The shrapnel of his hands.

For Madison

His hands are on your thighs, tracing
the curve of your hips and
you are pulling away,
making a face,
spinning in circles.
     (“They are
     children, they are
     young, they do not
     understand.” And they believe it,
     ignore it. It's
     fine.)
He takes your favorite shirt,
tells you it looks better on him, you
let him,
thankful at least that he didn't take it
off your back
this time.
     (Boy will be boys,
     he was drunk, you know, it's
     no big deal. Why don't you
     give him a break?)
You tell him you don't want to see him anymore,
close the door in his face when he shows up at noon
and again
when he pulls his second-hand moped
around the back of your house at midnight.
     (“I told you you looked fuckable, take it
     as a compliment, you should be
     flattered. I don't want to date you I
     just think you're fucking hot.”)
Your friends become his friends again and you
are the one who broke his heart.
They ever talk about how
he broke his promises,
tore your fishnets when you pulled away, broke
the heel of your combat boot
when he made you step away from him
off the side of the curb.
     (You get the shirt back, want
     to burn it—
     it smells like your father. You
     should have never trusted anyone
     who wore that cologne.)
You become the harpy in his memories, and he
attributes half his scars to you while he ignores
the way his claws
scrape across his own face. He
will never see it.

You run and you
never
look back.

Oneself, in particular.

Written in response to an anonymous Tumblr message. Before you ask: I refuse to apologize and I refuse to take it down. Don't even ask.

Trigger warning: mentions of self-harm, suicide, slut shaming, drug abuse

Let's talk about me
for a second.

Let's talk about the fact
that I take five pills
every day
at four o'clock
just to try and be normal for five minutes,
to push back the constant visions
of scissor blades and open arms and
the way people would love me at my funeral.

Let's talk
about the fact that I have spent six and a half years
talking all my best friends out of spilling their veins
out onto paper and bathroom floors.
Let's talk about the two hours of sleep
for three fucking weeks--
again and again and again--
because my best friends are lost in the dark
and almost slitting their wrists on Halloween night;
they are dying alone in Austin,
and drinking themselves to death in Boston,
and overdosing on cough suppressants
somewhere in suburbs I no longer know.
My little brother had a nervous breakdown
and I wasn't even home and every day
I worry that I have seen him
for the last time.

Let's talk about the times that I am happy
for a second and a half
before someone decides I'm not doing it right.
I fell in love at thirteen and ever since
I have had a gallery of angry people
screaming,
"They are not yours and you
are wrong,
and you are not in love.
You have no right,
leave them
alone."
Let's talk about all the times I did,
walking away from the souls who had carved their names in my chest
because someone else told me I had no claim on the words
someone else wrote into my bones;
and let's talk of all the times I didn't--
all the moments I tuck under my tongue like acid
to haunt my in flashbacks
for the rest of my life.
I can trace the scars of every man and woman I've ever taken to bed,
and they
have never even bothered to look for mine
hidden under anchors and stretch marks and closed mouths.

Let's talk about every man who has ever
denied sleeping with me,
as if my love-lust for them was an STD
they never planned on getting.
Let's talk
about the way they call my body a black hole,
a monster made of black ink and tentacles,
a beached whale.
Let's talk about the venom in the voices of my friends,
as if somehow my sex is a poison that they can catch by hearing the stories,
like I am a disease,
contagious,
and somehow the way I love is suffocating everyone who knows.

Let's talk about how I stay up until sunrise
in tears
over how I have ruined every life I've ever touched,
set it aflame and burned it to ash,
scattered it to the four winds
and how no matter how often I apologize,
I will never be enough.
Let's talk about all the times
I have kept my mouth shut
and let my wallowing turn to blood
in the middle of the night.

Let's talk about me for a second,
and how I am my life--I
am the only person who will never leave me, and
I have no life without me.
In half a century, it will not matter if you loved me
or hated me
or wanted me to change.
There will only be me,
alone in a room,
a scale weighing my heart and my soul and asking itself
if I am worth it.
Asking itself
if I am happy,
if I have loved,
if I regret the mistakes that made me who I am,
silver-haired and wrinkled,
scarred and covered in ink
still able
to trace ex-lovers' scars from memory.

The answer is yes.
The answer is that my life is all about me,
and the way I love.
It's about the people I have kissed and
all the people I choose not to.
It's about the lives I've saved and the people who have saved mine.

My life is all about me,
because I am a soul and a body,
a heartbeat and a spine,
a ribcage filled with lungs that have too often stopped breathing.
I have cut out pieces of my happiness for far too long.
I refuse to hang my words on a string
for other people to wear proudly on their necks.

My life is gritty and full of dirt,
full of sand on the backs on my knees and blood on my scraped shin,
of tears I cried when he kicked me out at three AM,
when my mother called me a slut at fourteen,
when I kissed them goodbye
on my front step,
in the hallway,
on the corner of Central Park.

My life is pain and happiness,
sadness and joy,
laughter and body-wracking sobs.
It is never ever easy and worth it,
most of the time.

My story is mine,
and I will never, ever let anyone take it from me
again.