restless.

I wish my pussy had learned to be more loyal to love earlier. I mean that with all the forgiveness I can muster. She had become a woman early; too many young friends with similar stories. We was poppin pussy for the sport; some attention to wound never healed. I spent the rest of my days trying to catch up with the inner child left behind. I could hardly bring her back from the dead. Back then? Those were the days I hated myself the most, when existence felt so crowded it was almost always lonely. Surrounded by people like me, and many invisibles. Pain was the name of the game. Even in escaping you had to participate. Deadly shit for real. I walked by spirits daily- many with flesh left on the bones. Few shone like inexplicable light. Too many left hungry. I remember the days when loneliness would stir me so quickly off the path. There was never a real need for new company, but I figured something new had a better chance of filling the voids I never could.

It was the never ending cycles of monotonous mind-numbing work. I was so close to finding all the pieces of contentment in settling, too restless against the stagnancy. I had almost fooled myself into thinking I could learn to be happy in fresh beds, and new places that no longer inspired the heart. I had to answer the call. I had to know what laid on the other side of those that survived without the joy of living. They said it was selfish. The problems of the world were bigger than me and who was I to take it on alone. I had never intended to go alone. I sought familial peace with distant reach. I made friends for a season and reveled in the baseless commitments. I wanted to hold on to promises like pinky fingers intertwined at the hip, but things most certainly always fell apart.

I could analyze a picture to a fault. I could read into the crease lines etched in your forehead and the grievance in your tone. It’d been a long day on the other side of a world I didn’t share with you. I could feel you. I tried not to take it personal. Your battles weren’t mine. I just wanted to not be helpless in your presence, but who was I? My audacity to care felt selfish if I couldn't tell you. I teetered on the line between deception and deflection.

It wasn’t about me, and that’s where it all started to go wrong. I forgot to remember my dreams after clocking out from all the others’. We could never stay grounded; whole but never just one. I didn’t want to be like the others. I hadn’t come in this world alone and thus didn’t understand how anyone could expect me to exist quietly in peace without peaceful company. The kind that loved you enough not to let you drain yourself. The company I needed when I didn’t have myself- know myself? Somewhere in there, lay the difference. I digress.

PTSD felt like being on “go” all the time. And then you add the “voices”. They were different for me. I never claimed to know how things sounded to the rest of the world, I only knew what I thought I heard. Most I ran from. Sometimes they were beautiful, something like fairytales falling from trusted lips. And the darker thoughts proved to be unreliable and troubling, sending me into a trauma loop of a 16-yr old me without a semblance of control. I’d be sweating bullets by the end of the night, driving myself stark mad with anxiety and visions I thought I’d seen so clear. The worst part was always how real the chaos felt when nothing was there to stir it. My friend’s mama was a pastor. She called them “mental battles”.

I never quite learned to let the pain go. Or rather, there was a time when it felt more necessary to fight. I’d find myself writing only in the matters of life and death. When I was running the hardest and fighting the most to just survive, something to help me make sense of the mess in my head. My thoughts swung like heavy hands beating on a delicate back. And If I focused hard enough, I could still taste the blood on my lips. I could still see the disappointments stroked into my bones. We collected self-inflicted bruises and called it “having control”. Like pain was sweeter by my own hand than another’s. All the pieces- we built grand illusions and hid away in its safety. We spent our lives chasing big houses while footsteps ran hollow through it. I always loved the people I couldn’t understand. I still despised big houses. Maybe it’s because I believed they took up so much space, just to hold the most pain. I could see the pieces of me in my broken man. I could forgive that stranger sooner than myself. The voices of reason told me I could live better if I just let go. I couldn’t even leave the fuckin city without looking back. You kept leading me to stone- just a floating head with no master.

What was love? What I learned it to be was something like fye pussy. A live performance of a professional gracefully falling apart. We never got to take our time. Time felt like luxury til living became the chore. I grew up mean-muggin cause it’s what it had to be. Too many skipped lunches, hiding in plain sight from the boys that couldn’t hear “no”. Too many close calls, home calls, and a couple morning afters. I lost my appetite running without protection. I shared a roof with my reminders of shame. Daddy said “loose women got took” and I was just a girl, unraveling. The love I got to know was anything short of a bruise. It was soft and close-bodied- trading me from oppressor to oppressor. It was quiet breathing and rumors taken too far, men tuggin’ at arms and panties, we tossed so disposable. It was laughter and that funny heartbeat, something dropped in my drink. Another place to sleep. It was a vision just short of peace - it laid on the face of brighter dreams. I still get nightmares.

It hadn’t all been this heavy. I didn’t always spew such pain. There was a time, when the heart was lighter and the smiles still moved the eyes to face me. These days, for now, I just hope to get back soon. To simply be able to experience the full range of my emotions, without the bitter aftertaste of remembering . To feel and feel deeply, something other than sorrow or indifference. Something like a spark after intimacy.