From My Bipolar to My Mother’s Cancer

They are both trying to kill us

Eroded from the inside

There is no exact science to either of us

Though death haunts me like an easy escape if it gets just bad enough

Your hope outshines my disease

They both came just as swiftly but my diagnosis crept up years later

The darkness finally found its light

As if there were flowers growing there that I wasn’t looking for

All I had to do was turn the light on

The only difference between us is they take you more seriously when something is wrong

But each diagnosis is a hell with just our names painted on the door

No one else can feel it except for ourselves

Yes, there are support groups

But dying tastes different to each person

And I am living a death sentence

Eons of Pain

If pain were to be measured in lifetimes

I have seen the revolutions you read in history books

I know people eons old

Corroding themselves into the very dust they were born from

As they watched the stars form and collapse into themselves, avidly taking notes

Wise beyond this world

But this world won’t leave them alone

Stuck as ghosts, shells of their former selves

Maybes and what-ifs disturbing their sleep

Not enough scars or wrinkles showing the stories of their lives

No one wants to sit and listen to the advice of this weathered people

Plucked from worlds away to whisper stories of home into the wind

We all get labeled the same – crazy, lunatics, people who shouldn’t be on the outside

Yet we all have incredible stories to tell

So please, listen to those who have watched their world crumble and rose again

Before we are but whispers in the wind, returning home

 

Damage Done

They say untreated mental illness causes damage to the brain

Which means 9 years has done a toll on me

Illness surfaced first at 12 when I stopped eating

Worsening in the second year of abuse at 13 – I am sure her fists every day left a mark but time blocked that year out

Maybe flight or fight kicked in and I am running from the memories of the beginnings

Addiction took hold that same year in the form of the blood down the drain

Learning that it numbed the chaos no one else could see

Mother thought I was taking after my cousin in the form of track marks at only 13

Yet my screams fell on deaf ears until the day I was about to go home and execute myself in the last cry for help

Trying to return to the earth my family came from

Despite never seeing the homeland forests we are named after

Lungs began to blacken weeks before the hospital stay

Hallucinations plaguing in the year after

Medication is a tricky thing

And 7 is not my lucky number for 7 years later I went through with an attempt

Psychosis kicking in before I could stop it

I do not remember that night, mind automatically erasing traumatic events

And I had endured 4 years of it at this point

Loving a man whose concept of love was hurting someone else adding 2 years

Yet I have learned “endure” is carved in my bones

Passed on from my father and his siblings, his parents

From extreme poverty to a war they did not want to fight to the repercussions of service to addiction

All surviving, enduring

I am learning to mourn the years I lost

Learning from my father, I am being taught by the best qualified teacher

I am enduring the pain

Despite the decade of damage

Daily Prompt: Homage

For every before me, whose existence still is between the lines years after their deaths

 

My sister talks about the children I will have that she wants to spoil

Assuming I will be able to have children with my future partner, assuming we want them, assuming they will not bar us because our genitals are the same

And we all know God does not want that and they are only implementing His word via my body as if they don’t wear mixed fabrics or eat shrimp

This morning I did not hear them yell faggot at me because I have learned to block them out with headphones but I did see their eyes raking my body with disgust

As if their love is pure and mine is dirtier than the marshes in the April showers plaguing our state

My friends tried to “turn me back” by telling me their disgust the first time they kissed a girl – assuring me that will be the only time because “I am straight now”

And for the girls with the baggy jeans and flannels hiding behind her messy hair – I see you

I know you are unsure of yourself but I promise I’ve got you

We can do this, even when you think the world is ending

When they strip our rights and try to kill us, I will be your sheild

Our people suffered through Reagan but I promise we will survive this one, even if we have to go back underground

They cannot take your magic from you

via Daily Prompt: Homage

Daily Prompt: Treasure

Some people are pearls I want to keep close to my heart so  I wear them around my neck

A woman only wants one diamond in her life around her finger

You were the only one I wanted to keep – there could have only been one love like yours

You had your hand around my throat and promised it was love

Taping my mouth shut so I could no longer scream

I still thought I had found a diamond in a patch of coal

Were’t you the only one who could make me whole again?

You only need a love like that once to decimate your entire being

Months went by after you where I had to convince myself I was still the ethereal being I was before

No amount of gems could repair the damage done unto me

I had to believe I was magic once more before I could write a love story with someone who wasn’t you

You tried to tear away the pearls I kept close to me and some fell away with a swift movement of your hand

Some stayed long enough to listen to the story of how you dulled my lustre

Making me give up on everything I knew to be true

I can’t say I want the worst for you but I still have yet to forgive

You can’t splinter and crack that way without anger being planted in your being

Anger for what happened because I thought I held myself higher than to be broken down by the one I chose to love and I keep telling myself it’s my fault because I chose you

It was always you

Like a diamond, you can only have a love like that once to realize you deserve more than a treasured stone

I hold  my head high now knowing I am worth more than what you stripped me of in the name of love

Domestic abuse isn’t always visible. If you are struggling, tell someone. Chat with loveisrespect or call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233

via Daily Prompt: Treasure

Daily Prompt: Vanish

Her hair didn’t curl around her face with little ringlets, not it framed her face with harsh rigidity

I swear to God she was the only one who could have woken me from an eternal slumber

Every thing she said sounded like she was reeciting Shakespeare – in the most endearing way

I would have used my last breath to ask her to repeat me a lullaby to send me away

She was gentle but started a fire in me I have yet to vanquish

But when summer came she was but another story to file away in my file cabinet of deepest secrets

The only way I keep her close to me anymore are the t-shirts she left me with

Half a country away I wish her hands were tracing my frame but we all know too well mormon parents and two women in love does not mix without an explosion

She forgot about me when she was stripped from this bleak place

She was the only one who the stars wanted to visit and since she left they have not shown their faces

Vanishing with nothing but an apology and a love I can only give to her

She healed something in me that will forever remain tattooed on my brain

The scar will remain until she comes back which is to say it will always be here

The pain of losing her will forever remain here in the back of my head

Thoughts of how she would love something so beautiful and bright like herself

via Daily Prompt: Vanish

Scents

Does anyone have certain smells that remind them of something or bring them back to a point in their life that has passed? For example a certain perfume I have brings me to the 2011/2012 school year when I was insanely depressed. The smell of warm air penetrating the cool and the grass growing remind me of the month I was diagnosed with depression. Rain’s fresh scent reminds me of all the summers spend running around in the muddy marshes barefoot at a YMCA camp that is entirely in the woods. Certain soaps my mother buys reminds me of spans of a month or two when I was first getting into a certain band or when I started listening to slam poetry (Rudy Francisco and Neil Hilborn are my favorite if you’re wondering). Or how laundry detergent brings me back to my ex’s house. I know a lot of people have songs or photographs, but for me smells bring back all the memories and the person I was at the point in time. Am I the only one?