hiding tremors

there are days when i unglitch
and today i splice the part of me that stopped writing

my memories become clear in this moment
i take the one wrong turn i should have missed
sending me 10, 692 kilometres back without a u-turn
i see the same damn parquet floors
i bled out on when i chose to die
and chose to live

the last poem i wrote
i wrote for you
but i didn’t let you keep it
undoing in a second every single
thing that poem was meant to save

i guess i disappeared that day and undid myself too
into the abyss of broken egos where love loses her way
and i stayed there where one goes
to put out the light in their eyes for good

the last poem i wrote
i wrote for you
but i didn’t let you keep it
now i stop writing past the fifth line and simply
waste ink
i had words for every feeling
a survival skill
i took for granted
like changing tyres and making a fire
and laughing

i have written myself out of a life that was no longer
mine to live
i am a blank page
a million words unwritten
hiding in a room full of memories and things i never said
my heart races and i am terrified at how empty the gaps look
under a certain light
there is less of me now

these are the days when i spill
over the brim of my mind
like Portuguese garden tanks
and kicked tea glasses
the blanket wound so tight around me
as i try to keep the little left of myself in
and the worst of my memories out

this is the result of giving up
i became the bottomless pit that i once sat in
and maybe it really isn’t such a good idea
to begin casting shadows in the dark

darkness, like the all-enduring poison ivy
parasitic and rooted in deep
climbing from within out
until the pain becomes physical
permanent damage written in code like a hack

these are the days of back-breaking truths

chapels and my mother
corners that reach outside of light
the person that lived in my skin
the past
these are the places i do not look
these are the places fear lives

i fray at the edges and cut the loose ends
but a little more gets taken off with every snip
and somehow i learn that it is love
like i never met
that shows me the needle and thread

these are days that do not blink
and my mind slows as i see
the missing pieces, casualties strewn across the debris of me
what is left of the girl who chose to live
when she chose to die

she reminds me again
the aftermath of pain is still pain

so i smile to myself.

-----

the poem i speak about can be read here:
https://whenyoureyesdontshut.blogspot.com/2017/08/when-hope-starts-to-sing-along-to-your.html