I'm Not Scared of Getting Hurt
From the Rock Bottom Series of Old Poems
I hit rock bottom when I was 18 years old.
I met a boy with perfect hands and
a beautiful smile,
and he ate my heart like he was starving.
I loved him so much it made me sick. Throwing up
words I could never say to someone else,
picking feelings off my skin like scabs
was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.
I bled promises. I have scars
left behind from his fingertips
those nights he laid next to me and
told me I was beautiful, and
that he wasn’t used to being loved.
There will not be a next time that I have to say
I’m sorry for having a full stomach of butterflies.
Let my heart be an etch-a-sketch. Shake it empty.
Make my bones quiver with all of the sounds of tomorrow.
I will not apologize for the garden that I planted in your ribs.
Let the weeds be a reminder.
My lost flowers no longer bloom.
He left me like I was the plague
and he was scared of getting infected.
He visits me still in intangible ways.
Like when his playlist comes on the radio
and every station reminds me how much I loved
the way he spoke to me with songs.
And how I held him when every lyric made him cry
tears of cobalt blue that drown my closet,
and as I rummage around for something less nostalgic
I feel like I’m sinking in an ocean of his favourite colour
and suddenly pink doesn’t exist anymore.
I was 20 when I realized
that I was the one who was toxic.
For 4 solid years I had poison running through my veins
and I didn’t even know it,
until the man with my favourite laugh
dropped me on a corner,
and told me that he couldn’t stand the burning anymore.
And when I looked at my hands,
I could almost swear they were covered in blood.
Three months later I found myself
in the arms of another,
and still I believed that I was an exception
in a world full of rules.
Tell me now why all of the men who want to love me
are men that I don’t want to touch.
And all of the men that I want to love
don’t want to touch me,
because I don’t have an off switch
for the emotions that run so high
I can make lights flicker.
I am an electrode. Watch me set everything on fire.
Even as I was standing alone in the dark,
outside, music so loud it shook the sparks from my eyes,
and all of the hope that I had turned to ash.
For bitten fingers, cheeky smiles, cowboy boots.
With a heavy heart I found myself again
playing like a child, and
he reminded me that I still know how to laugh.
Not enough time, I believed I was different.
I could change him, make him want me,
no matter how many times he told me
no. I am not special,
nothing separates me from the hundreds
of girls walking around in pretty dresses
and heels so high they assure
her head is in the clouds.
Silence remained
when he told me he changed his mind,
and I realized that maybe
I had been chewed up and spit out
so many times, that I had been drained raw.
All I have left are words
with no meaning, too much
meaning. Said so many times
they no longer make sense.
I have left claw marks on everything I’ve touched.
My daggers have been worn
and I can’t show them how it hurts to be left behind
when they’ve become dull. Reckless. Dependent
on rock bottom, showing me nothing but comfort.
Give me wings so I can fly,
show me silver linings on clouds not gray.
Teach me how to be a bird.
I don’t want to touch the ground
ever again.
About the Creator
Chelsea Z.
A warrior of sorts, since 1993.
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