3 Poems About Walking Away From Emotional Abuse That Will Empower You

In The Years I Unlearned You

I learned to live deeply within myself

It’s sometimes a wonder other people see me here at all

I even surprise myself when I speak

as if the entire universe looking back at me is enough to make me realize

I am here

Though I cannot always feel it

Though I cannot always feel my feet

those which do not hit the ground

Though I cannot always feel my lungs

those which do not gasp for air

Though there are times where all that I can see is dark

It’s sometimes a wonder bees like to linger around my dead corpse-

There is nothing sweet about the body of a girl who spends months

crawling back into herself after she spent months teaching

herself how to crawl out

I learned a lot about other people by staying quiet

by being part-time human, part-time ghost

by assuming my position as obedient dog

come here, sit, let me carve you open until everything inside of you

spills out unto my floor

and then let me punish you for it

I learned a lot about what it means to be silenced

but even the earth shakes itself when nobody is listening to it

and they say that storms happen due to instability in the air

but it was yours that had caused mine

Did you think I would stay here?

In this house

with no doors?

Did you think I would be your prisoner forever?

---

I Promised You A Poem

There is nothing graceful about the way I grieve or write things.

In fact, I counted six empty beer bottles on my night stand this morning

and woke up as a train track, and I haven’t figured out how to turn

that into poetry.

But you wanted to make damn sure you’d be remembered,

didn’t you?

You wanted the words

the spilled blood

mess on the bathroom floor

bones in a graveyard

all to mourn the death of you.

But you see,

my body is not an old tomb

I do not need to hold onto your ashes just because you touched me

I have learned how to shed my skin so that your fingerprints

do not transform into scars.

And you forgot this part

And you thought of me as only darkness

And you thought of me as only air and water

And you thought of me as only an ocean of sad

And you thought it would be easy

so you turned your hands into razor blades

and held me by my limbs at night

pretending you could save me

by cutting me open.

I told you I would write you something

Here it is.

---

Is This Vague Enough?

My writing is too

raw, he said, too honest.

It is true that I must

compensate

for everything that I lack to say

when I am around you;

a falling blade

that lands upright

and never cuts.

This is me

hoping it will land

on your doorstep.

This is me

hoping it will serve

as a metaphor

for all the things

I never said.

This is me

saying,

“I hope you know

how close I came to

dying,

but I survived.

I survived.”