Tag: abuse

The Water in the Mud Helps you Swim

The curtain dropped,

The illusion stopped,

And you were just you again:

No special bond, no secret understanding,

You’re just arrogant, and calculated.

You made me believe you were the only way I could ever be worth something.

Or I believed that, and you happily accepted it.

All it was, where all is nothing,

Was Special bondage that would keep me understanding

That you were mine to love in secret,

That I’m built of different stuff,

Stuff built to take endless heartbreaks till the bondages of your life,

Released you,

and you could be with me,

No more secrets, no more tough love.

I believed your suffering of a trapped life, deserved mine

Of tears that fell too easily, no sound, in my 4th year biology class;

Too young to feel that pain, too young to feel a man’s grip, too young to know what to do with it.

It was never your fault, always Circumstance’s,

Was she tired of covering for you, or was she in on it?

Broken mothers, drunk fathers teach us this,

That helpless circumstance deserves forgiveness,

‘Let them walk back in’,

But some hurts haunt, and are too much to forgive,

Too little time, to fill the hole you left me with.

Perhaps I could forgive you, if I ever saw the hurt you hurt me with scar your skin,

But for the latter of our younger lessons, you will grow elsewhere,

Far from me, that’s it.

And not that I have to explain anything more than the kindness in my ignorance,

But I had a life to live, another soul to love, more to give

To a soul who deserved me, and cherished it.

Perhaps you felt like you had no choice,

But no choice leads to a choice, doesn’t it?

You ran a bath for me, and left through the back door,

A note telling me you’re coming home, that was it.

And that’s true pain,

Not knowing the time, your wait infinite.

But finite in my time it is

Because you’re just you again,

And I burned the house down.

There’s no way back in.

—-

I cannot believe I’m here.

Free, loved, surrounded by gifts;

People who really care, and put others first

Like we were born to do it.

There’s two different worlds in the one we are all in,

And being hurt is different where he is:

Because apologies exist, not words to make you believe it was not him,

Because you can speak without fear, no threats when you speak for your humanity,

Your dignity, whatever it is.

I can breathe when he leaves because silence isn’t a threat with him,

And where my eyes aren’t, a heart is.

And I don’t know what it is, or why, or how, or the disbelief in the fact that I was ever capable of it,

But I trust him,

So I’m myself around him –

Not a little girl with big eyes that looks up to him,

An equal who laughs, and shares herself as if it’s as easy breathing:

A human being, not a 2D piece of paper that shimmers for him.

I’m not sure if you can put abuse into words,

I think the most talented among us would struggle –

It’s an unspeakable feeling that keeps you alone.

It’s a part of me that stays in the shadows,

And I wonder if I’ll ever speak about it without feeling crazed, panicked,

As a prisoner of his reputation, control,

But sometimes,

When the lights gold,

And guitar strings hold my fractured mind

Far from perfectly but soundly,

When the stars are above, my head tilted,

Your breath on my neck,

A friend laughs,

I forget, and he is no more,

A life maybe, I could have lived.

—-

Thoughts of you hug my soul,

And paint my lungs pink,

Easier to breathe in, easier to live.

I think you’re too good for me,

There’s no black in your heart,

But mines infested.

And I know you see the slope in my shoulders,

From the weight of the things I’ve seen,

And the tears that I have to hold in –

I know you think this redeems me

But it doesn’t change that you’re too good for me,

I can’t give you what you give me.

What’s worse is that you’re okay with it,

You’re okay with a cold breeze in your bed,

A cruel, harsh at best, tongue in your head.

It fills me with regret,

A whiplash of guilt against my breast;

And I want to love you,

But after something else –

I want to love you, without hurting ourselves.

So I’ll ask you to wait for me,

To be my friend,

So I can love you safely, without pain, without deceit.

But I fear he won’t wait for me,

Because he’s too good for me,

And there’s a girl,

A girl who’s kinder than me, softer,

More of who I used to be.

—-

I don’t think I could ever breathe life into her again,

Even after years of love, and safety, years of you.

That’s the saddest part, I think,

That I died, and yet, I am not dead.

I tell you purgatory is real, real and true,

I’ve seen hell, and it‘s true too,

That a lifetime is just a few minutes;

I sat on the end of my bed, whilst the broken parts of my mind cut me red raw,

Wondering if it will ever end,

If the devil in my head would ever let me see light again.

I wish you knew her,

The girl he murdered with all the violence a small man can summon,

The irony of it:

I killed myself loving a man, not knowing he wanted me dead.

—-

I think if you could write your words like I do,

You’d tell me you love me all the same,

That you feel her in the kisses I give you,

When I write poetry, better than I used to.

That just as the seasons change, I have matured too,

No two summers the same,

No winter, no gain.

That dark, bitter coffee trumps the milky stuff,

And coldness is alluring.

You’d tell me I look lovely in my stormy moods,

Skin stretched over stone,

Eyes masked.

You’d tell me it makes you love me more,

when you finally hear my laugh,

and you’re the one to pull the thunder back.

You’d tell me that besides all that,

I’m still wonderful,

And still the best;

Love is not an exchange, it’s a solo act –

One can only hope it is reciprocated:

He did it on his own, not at my request,

So you and I, we are worthy of it.

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Tealights

So much has been taken I’m not sure what’s left.

I wish I had realised what I’d had before I gave more up

To a thief in my bed.

How bright I was, how human to the touch.

So much life coursing through these veins,

so much to give, so much potential to lead life with.

Innocent, untouched.

But you don’t come out of battle as you go in.

I thought change was supposed to be a gift?

I was so careless, how careless.

Shell of the person I used to be? Or just grey?

Maybe it was my youth,

But I’m still too young to be this old,

Too soft to be this hard.

It’s true, I’m scarred,

But amongst all this loss, there’s more.

More light,

More art,

More care.

Something deeper there.

So although I’ve given up skyscrapers for country skies,

And hands for hugs,

Many for one,

I know peace.

I’ll know more peace than I’ve ever known,

I’ll be able to feel whole,

At home.

Papers Under Tea Mugs

You spoke to my worst fears, and made them come true. I wish you would have just said, “This is the hold I have on you.” I wished you had told me it was not love, that it had nothing to do with this electricity every time our skin touched. I wished you had told me who I thought you were, was no where near close, that it wasn’t that I wasn’t enough, just the fact I was too human for you to ever love – and you, not enough. I wished you had told me I had gotten pain confused with pleasure, and that shame is invading your truth. I wish that you had just said something.

And I wish, I wish you had woken up a little earlier that day, so I wouldn’t have fallen in love with your sleeping face. I wish that you hadn’t held my hand to our favourite song, and put your fingers through my hair the way you did. I wish you had actually left me on the first date, when you went to get drinks. I wish that I had never made that stupid compliment, so you would let me in. I wish with all of my heart, you aren’t what you are.

– The real you is between fear and insolence.

– I’ve seen both ends of the vine. So let me spend the rest of my time, trying to get to the middle, until death pays back life.

– Blue eyes, clear smiles,

Safety and no rainy days.

Pleasure, treasure chests

Tight hugs and memories, always.

Thank you for showing me fullness

And simplicity in living.

– It went as quickly as it came, but there was enough in the midst of it all to last a lifetime.

– I’m not sure what it’s all for when remembering the good memories hurts so much too.

– Time goes slow when I’m waiting for you,

And we should all fear what happens when we break the universes’s rules.

– We can’t ask people to love us past who they are.

– And we have different songs that remind us of us,

No shared ones,

Such different memories in our hearts. In our bones.

Such different visions when we look at the stars,

not even miles apart.

I thought I let you go some time ago,

How am I holding onto a mere moment with you

When so much has happened in between?

The past is so present yet it’s nowhere to be seen?

I guess that’s what happens when it hasn’t ended in the heart,

Who forever thinks he’s a child even when his age rips his strings apart.

But it is over isn’t it? When all you have is the past?

When moving on keeps your forever apart.

It will be different this time:

I will truly leave you,

I will not be here when years have past.

You’ll even find the love I had for you, left, to the right of everything you did wrong

I won’t let you be with me again, even if you’re on your knees,

Without that love you’re a stranger to me.

What could be is not more important that has been,

You can have forgiveness but not me,

You are still worthy but not of me.

What you did burnt every other chance.

Letting go is not good enough this time,

I could look at you, and have no idea who you are

That, that is where we are at.

– You know I used to think that moment where I missed you,

Even though we were together,

Meant that I loved you.

But now I wander,

And wonder if I was a little ahead of you,

Still there with you,

Knowing you wouldn’t be there,

Knowing, somehow, this was our last night.

If that’s true,

Oh I was right.

Or loving you always meant losing you,

That still hurts at night.

– A little bit of boringness for all the things that I’ll gain, a little bit of exhilaration for all the things I’ll lose?

– Everybody, everything can be understood, but it’s not for everyone to understand.

Fleeting Fights

1). Only time I think about you is when I think of how I haven’t thought of you.

2). How is it that I miss you,

Without missing you?

Want you, without wanting you?

All I need to do is say no,

But how is one thing, a million things too?

Speaking to you through my notes is all I can ever do,

How could this ever be love when you’re not here too?

It’s more than a habit, less than an addict;

Somewhere in space,

Miles away from earth

We’re together and it doesn’t hurt.

Yes I’m over you,

But I could stay in this Space, here on Earth,

Being together, and keeping you out so it doesn’t hurt,

Just so I could keep you in here, this deep whole that never closed up.

When all goes wrong I think of you,

Because I know the dead don’t move,

And I don’t want to be alone –

So I carry on attaching myself to you.

You became my reflex,

And now I have to unlearn you.

You have to want to too.

3). You sinned to hide your sin,

And that’s what a coward is.

Leave me alone if you love me –

That’s why I knew you lied when you said you loved me.

You just want me.

I don’t understand how love doesn’t come with that.

4). One day you’ll be a 100 miles away from the heartbreak,

So far,

You won’t feel it, ricochet,

And shake the ground,

It won’t ever go but that’s why we move on.

8). And I wish I could let you love me,

But all I feel is that hole, an emptiness,

When you’re human, and vulnerable.

All I feel is shame, and disgust,

When you look at me.

She broke my heart,

And I can’t find the pieces,

Or the pieces are just set in stone.

Maybe that’s why I’ve always let you hurt me,

So the lava will come

And somehow stone will glow.

You locked me away,

But forgot, when found, my freedom will shatter your

Imaginary walls, and my heart in one blow,

So I can build a new one, a new home.

5). You always said I was the stars,

And you the sun;

But you knew that was true didn’t you?

That when you rise,

I would fall,

Become invisible,

And let you burn my world.

Don’t forget where you came from,

You’ll forget where you belong.

6). It’s all done to silence you,

Keep you stuck in their treacle trap.

But, you never thought I’d grow a new part to me,

And slip right out your reach

⁃ keep the old me.

Poetry For Pain

“Lies have speed, but truth has endurance.”

You did not lose me:

What is lost, can be found.

I don’t know what you did,

But you did not lose me.

–

I think when you feel those emotions,

You are at your strongest.

–


And I loved where the water showed where the light was,

Where I could give life,

And not be asked much of afterwards.

–

Everyone was in love with me, but you,

I wonder why that was.

Was it because I had the life you had lost in a bet?

Was it because it made you feel good, to be excluded from the rest?

Did it make you feel good that it would only be us, standing together,

In this pond of no love?

I always said I could only love with you with my tears.

–

I kind of felt like a shopkeeper:

My shift was ending,

No one had been in –

Do I go,

Or stay,

Just in case you come in?

Love is not duty, I’m throwing the towel in.

–

Where you can’t prove,

You must choose

What comes natural to you.

–

It made me angry,

I had questioned my own sanity,

My yellow heart,

For a —- who lived in — own world.

I took on a burden that was not mine to have,

I was living with the issue of someone else.

–

I felt stupid for loving you,

But imagine having to hate, to bring someone close.

–

It made me laugh, towards the end,

How someone could destroy my soul,

And cry at the truth of theirs, when their reckoning came.

Don’t f*ck with me, I burn cold.

–

And when I watched the flowers on Eeshy’s heart grow,

I forgave the mud he had thrown.

When I saw the smile on her glow,

I forgave the tears he had provoked, and made flow –

Even left the hate and the judgement for him to make of his own soul.

When I saw the freedom she had created,

In the midst of battle cries and a war –

I knew she was made for this,

To be human,

To grow.

You will get past this, if you let your kindness flow. Forgive and still say no.

–

I had been taught to understand and empathise,

It takes thick skin, and a heart so soft – anything else would break it.

You did what you did.

You came into my house,

My body,

And did what you did;

There’s no redemption here, let me be a lesson to you if you come looking for it.

Apologies, here, mean nothing,

Just like a kiss can’t fixed ripped skin.

You want to change?

Don’t stand here and interrupt my healing,

To fix what you broke, when you broke me:

Did your mumma not tell you,

To hurt another,

Will just eventually rip off your own skin?

You need something irretrievably broken,

To keep you moving from what’s been your nature for so long,

When the sweat creeps in.

–

Intuition shows up,

Where ego, judgement and fear are not.

That’s why I know I must heal those wounds,

So they don’t get what they want.

–

I’ve seen that fear, that blind panic,

In men’s eyes too many times,

When confronted with the truth.

No concern or a bowed head,

As it should have been.

You are a coward, it’s what you’ve always been.

–

Let me return to my own thoughts and biases,

Issues and them all.

I’m done playing God.

–

For if I had sinned before,

His pain had washed me clean.

–

Imagine hating yourself so much,

You run into a trap, just to get out.

Running too close to death,

The Devil burned me with His fire this time –

and you, you took too much;

Took my breath, to feel something,

In that cavity of yours where all nerve endings are dead.

–

I’ve given so much of myself,

Different places,

Dfiferent grounds,

Where the Moon goes around the Sun,

And stars can still shine against the blue.

I have so little for myself,

That I have a cave within,

That I cave into when I reach for myself.

Stretching against gravity,

Why are your arms so mean?

Please, please give it back,

You said you loved me,

But how can that be,

When you’re whole because you broke me,

Into pieces so scattered, my mind fell apart.

–

I’m not sure if I’ve ever been loved:

I’ve had obsession, hate enevloped in a kiss

Held in the middle of the air, and left when I didn’t float –

Guess you forgot there’s too much life in these feet.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever been loved:

They love what I give,

And show me they love back through wanting more.

Show me you love me, by stepping back, letting me breathe,

Like you want me to live, and not leave.

–

I’m in my head,

I live here,

Love here,

Work here,

Sometimes sleep doesn’t take it away,

And sometimes I just want the days to end.

I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be me,

And it was just another day of work to him.

Do you know what fear does to a girl like me?

–

I loved you so much,

But who was I loving?

No one told me the dead could be living,

No one told me about the ghost in my bed, I always thought monsters were under the bed.

–

If fear makes a man repent, I fear he’ll do it again.

–

When I was seen, I wanted to be.

That’s what makes you different from me.

Not all bullshit is to deceive,

It’s to protect,

And then it’s just relief,

When we both see.

–

It was all just a game, I know.

We were both playing too,

Maybe that’s why I felt so connected to you:

The same hurts, held in different ways.

I know if I changed the tune,

You wouldn’t mind dancing differently too.

‘Sex and The City’

She told the world, not only could they not have better, they would also be the agent of their own demise – and that this, this was inevitable.

I just had to write a blog about this.

I have recently been binging the old and world-loved series, Sex and the City. Currently on season 3, episode 9 – and, yes, I have got here in just under four days.

But, having been completely outraged by season 3, episode 9, I had to channel my emotions somewhere.

Carrie Bradshaw slept with Big. Carrie Bradshaw slept with Big after finding the perfect boyfriend, who treated her better than Big ever could. Carrie Bradshaw crumbled after Big said he was leaving his wife for her, whilst drunk, and then told, whilst Big was sober, he wasn’t leaving her because the divorce would be too expensive. Carrie Bradshaw gave up a year of healing from a man who would not marry her, who then married another woman in less than three months. Carrie Bradshaw sabotaged her own future by sleeping with Big after telling her he ‘didn’t know’, but that he missed her, that he loved her, after he forced himself upon her and followed her whilst she was running away – evilly knowing she would crumble.

We all sat there, me, my mum, my sister, shouting at the computer screen as if Carrie could hear us. My sister refused to watch the show again and claimed Carrie was the most disgusting character she knew. My mum, even though she watched the show years ago, when I was just a toddler, ran out of the room in despair. And I, sat there, motionless, almost a little heartbroken myself. But, why? Why did this affect every single woman in my household?

Because all of us were Carrie.

My mum was a manifested version of Carrie’s ultimate downfall; me and my sister the product of that. And, as if it was in our DNA, I, myself, had chased after my heart in someone else’s hands – to the detriment of my own well-being, far past heartbreak. My sister had watched, growing up, the women around her fail, fail because of men – beyond immediate family.

So, were we angry at Carrie because we were angry at ourselves? Were we angry at Carrie, because we were scared of our own innate potential to be like her? Was it a way of distancing ourselves from our own hubris in flesh?

I wondered: I have always struggled with where the line is where it comes to tolerance in relationship. Me? I’ve always had a high one: I was the caretaker in my family. And I’ve been brought up to always try to understand why people do what they do. He couldn’t commit because someone broke his heart, he couldn’t do this because of x and y and z. And so on. But, truthfully? All it has EVER done is cause pain, deep pain – and allowed me to be taken advantage of. Granted, yes, I may have been understanding the wrong people, projecting some sort of humane explanation onto them – where humanity is lacked. And truthfully, I do it because I know I would always want to be understood.

I saw this in Carrie too.

But understanding is difference from tolerance, isn’t it? And empathy is difference from pity, isn’t it?

And, is there not two people in every situation? What about me? Why do we both forget about me?

What I did not have to wonder about, however, is the fact that Sex and The City failed all women. The lot of us. And instead, championed every single man that, my sworn arch enemy, Big represents.

Carrie marries Big.

What is worse, is that Big calls off the wedding by abandoning Carrie at the Church. And, again, after a whole year of immense pain and depression, Carrie marries Big.

And they live happily, ever, after.

I could not help but think the whole series, and sequential films, endorsed this damaging, backward fantasy that women must earn the love of a man, through self-sacrifice that could very realistically push anyone off the side of a cliff. This absurd fantasy that a man will eventually change for the woman that he loves. The bitter belief that having a wholesome, available and fully-ticked checkbox man, like Aidan – who Carrie cheated on for cheating, unavailable and abusive Big -, would never be fulfilling for any woman. And merely because they do not give us the ‘same butterflies’.

I was insulted. Almost violated.

The realisation that women are expected to transform a failure of a human being into a husband, was beyond me. It disgusted me. And, truthfully, I was angry at their mothers, their fathers. Their nature.

Sure, some men do change for their partners – but not without all the aforementioned grief. And is that type of relationship ever truly healthy, anyway? But it’s sad because, I’m sure that for most of the time – a woman is pursuing this man to fulfil her own dysfunction, not because of who he presently is. It’s an insult to both parties, isn’t it?

Now, this is not a spiteful, hateful speech aimed at the male species. It is also aimed at women like Carrie, women like me – and the damage they do to men like Aidan, who never even deserve it. But, that’s life isn’t it? The people who are damaged by others, in later-life, never do deserve it – they are simply damaged because they are good. Because they can be. Because they’re not far removed and deluded enough to be God- like, like Big. They are real, and here. Right in front of us. But they force us, women like Carrie, women like me, women like my Mum, to confront a very painful wound: Carrie could not bear the insanity of tranquillity, the peacefulness, the healthiness that was in her relationship with Aidan. The truth is, we are scared of being really and truly loved by a person who, if they did ever leave, would render a heartbreak that would take something away from our own soul. Ironically, we are safe with men like Big. We are safe with the predictability of their unpredictability. We are safe with the distance that pining for an acceptance, a validation, that will never be authentically given: we change with men like Big. And so, so are our truest selves.

So, I realised that self-love is not safe at all. I realised that love is, and always will be completely logical (to the opposite of Carrie’s beliefs) – but that a sexual connection will never be, a ‘love’ that disempowers you, and brings you to your knees, will never be either. How could it be, when the only logical thing, is to love ourselves? I’m talking about the self-love that brings the light to all of our darkest demons, our deepest hurts and outcasts them – so that humanity can thrive too. Profoundly, perhaps, we are programmed to self-destruct, despite all these survival instincts. Perhaps we are the masters of our downfalls, and some of us, like Carrie, do indeed fall.

Candance Bushnell, despite her genius legacy, failed all women, who are represented by Carrie. She told the world, not only could they not have better, she told the world they would also be the agent of their own demise – and that this, this was inevitable, inescapable.