Overdue

I’ve long waited to write this

But now it’s over due

My words that felt so strong

Are brittle and broken, so torn

He mocks me for all the torment of being struck

He doesn’t see the struggle that a body carries inside that has leftover fractures from his beatings

Emotional ghosts that hang off me like a oversized coat that itches, heavy, ugly

He pretends to be tone deaf to the loudness of our disconnect, the musical entropy of our last, rattling breaths

He mocks my writing career as nothing because it doesn’t pay the bills

He mocks everything I am, the movies I like, the books I like, the words I choose to speak

All of my writing would’ve ceased to exist because when we would argue over little things, he’d harass me that I had to delete everything

He does not beat me anymore physically because I told everyone what he did

But his cold silences and cruel tempers beat my heart with his vehement words

He may not call me whore, slut, cunt, bitch, kike (a Jewish slur)

But he wraps his snake-like rattle against my esophagus to feed me lies that I’m free

I’ve lost more than flesh and bone, more than soft shells that could’ve been my new home

Mocking my escape by keeping me on a loose chain

Mocking my searing fire inside that he suffocated slowly

I’ve lost more than words and ships that never sail

And this poem is hanging above us like dead air mocking me as I feel hopeless to move

My life has become as overdue as this poem

I inch forward but I can’t really go anywhere

Overdue like a bill

I’m slowly dying inside after my death was announced

Trying to reanimate something that is long gone

It’s so overdue you will not read it

Will you?