it's almost time to leave

The house where your ghost lives, 

And yours and yours and yours, 

And his, 

Ah fuck I've done it again. 

Loved without my own skin in the mix, 

Come out the other side bleeding 

Hissing, hurt and fit for anger management therapy, 

It's so easy to blame another for 

Provocation and meanness 

But isn't this how most wars start? 

Through retaliation? 

I suppose without it, it would simply be sin, 

But now, to my chagrin,  

I see we are both guilty, 

Both fit for repenting, 

So why then am I the only one on my knees

Tearing at my spinal column for another inch of freedom? 

Why did I try to give what cannot be given? 

A better past, shifting sands turned to concrete beneath your feet, 

My lungs to breathe, 

My heart to beat when yours turned to stone, 

Did I truly believe my worth to be nothing, 

A sacrifice laid at your creaking joints, 

And here I do it again and again, 

Let me tell you something then,  

I am worthy. I am healing. 

To focus so much of your being outwards means 

Losing too much weight, 

Losing too many friends, 

Calling yourself sane when your brain is barely hanging in there

Now my own mother cries when she sees me

For how I have destroyed the body she built, 

But it wasn't me!
I try and tell her, 

It wasn't me. 

It was the aggression of my loving, 

The depth of that loss, 

The cost of putting others first 

Meant I've lost my strength, my voice

My arse, my balance, 

My mind at times and my dreamscape, 

Once the only safe place. 

This, mama bear, I got from you, 

She always gave herself the worst cuts of chicken, 

Stretched herself thin to pay for meals 

For her children, 

Shut herself down to follow the life of her husband, 

Calls herself a former artist despite the burning passion she lives with 

And calls herself ugly for the wrinkles she's grown into. 

She doesn't even know she's this beautiful. 

That the power of love she has given sustained me and my family 

Through kidnappings, cancer, debt and destructions 

Always her warmth and hugs kept us in our skin

So says my auntie who thrived on these hugs

Through the death of her mother. 

My goodness, that is generosity. 

Sometimes misplaced, sometimes martyred, 

I'm left screaming at bent reflections, 

That I did not want this, 

Emptiness in my gut

I did not know this was the other side of love, 

I knew what I had before it was gone

But it goes anyway, 

Beyond any control or will of my own, 

Now what's left is my freezing Bones, 

Blue hands, a constant shiver 

And reprimanding phone calls, 

This anger has burned out, 

This loss is let go, 

My friends now ask if I've eaten, 

A question they never had to broach before

My therapist says kid, you've got the guilt

For something you did not do, 

Stop trying to make amends with those who won't forgive you

Just breathe, tell me what you need, 

Leave the rest up to this skygod you speak with,