When I am On Fire

Sometimes
It is good
To re-ignite your anger.

People tell you anger is unhealthy
Anger is a secondary emotion
Anger is something to be suppressed
But let's be real
When it comes to Kurdish children burning alive and Donald Trump existing and the way you post "cutie pie" memes on your new girlfriend's page I think anger is
Justified.

I had lulled myself into believing our friendship was a valuable something
And my therapist said you're choosing to be in relationship with me
And that's why you keep on texting
But I'm starting to think
Just maybe you just like me as your emotional chopping block
As your test subject for your puns
As your liability issue
As your means to instantaneous jealousy from other women
As your toolbox of bullshit
As your crazy ex-girlfriend - so easy to access
As the one who has the studio in her basement and you had an agreement that you could always use it even though you dumped her

So I open up your Facebook page and I see her little heart reacts and I see you posting clickbait for her
And all those other girls who don't know about her
And I remember that feeling of fucked up-ness you made me feel
All those months almost a year ago now and
How I felt it the whole time we were together
And how you bent me like an old wire hotel hanger into knots I didn't know about and couldn't untangle because metal begets metal and wire hangers don't bend all the time like rope instead, eventually, they break

I think you want to break me.

Maybe that's why I'm still agreeing to meet you at the coffee shop.

Maybe I think I deserve to be broken.

Maybe I need you to bend me just a bit more

Maybe not.

Maybe I want to see how you wiggle when my bones don't dance the way you imagined
How you squirm when I stand over you and the tiny table in the back of the place you know I hate but it's her favorite
Maybe I'll order quiche because I know you hate it
Maybe
Anger
Is unhealthy
But sometimes I need to light it up again
Chew it up thoroughly and spit it right at you
Because I can't go on feeling these primary emotions
Hurt
Pain
Despair
Confusion
Upheaval
That's what you want from me and Anger
Can sit inside and boil
Anger can crown me Queen of my Everything
Anger can get me through with a smile on my face and you none the wiser
Anger hides like tears don't let you
Anger is under the mask I put on so easily

Remember how I shared about my abusive childhood
You didn't get to get angry when your father would slap you and your mother would mourn and hide in the bathroom
You got through with a whip smart dialogue and a pasted on grin and it didn't matter what was under it to them but what was under it kept you alive.
Kept you unblinking
Kept your wits about you
Kept you faster thinking
Kept you missing being swatted like so many flies
You can't be a fly
When you're the whole damn cake on which they're feasting
I don't smear though
I'm not fresh icing
I've had a whole lifetime to get thicker
So sweet you can't taste me
Too hard to get to the inside

I'll meet you for coffee.
I'll meet you.

BPD

The horror is staring at you through the window of your workplace and knowing
You didn't have the strength to comb your hair today.

The horror is that I know the new girl is just a drug now,
But you'll need her soon, and she'll turn into a legitimate something.

The horror is that the same mental illness that makes it so you can't miss me
Is the same mental illness that made you end things.

The horror is that you were just a child when all of it began for you
You had no say over it.

You struggled to make eggs for yourself in the microwave and you
Got nothing but slapped for it.

You struggled to defend yourself against a stepfather twice your size in both height and breadth
And you were the one they threatened with a prison sentence

Fourteen is too young for fighting
Fourteen is too young for wielding a piece of cement against a full grown man

Five is too young to watch your father carried out of anywhere in a body bag
Five is too young to understand why this year your mother tried but she couldn't afford a Christmas present

The horror is that this Christmas you will still believe you never got one before
That your girlfriend is the first person to buy you anything even though you have proof all around of the people who love you.

The horror is that you will never fully feel it.
You will never fully know.
The icy coldness of alone will consume you because you cannot sit down and work through a workbook
Or trust a therapist
Or spill your guts truly forth to anyone without changing your mind in the morning

The horror is how so many would pour out their blood for you
Your brothers in arms
Your exes
Your admirers messaging your Instagram daily

I just.

They told me to write a poem to perform about horror
For the macabre variety show
And the scariest thing I thought of
Was what it must feel like inside your brain.

Partners in Abused Childhoods

They say people fight when they're afraid of missing each other:
Conflict is a form of intimacy

And maybe that's why we talk about hard things
So. So. So.
Often.

This sort of intimacy is not so scary
Is easier to build
Is wrapped in a sort of chaos familiar to both of us...

More familiar than consistency and support and
Entangled limbs
And sex
And smells
And breakfast
And coffee
And the way we can't sleep in your bed because there are too many things on it.

Building walls to keep each other in and out simultaneously
Breaking them down
Freaking out
Building them back up again.

I curl myself up against your back and you reach across to hold my hand.

Holding hands scares you.
So I appreciate it.