Dread sets in as I pray no one walks in to witness the carnage, the childhood memories tossed from the drawers, the weary anger sprawled across the floor lazily. Somewhere lost in the pooling mess is my sense of self-worth, but it seems to have lost itself in the cataclysm.
I woke up one morning with half my mind missing and I'm still trying to find it. I haven't left my head since.
But someone always arrives when all I am wearing is my canines, and so I attempt to cover the effects of an internal war before answering the knocking at the door. Dress myself in something like contentment. If you mind the mess, you don't let it show, stepping over scattered anxieties to find a clean spot to settle.
I long to mention the rectification this place endured recently, the purging of old fears to make space for you in case you ever came by; I lost part of my mind recently, and the words die on my tongue. If I cannot fix the memory of me, let me not appear as a liar.
You tell me you're getting married soon, quietly cutting the frayed string tying us to a fragile future. You finally learned how to take a full breath, after all this time.
I long to whisper that I know you haven't said my name in years now, that the apologetic lullabies the moon and I write to you still lay me to rest. That the lessons you taught me will be found, that I will find a way to put myself back together again. I would have swept it all under the bed if only I'd thought you might stay the night.
I tell you I am happy for you, even as I sink my teeth into all that remains of us. Good God, please do not let me appear as a liar.
YOU ARE READING
HEAVENLY CORRUPTION
PoetryThe ramblings of a woman who spent too much time in confession and too little time trying to figure out what exactly she was apologizing for.
