I said poetry was my lifeblood and it very much still is
I said I give birth to poems, the only children I’ll ever have
I hung onto my own words-
And hung myself
I sacrificed myself for my children.
(November 6, 2022)
Consumption
I want it to rush with a flowingness
I don’t want to be scared
Of something I’m not even sure is real
But when I feel it it’s real
When I feel it it’s a cascade, it’s a tidal wave
I am taken,
I am drifted
I am drowned
I am drowning in the possibility of a future
Either way it hurts.
There’s danger in abundance
When you come from scarcity it feels threatening to know when your next loving will be.
I’m not sure I can love in a way that does not consume me.
Can anyone?
Would they want to?
(January 10, 2023)
Empty tombs
Bodies scattered around rooms
I thought I died when you left me.
I failed to take one breath,
Then another,
Then another
Isn’t it better to marry the earth?
Isn’t it better to surrender suffering?
I failed to take one step
Then another,
Then another
Isn’t it better to never know?
What would we have been
If your roots would’ve charged through me like veins, like a virus
Isn’t that what love is?
I turn to the toxic ones like a smoker with their fix
I cannot tell if my breath is becoming deeper or more shallow
Does it matter?
Does it matter, as long as the breath continues?
I’m not a champion
You were the athlete
I was the passerby,
Turned victim
You were the victim,
Turned perpetrator
The lines are so thin they bleed
The world is close to ending
Is as good a reason as any
To end mine
All paths lead to death
Is as good a point to make when you’re covered in shards of my heart
And I, still dancing with shadows
The visions blur and I wonder how many more breaths until the last breath
It doesn’t matter
I’m breathing,
In your mouth, my final organ beating
Do you hear the music?
Do you speak the language of living?
You must, with the delicate disaster you’ve made of me
The blood spatters like Rorschach plots
This one looks like murder,
And this one looks like love
Same eyes, disparate vision
Here lies my last decision.
(March 9, 2023)
Anyone
I’m smiling
I’m giddy
It could be anyone turning the corner
At this point it could be anyone
For a second, I forget
Who am I meeting?
The faces and names blur from the past and write a story of deflated nights
They started just like this
The smile, the glee, the little hop when you turn a corner fast so you can get to them sooner
Who are they?
What are you basing your excitement off of?
The story they told, not in words, but emojis
You’re adults, why are you communicating with little pictures?
Is that the best you can hope for?
You, a writer
You, a speaker
Them, someone who always seems to talk at the wrong times
You, shutting your mouth so you don’t seem too eager
You, playing the game
You hate games
Poker, chess, whatever game where the rules are simply meant to fuck with your head
Whatever game where genuineness is a loss
That’s what this is
You’re turning the corner
Who are you meeting?
Who are they meeting?
Certainly, not you
A lesser version
A bottled version
A coddled version
An “all I want is love please don’t leave me” version
They never love, and they always leave
You could’ve predicted it with your eyes closed
It doesn’t matter who it is
It’s the fact of anyone
At this point it could be anyone
At this point it could be anyone
Until one day,
The face changes and you remember
It’s this one
The others fall away
There’s no more dancing with the past
You’re solid in the present with their presence and you remain you
That’s what keeps them turning the corner
At this point it could be anyone
But one day it won’t be just anyone.
(August 22, 2023)
The pebble
Most of the days are the same
Every once in a while one feels different
The sunset colors are more vibrant
Every once in a while the day hits me in the chest like a bullet
What am I supposed to do when that happens?
Every once in a while
My life doesn’t feel like a painting
It’s like I’m breaking through
Some people live in places where an eruption can happen at any time
I feel no different, when
Nothing resembles each other but everything blends together like I am that painting
A rushed watercolor with colors scattered like pebbles in ponds
Every once in a while
I feel my heartbeat and it grounds me
After shocking me
After urging me to live like I’m alive rather than dying
I read the bell jar recently and Esther lost control skiing and flew like lightning through air
She broke her limbs just to feel something
I would rather break the silence with a dance, or a fateful song
I’ve lived long enough to know self harm keeps on hurting
Sometimes enduring the senseless monotony is better in the long term than violence
Because I don’t like to clean up my own messes
I don’t like to overdramatize the very real aspects of my existence that wait at every corner I turn
But they’re still there
I think every moment will turn into horror and I’ve lived on knife edges for years
But somehow I need to articulate the awareness in this body
Somehow I need to sense the life around me just so I can feel real
So I can feel a part of something
Moving is all I do but there’s no meaning
Because I’m not moving towards something I’m moving away from the vulnerability I need to have
When I’ve felt alone for 100 days I think turning inward will cause insanity
And there’s only one way to find out
I’m trying not to color the emptiness with despair because I know everything is born neutral
And I feel it’s my obligation to live in a way that doesn’t bring others to their knees
What happens when I’m gone?
What proof do I even have of being real?
In this place it’s all my work to do and I’m tired
I feel the colors becoming more saturated
But the light is fading
I need confirmation that what I’m seeing is real
I need the universe to reach out and grab my hand and tell me “you matter”
I need the wind to hit the side of my cheek at the right angle to inspire some sensation
I need my dormant spirit to turn and tingle
I need to waltz at sunset to the sound of nothing
And I need to be okay with there not being anything appealing before me
I need to accept, maybe even appreciate, the days that just hold my existence in their hands
Nothing more and nothing less
I need to learn that time is a construct and every second is both meager and meaningful
I need to find the cravings and the sensations within
So I can just enjoy what’s outside and not put pressure on it for my enlightenment
My goal is to hold my humanity high and maybe even something more, something magical, something undefined in this dim light in which my soul stirs
Maybe honoring how much of this poem is unspeakable
How much of my life has not been translated into poems
How much of my moments will never be shared or understood by others
How much my life resembles the pebble, trailing blue energy, flying not fighting, letting the guiding hand do the work.
(July 11, 2020)
Untethered
I’m starting to look more like my mother
And act less like her
I’m untethering the tether that ties us from birth
Birth means nothing
Death means everything
Untethered I become
My own entity I am not in her shadow
I am her shadow, her subconscious
The half of her spawn who refuses to endorse the sins written in blood
She lives in a deep dark abyss
I am the light she cannot face
Lies that tear a family apart:
Where have you been for ten years?
What drains your pockets?
Why do you always have another home to run to?
What are you running from?
She’s never at home
She builds tiny sand castles too close to the water purposefully
She self destructs,
And not only self
She destructs her tether
She reaches into the pit and pulls out my heart
I cannot imagine carrying a baby for nine months, then nine more, then slowly,
Day by day,
Year by year,
Dropping them.
Your lies sprouted from the ground like weeds
There were too many to conquer
I was wrong about the fatal one
It was the tether all along, itself an illusion
“Mother” is an empty promise
“Womb” is a hollow home
For all the time we spent shackled together in the beginning,
You could never tell that now
I’ve had strangers show me more warmth
I was trapped in your body and my escape was a revolution
You love control, I was uncontrollable
You love facades, I am the truth
You bury your secrets amongst the dead
I am your shadow self
You cannot face me because you cannot face what you’ve done
You’ve accepted another casualty for your ego’s war
There’s no war
You’re only fighting yourself
(June 2, 2023)
You were not deserving
You never ever deserved access to me
Giving you a glimpse of my innards was a mistake
I labored through the upstream to carry my dreams to you
You poured them back, and floated away
I will never lose my breath for someone as lost as you again
I mistook your delusion for direction
I mistook your desperation for decision
You can manipulate and twist and warp every small detail but you can never erase the truth
I would’ve never treated you as you treated me
I would’ve never been so irresponsible, so careless, so selfish, so greedy, so cruel
Intention doesn’t matter when the impact is splitting someone in half
You were never deserving of my energy
You deserved none of it, not an ounce
Not a shard of glass
Not a piece or pebble
You deserved absolutely nothing
You can’t even love yourself enough to treat others with respect
You’re lost and confused and dragged me into your chaos
I don’t know what story you will tell yourself
You’ll probably pity yourself and claim victimhood
You’ll probably act like this was out of your control
Some things just don’t work out
You’ll probably fail to acknowledge your role in your disaster of a life
The story you will tell will be lies held together by denial
The story I tell will be strands of understanding, and hope, and self reflection
The story I tell will not be of victimhood
Some people are lost and you can’t help it
Some people are lost and make their trauma your problem
A lot of people need healing and growth before involving anyone else in their process
A lot of people can’t even utter the words they need to release
I will never be one of those people
My words are my primary method of resolution
I will never keep my pain captive
I hope someone can learn from the stories I tell
I hope I can let go through this process of documenting and validating
The pain is real, the feelings are real
And so is the possibility of moving forward
Making you nothing but a memory.
What I’m watching, reading, and listening to 12/8/22
Watching:
The White Lotus Season 2 on HBO
Abbott Elementary Season 2 on Hulu
Reading:
Listening to:
Un Verano Sin Ti by Bad Bunny
Caprisongs by FKA Twigs
Splitting
I am splitting in half every second for the things that have never happened
I am splitting in half
For every moment I anticipated
I held my breath
I choked myself
I robbed myself
Of a real moment
For an imaginary one
I am splitting in half
Is it time I’ve wasted
Is it my own fault
I was never really in it
I was visioning
I am splitting in half
I am everything I never thought I would be
And nothing I expected
I am splitting in half
There is nothing left of me
That there was when this began
I am a puddle of brokenness
My spirit seeps
I am splitting in half
They won’t remember me here after a little bit of time
my name is scrubbed already
It was not a lot of time and I was never here to some
Would it be easier if I was never here
Would it be easier to have never met you at all
To have never sampled what my life could be if I was given wings to fly
Instead of pushed out on a platform prepared to die
I’m not a martyr
I am splitting in half
There is nothing left I thought there was here
Yesterday is a bitter dream and tomorrow is an illusion
I honor the pain the numbness the pain the numbness the pain until there’s nothing left but numbness
Then pain again maybe years later
Maybe when I take the wrong way home that makes me pass by the building where I was split in half
Do you have that?
Do you have routes you avoid?
Do you avoid half your town?
Once I forced myself through the neighborhood I grew up in and I swore I thought I saw some pieces from when I was splitting in half
I’ve split in half too many times to count
What kind of portions of me are left
Who even knows unless we go back and track down all the pieces
I can tell you it’s not worth it
I’m here, and there’s enough of me left to offer something
I’m not sure what yet but there’s something and just the mere possibility of a tomorrow is enough
I have split so many times I wouldn’t think there would be any left but you’d be surprised how deep our rivers flow
Maybe it’s splitting
But it’s also merging
Maybe taking that route home and facing those old truths is putting some of the pieces back together
They’re not the same
They fit differently
Nothing will ever be the same but at least there’s a body here and a breath when there should be, and a heart where there should be
I am splitting but that does not mean I am splitting in the parts that will end me
I am splitting and there is a tomorrow and I’m not thinking about what it is exactly
I’m just breathing and hoping to survive another day where I’m at the mercy of the world’s gamble.
The nefarious prevail
It’s enough to be sad
You don’t have to cry
It’s enough to be in pain
You don’t have to keel over, bend over, fall to the floor writhing and screaming
They should know what they’re doing to you is eating your insides
They shouldn’t need to see your flesh decay
But maybe that’s what they want
Society is a story of power ending up in the wrong hands
The hands around my neck are celebrated
The dagger in my back is adored
It’s enough to exist outside the margins
You don’t need to be exiled, disposed of, deleted from the records
Living is suffering
They should already hear our screams.
MERRI WORDS 