And To Be Left Eternally Fading Into Silence Over

And to be left eternally fading into silence over

And over

And over.

And to be left to waste away in the shadow of a man’s vanity.

~Echo speaks for us all

What is a woman if not a smile in the face of a storm

What is a woman if not the storm

If not the crechendoing tempest and

The ethereal melody that somehow never loops back again

Unpredictable familiar rhythm

If not lilting music box laughter

A cacophony of karma

What is a woman if not an expanse of endless possibly

If not a universe in static motion

If not the duality of an ocean

In all her calm lethality

Her peaceful wild

In all her vastness and instiabilty and depths never to be discovered

What is a woman if not a warning to be careful what you wish for

If not a walking contradiction

A winding metaphor

An invitation to drown yourself amongst her depths

All sin and

Salvation and

Sacrifice

All risk and

Reward and

Redemption

If not the remembering and the revenging

What is a woman if not salacious second chances

If not doubting into oblivion only to be resurrected over and over

And Over Again

If not myth and martyr and miracle

If not warrior and wish and whim

What is a woman if not ravaged battlefield and a bullet wound just clotting

A freshly dug grave that still smells like flowers and earth and possibility

If not stitches pulled taunt and the soft skin of a scar

If not delicately crafted battle wound

If not the art of unbreaking

What is a woman if not a champagne toast and red wine stain

If not shattered glass and shards that will lodge themselves under your fingernails

What is a woman of not midnight blaze and forest fire and funeral pyre

What is a woman if not

burning

burning

burning

What is a woman if not waist curved like a flame

What is a woman if not

Anything she wishes to be.

The ache always taste familiar

Oddly comforting

And I brew it like a cup of tea

On the nights I cannot sleep

Sip it Gently

And wait for it to lull me to bed

And there is nothing left unsaid, and yet a million things unheard. The chasm between us widening and deepening and every word tumbles down into the depths and we remain. Sore throats and hoarse voices and strained eyes trying to make out the details of your face that drift farther away with each passing eternity. And I suppose, that we could jump. But who knows what awaits us? How far we will fall. If We will hit the bottom alive. If we will drown in the accumulated sea of sentences that have amassed over the years. If we will see each other the same in the darkness. If we will ever resurface.

But I will jump first. If only to know it will be your voice that drowns me. If only to attempt to consume everything you ever tried to say before it devours me instead. If only to be suffocated by your truth. If only to be laid to rest here, amongst the sins we birthed together. Here, next to the slowly disintegrating corpse of our love. And perhaps I will never know peace. But I will have known the whole of you, And that would have been enough.

I lost track of the wounds

In the end

The only one that mattered

Was the one you gave me

In the end

The only one that mattered

Was you

In the end

It was the betrayal that slaughtered me

Before the blood loss

When your eyes sliced into my soul

Puncturing the vital organ

I was dead before your blade parted flesh

Ghost before my body hit the ground

~

In the end

My final breath

An exhale of your name

That still tasted like home on the tounge

My blood forgetting to be afraid

In your familar palms

~

But if I am spirit

Why I am the one haunted?

By you

Or some part of you that perished

With me

Begging for mercy

I do not know how to grant you

~

And if you lived

Why did I find you

Haunting your own shell

When I returned to

Forgive you

~

~And Caeser Thinks: If Betrayal Is A Kiss, I am Glad I Tasted It Last From Your Lips

...

the men in my life are all good men, or, at least, they are men who are not violent - and that is enough for a man to be considered good; that he could be violent but is not.

the men in my life are good men. recently at a hardware store one of the men in my life let me stand behind him, just a little, in that ghosting way that girls can learn. the disappearing technique we master of shadowing behind our Good Men. this was to protect me from a man who was not-being-good.

i fall down. one of the good men in my life offers me one arm like a knight, we are laughing while i clamber back onto my feet. i give the good men in my life piggy back rides because i like to show off how strong i am. i give the good men in my life run-at-them hugs. i let the good men in my life pick me up like i am a sack of grain; i get the good men in my life coffee, i make them sandwiches, i teach them dancing.

i am a man-hater, obviously. i am gay enough the insult is sort of funny. waiting for the bus, where there are men who are not-known-to-be-good, i google how to make a fist. i can never remember if the thumb goes on the outside or the inside, only that it is imperative that i do not fuck it up or i will break my thumb at the same time the man tries to break me. 

i walk my dog around the track only-at-dusk and-no-later. i made that mistake once, in august, hoping i could take a later run and maybe see the stars - i romanticized the idea of being able to skulk like a fox. the man that followed me across three lawns, two road-crossings, and back to my car - he spent the whole time whistling. the good men in my life say - oh, do you need me to come with you? and are actually asking - do you feel safe?

i fall down in a supermarket. a man i do not know grabs the inside of my knee. i do not know if the man is good, but i am supposed to give men the benefit of the doubt, so i laugh while standing. a man trying-to-be-in-my-life says what, no hug? and i have to decide if it worth it to just take off or put up with it. a man who-might-not-be-good stares at me while i walk by - i have to calculate if he’s just looking or if he’s watching. other men have badly hurt me, physically. the casual remark made is that those men are not real men. but they were real enough, to me.

there are many men who are mad at me. an entire reddit thread once was dedicated to how to dox me for feminist ranting - it was kind of funny, when it wasn’t downright scary. i have been stalked and harassed and treated horribly. they are all good men, in their own lives, you know. they are not violent, usually, unless provoked, and all it takes for a man to be good is for him to not be violent unless provoked, and i am, of course, always provoking.

a man in my life rolls his eyes. “i am sick of hearing this. we get it, all men are fucking evil. get over it.”

a man who-is-not-good shouts something unwritable at me. i have to tell the good man i am standing next to - it’s okay, this is nothing compared to what-could-be, this happens, it’s really not that big of a deal to me. 

“but it should be,” he says. “it should be.”