Comfortable In My Skin
I found a home within my skin,
learned to love the me within
learned to love the me with-out
confidence without a doubt.
without a moment’s hesitation
with enlightened cogitation,
I shed the skin of modesty
embraced the woman I’m meant to be
scoffing at society,
you couldn’t get the best of me.
I found a comfort in my skin
and in this way, I guess I win.
Goodness.
It’s a runaway train heading towards a crowd.
You’re all dead now.
You’re all dead now.
Keep treading in your wading pools
too scared to face the sea
you’ll be dragged under
and then you’ll think of me.
I’m the conductor of this train
and you’re stuck out on the tracks
red along the iron-ways
but I bet I make it back.
13 Repeats: an overview
13 Repeats was written during the beginning of this year. To this day it is the best thing, in my opinion, that I have ever written. I do not believe that I will write something as real, as tormenting as that poem.
On June 13 2010 while deployed to Iraq I was raped by an officer in my unit. I stood up, and I spoke out. From that day until early to mid November I was flying back and forth between the US and Iraq for the trial. It’s funny that the day of the rape stands out so clearly in my mind and the day that man was convicted does not. I know I am lucky to be alive, and I know I am lucky that he was convicted. Not many get those things.
Needless to say, things didn’t just stop for me when the sentence was read. I have had three hospitalizations since the attack. Each stay encompassed 20 days. That is 60 days that I spent in a ward because of another human being.
You would think, in war, that the biggest concern would be the people we actually went to fight. I never, for a second, would have believed it would be one of our own.
Shortly after writing this poem I went back into the hospital for my 2nd of the 3 stays. I had a total nervous breakdown. At 19.
I was only 19. I will be taking medication for the rest of my life. He will be in prison for 8 years.
I guess there isn’t too much more to say. I read this and I can feel everything from those days. The day I wrote this, the day the attack happened, and the morning of the report.
Shame, fear, disgust, and an eternally deep sadness that has still not gone away.
I always write from my heart. I always aim so that my readers can feel my words.
I hope none of you ever fully feel it.
I want no pity, only awareness.
13 Repeats
I keep saying
”You will make it”
but my heart
doesn’t believe
and my brain’s
stuck on repeat
nightmares last
long into waking
and it makes it hard
to forget.
Sometimes wounds
are deep inside you
Can’t be fixed,
Can’t be healed
Sometimes words
they have no meaning
when you can’t say how you feel.
I am shamed
I am soiled
I am broken
I am weak
hope is lost
faith is fleeting
I just want
to go to sleep.
I keep hearing
”You can do this”
but they’re whispers in
my ears
In my heart,
I am screaming
I just want to find
relief
He was a demon
in man’s clothing
snatched
me up
tore me down.
Brought me straight
into the fires
left me there
to burn in hell.
Brought me straight
into destruction
I hear him laughing
as I drown.
Now my skin
is my own sickness
Now my life
is upside-down
There’s a cancer
that’s within me
Someone save me.
I’m not well.
Sold.
The story has been told before
so why can I not lock this door?
why is the Monster pushing through
how do I rid my mind of you?
I smell the sand, the dust, the sweat-
It’s not how nineteen should be spent.
This misery is getting old
My heart, my soul, my body sold
Though in it, I had no voice
Though in this, I had no choice
I feel the vines wrap up around
I feel my sanity spiral down
I want to catch it, but it slips
all my good becomes eclipsed
Sit in therapy again
listen to myself complain
knowing differences aren’t made
live to die another day
Thank you doctor, for you time
but I am still victim to his crime
Oh well, I guess that’s how it goes
once thrown down, forever exposed
Maybe one day, I’ll be alright
Maybe one day, I’ll win this fight.
blue
blue is seeping in
why does this have to begin, again?
What angle have I refused to see
that can suck this darkness
out of me?
What wrongs did I commit of late?
What effort have I yet to make?
I try, but what’s the worth of it,
when obviously I can’t commit.
I crave to carve the dead away
but intellect has stayed the blade.
How can I trust this tattered mind
that treats my life in ways unkind?
It stays the blade but drives me mad.
Makes me fearful. Makes me sad.
I need to find some aptitude
to keep that blue from seeping through
but what have I left to do?
Where do I search to find the clue?
Someone, somewhere tell me, please
What is there that I can do?
The Hospital Chronicals Pt. 1: Battle
In the darkest of the evening,
laying silent in my bed,
I wage a war within myself.
I fight demons in my head.
Doubts slither between membranes,
constrict upon my veins
Images flash; stop-motion
projected on my brain.
I weild a sword of confidence
and brandish an honour-shield.
Drenched in the blood of battle,
this world is far too real.
I’m losing to the demons,
to my insecurities,
you’d think, in my own head,
nothing ever could conquer me
But I forgot my armour
in the darkness of he night
and I will fall, defeated,
by the dawning of the light.
I left my hope buried
under a thousand leagues of sea.
The water crushes it,
just as the demons now crush me.
I’m not sure how it got there
but it surely slipped away,
and without hope, I’m nothing more
than mild, meek, afraid.
I have to find a way, somehow,
to call over the fight
and summon hope back onto me.
To set the battle right.
I am battered and I’m bleeding
my soul near ripped in two,
but I will not quit fighting
-I have to see this through.
Breathe
tepid secrets
blown onto the windowpane.
drag my fingers through the fog.
drag my fingers through my hair.
breathe, again
secrets you will never know
secrets I can never show
secrets I don’t understand.
erradicate them from my mind.
erradicate them from my blood.
transcend so I can
breathe.
free.
breathe, again.
transcend away
from glass
that is ice upon
my pulse.
numb fingertips.
numb everything.
transced so I can
feel.
breathe, again
another line.
fade away.
beathe again.
webbed.
I have a lot of words to say, but I don’t know how to say them
not the right way, anyway
not a way worth hearing
so I keep rambling out writings
and twisting together webs
no start, no end
knots and lines
nothing’s concise
jumblemumblemuttering.
and I dont think in words
and I can’t speak in colours
I can’t speak in pictures
this language is lonely
is this art or a mess?
Well
There is an ongoing battle within myself.
I’m not sure if I’m winning.
the past, present, future collide
they mold together in a storm of uncertainties
I hyperventilate as I run to unravel it all
stumble
fall
I get back up because it’s all I know how to do
I movemovemove
but I do not confront
I bury these emotions
but not well enough
that they don’t seep through my pores
soak my being
I am trying to be well.
