feelings

 you were wrong!

i listened. you said you couldn't be with me if we weren't in the same area.

you said you couldn't move to america as a Black man 

for fear of everything

and i understood so completely i steadied my heart

you said i wasn't near you

that you'd need to be physically near someone to risk your heart

and you asked me to move closer toward you once my six-month tenure in poland was up...

...which you said, you

not me

not i

your beautiful words...

was a long time, a long wait

but worth every minute so i could move toward you

--oh, how could you do what you've done

...even my baby girl cries and clings to me...

--my son begs me to stop because it hurts his ears--

--my daughter just nods her head sagely and pats my arm--

"you don't understand," and

i was raped in june; two nights later i thought i'd met someone to love, and i'm not even close to missing him. i don't want him tying me up

and my daughter didn't even blink at those tears, or the ones over dee.

these scare her, so what does she hear?

heartbreak--all i want is for you to shine--

what else is love?

tg: you've gaslit me. 

(cédrìc, the reason i never asked for your photo

is that i'm in love

and you fill me so delightfully 

but i don't feel that way 

i feel like i have to try, you're so delighted

but i'm in love, and i tried, i tried

but i got raped instead--

--and his belly was about a foot overhung

and he's my height, and a drunk

oh, i tried with dee, i was so sure

dee would be it but i don't stay quiet

about sexual assaults--

i vomit and vomit everywhere i drive

i almost pass out in parking lots 

in my own bed 

since dee made me vomit pushing on my head

i guess you could call him DJ BJ...

...oh, he scared me, cédrìc

in a way only musclebound chris has 

so i know

that no matter how long you and i tried

my love for musclebound chris endures

it's nourishing 

he holds me at night inside my heart

and he says it's never going to happen again

he pulls my hair back when i vomit 

and he says the flashbacks don't have to ruin what we have in my memory and my need

oh, but the real musclebound chris

leaves me limping 

said i was never molested as a child

never--raped--even on first dates--

and he wears knives on my downtrodden snake, on my heart

so, cédrìc, my love

understand: you are not my love like that 

you know me, you flow me, we flow poetry)

pretended you never said it. refused to acknowledge that you offered love

and in all my adult years

the only soulmate i ever felt

flutters from each word you write.

your poetry writ large on the lite-brite of the universe....

i will eternally hang my head in shame 

i am all disgust, i am the dictionary's saddest word

i should be shot up and riddled with holes

for wanting what you offered

(i woke up from you again--i am being attacked as i sleep)