sea and the rock below

cocked to the undertow

— roslyn, bon iver

— from tear-stained journal pages

it was a lethal woman

my father brought home.

but oh, she was so beautiful,,

she looked like she was made of the sun,,

i. her eyes were the

color of cold. seraphic

mint blue, a pretty mask

hiding a rotting heart.

eyes the color of a lullaby,

hiding cruel intentions,,

ii. her skin was like pearly

plastic, flawless, dusted

with a shade of gold as if

she were immortal, as if

she bathed in the sun itself,,

iii. her hair, layered shades

the color of summer wind,

pastel golds and silvers

laced with dynamite and a

grandeur no man could resist,,

she looked like an angel,,

but no. she was a cruel woman, and i saw right through her. under the blissful eyes and soft lips, she's a woman of blood and dior. she's a woman who forces her scars on the souls of others, and that other was me.

she raged war against me, the battlefield. since the very first moment my young eyes met hers. at the age of 9 i became a soldier, too young to carry the weight of 10 lifetimes between her shoulder blades,,

yet i did.

my mother was my fall.

she watched her red

shoes

against the

smears of blue

gray foam on the shore

i feel safe here

she felt safe by the place

that collected the

sky's tears

the place

willing to embrace her body

if she were brave

enough

to jump

the waves shattered

against the rocks the

way

her mother's

photographs

shattered against

her stepmother's fists

(flashback/when she was 9)

— from tear-stained journal pages

the woman's a monster when dad's gone,,

dad's always gone.

i had to watch as she snapped the wooden picture frames,

stamped on pressed flowers, with the scent of yesterday,

with the scent of memories and my mother,,

i had to watch as shredded polaroids collected on the ground,

like a pile of faded snow of my mother's face

and a family once happy,,

i watched,,

when she grabbed my arm her claws sunk into my skin,

drawing blood. she dragged her hands down my wrists,

leaving scars,,

a million shards of pain pierced my body as my cheek hit the floor,

the glass now stained with blood.

there was a battle

in her kneecaps but

she stood

there was

a battle

in her heart

in her will to live

her red shoes moved

closer

to the edge of

the cliff

— from tear-stained journal pages

i am 10 years old today, in october,,

i will paint a world for myself

to imagine, i will celebrate this

day alone, while hurting. but

i maybe... maybe if i pretend enough

happiness could be more than just

an illusion

🌙

fingers thread through my hair and

yank back until my scalp burned

you looked at me my skin

explodes into cyanide coated flames and

it burns me alive. there's a demon

inside you, filling your eyes and

traveling into my stomach

with electric agony and hatred and

it's eating me alive and very soon it

will kill me

(i hate you so much i can't breathe)

the chair falls with me and so does my

consciousness, for a second. my skin

knows the taste of your fist in my cheek

all too well. and then your foot is exploding

into my stomach and it hurts more

than the time when you smashed the

photographs of mother into the wall,

but only for a second

at least the ringing in my ears took

that sound away. i hear the sound of canvas

ripping apart and falling down like

paper stars as the master's only solace

is destroyed

and then you're gone

but when i couldn't walk, i crawled

crawled as i coughed out blood from

my splintered insides, crawled with a dark

heather blue blush spreading over my cheek,

crawled to the tattered paper on the floor

petals of my watercolor soaked

masterpiece

and i'd fill each pastel panel with scribbles

for it was the only way i could express my pain,

because my soul is a massive building of chaos

built from the stones that were meant to bury me

but instead i modeled it into a skyscraper

(that skyscraper is falling

but so will i, with or without grace.

i will fall with courage extracted

from the memories of my mother)

i was yet too young to understand

what pain can do to you over time.

it's like water shaping a

rock into who it is and who it can ever

be. i was yet too young to understand

that life was a cruel artist and i'm just

a piece of discarded paper,

trying to find a way to color

myself into something

i could never be

she jumped

the ocean

swallowed her

that day

when she only had

11

years

written over her bones.

i've tasted her tears

and her grief

i could just let her die

but i didn't.

her lyrics aren't finished,

and neither is her melody.

i am the ocean, i drown tormented

poets and artists and regret

it afterward. because

they could have changed

the world.

i will not let her drown,,

yet.

she will wake up on the beach,

the waves softly

caressing her skin like

a blanket.

like a promise,

🌙

bones, blood and teeth erode

with every crashing node

— roslyn, bon iver