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I AM THE UNHEALTHY ONE

My trauma makes me argue with men as if I am fighting a war for all the women who have no voices to fight with /when I am wrong /when there Is no war,

my kettle boils over without a flame /there is so much anger inside of me

and I fight.


I have seen my mother’s eyes glaze over in numbness too many times.

I have hidden myself in so many places I sometimes forget to come back out of /the world still rotates.

I have counted the minutes until I have to face despair on a beaten woman’s face /

there are so many minutes in a day and yet not enough in-between wounds.


I think of all the ways I could leave if I have too

when I’m in a healthy happy marriage

and I know the unhealthy one is me.

I know.

I know.

I know.

Hide money underneath mattresses,

although I think my husband suspects but lets me do it anyways.

Plot my moves in case he leaves me /where I would go /what I would do next

all while he’s beside me watching TV

like its mandatory homework,

but I graduated three years ago.

He doesn’t know I have a suitcase packed upstairs ready to go if he even looks at the word abandon the wrong way.


My mother said never trust men.

Live in a box/live under a bridge/live in a shoe/ die of starvation/die sick/ die alone

but never trust men.

And the normality of my thoughts never shock me.

I feel like an abandoned animal at the shelter barking at hands trying to show me affection.

And the world screams daddy issues,

but forget it took a grown man to create the anxiety wrapped around a damaged frame that doesn’t know how to put itself whole again even when people are stopping by with their tool bags trying to help.


Sometimes I don’t want to become a mother

because i’m scared I won’t know how to raise happy children

I never wanted to have a daughter because I didn’t know if I was strong enough like my mother

to teach a little girl

how to not cry when she is not loved by the other half that made her whole.

How am I to explain that men were quick to get into a woman’s hood but slow to raise a woman

but I find myself buying dresses for a little girl I don’t even have

and wonder if my mother’s only trusted friend was me


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