the reality
of what has been?
how do I explain
being shaken
and battered
at the age of 5
for an act of self-love?
how do I explain
vague memories
the lack of memories of 6 or 7
that first landed me
in therapy
that landed me in doctors' offices
going through
examinations that felt like rape
that to this day make me afraid
to trust?
how do I explain
being threatened with rape
if I spoke out
against harassment at 12
trapped by the belief
that I was too ugly to be believed?
The abuse I experienced at the hands
Of the first person I dared to love
How do I explain any of the dozens
of reasons that I freeze
when all I want
all I want
is to go further
with you

screaming

I know you see my physical body

standing next to you
but I'm really a thousand miles away

 in my head
screaming to the point of exhaustion
screaming with all my being
and all of my soul
...screaming

screaming

deafeningly silently
if only you dare meet my eyes
and hear

Picasso's Blue Nude

Picasso's Blue Nude

How many times

Have I pulled knees to chest
To fight out the pain
And hold myself together
How many times
Have I been the only one
To give myself the hug
I so desperately needed
 
And yet in silent witness
I watch your bare back
Sorrow filled curves
Fade into the darkness
Of this night
How simply
How nakedly
Honestly
You portray
My own feelings
For the world to see

I am my own other

There’s all this talk of us

And them
Those in the circle
And those deemed out
On the other side
The others
It seems most think
We are in direct competition
With these others
Trying to prove ourselves better
More worthy
Superior
Trying to prove that the group we belong to
Is the one we want to be part of
For we’d be stupid
To be part of the other
And though I am pulled into
The inner circles of many teams
I still feel to be on the outside
Of us
Because I don’t think
Those not here
Are a them
The others I beat down
Try to build myself up
By proving myself more worthy
Better
Superior to
Is me
 Try to build myself up
while destroying myself
The only person on the planet
Whose value I doubt
Whose worth I question
Who I want to prove to be better than
Is me
I’m my own other
Which makes it impossible to win
Although
Perhaps
The wise thing
Would be to stop playing this crazy game