Mom, I think he killed me.
It wasn’t my life he took but my innocence.
Which one is worse?

Mom, I think he loved me, but love
is such a strong word for such a fragile thing. He pinned
my hands down and never let me leave.

Mom, there’s a kiss
in my mouth that I never want to stop rolling my tongue around.
There’s a breath in my lungs that’s dying to get out.

I hold the hurt like poetry but it’s raging inside of me like
a sandstorm, its getting into my eyes, obstructing my vision.

I had scars on my arms from self-mutilation where other kids
fell down from their bicycles. Candy became prozac. The story of my life was written from the sharp edge of a rock.

Mom, I think there’s something in my mind,
a trembling darkness that wants to get out. It’s buzzing
me like a mosquito and I won’t relax its grip on me.

It keeps me awake at night. It makes me hate him. It makes me hate you.

For years I thought I forgave him but there’s a beehive inside my ribcage
that was once filled with honeybees and is now filled with wasps.
I can hear them trying to get out, but mom I thought you knew me
like the back of your hand.
I thought you knew me like
you know the subway map and the poem I liked the best at bedtime.
I thought you knew me like a mother knows her daughter.

They’re running after me. I’m too weak to escape. They’ll
shred my flesh apart, eat my skin. There are bloody stripes where
my arms should be,
sadness where the happiness should be.

Mom, he took it from me.
Barged in through my esophagus and cleaned me out from the inside-in.
There’s a hole in me where my heart should be.
There’s a wasp in my mind that’s dying to get out,
but it can feel the darkness and it soon goes to sleep.
It gets more sleep than I do, trust me.

Mother, it was thirteen years ago.
The pain still wears away at my soul like
paint chips on a wall. If I were transparent glass
you’d see the cracks. I’d rather he had cut me open with a switchblade
than tear my mind apart.

Mom, you knew me.
You knew me before the darkness.
It’s just that humans can’t share each other’s
eyes and I couldn’t give you mine.

I wish I could.
I wish I could.