Theres another world where I dont feel like this.
Where my heart fits into my chest right and Im not terrified of anything that makes it feel alive.
But I live in a world where I stopped being able to tell the difference between heartbeat and heartache.
Lisa Fotios
By
Updated 5 months ago,November 19, 2024
I stopped taking Xanax some time ago.
Its like Im always waiting for the sky to fall.
Always bracing myself for some sort of crash.
Always going out dressed in my funeral dress.
Men have never taught me anything other than they will always take a stab at swallow me.
I wonder if he can count all the teeth embedded in my blue body.
Hes the kind of man every woman begs god for, whether or not she believes.
So I keep my disaster my disaster.
The whipping post I equated to love.
The ballad of the other woman.
The sharks who bit chunks out of every limb.
How Ive never been loved by anyone who has laid a hand on my body.
The color of exit-only signs.
The bruises I kept pushing down on because I had nothing better to do with these hands of mine.
The sharp edges my heavy eyes set on.
The way winter doesnt really end.
The glacier between me and my parents.
Every place the poems come from.
There are pretty things I wish I could share with him, too.
How I can be so happy and so sad and thriving and healing at the same time.
How this is all messy, but mine.
Then theres the things that scare me most.
The things I find myself writing new things about.
The things that are all because of him.
How the sun throbbed in that tiny space, even though we were watching it rise in the east.
How I stopped to pick up all the shells with little teeth because I wanted to keep him safe.
How I think about even his feet.
He is a man, after all.
I wonder if he even likes me or if Im just someone he likes to fuck regularly.
I want to ask him if theres anyone else hes seeing.
I want to tell him there isnt anyone else Im interested in spending any of my time with.
I want to tell him so many things.
Like how he is reminiscent of that light you’re free to only witness during golden hour.
I want to let my hair down in front of him.
I want to let him see me messy.
I want to stop being afraid of singing along with him when hes singing.
I want to grab his hand and dance with him in the kitchen.
I want to tell him its his to keep it, if he wishes.
I dont want to think the worst about him this way.
But that mouth I dont think I could walk away from that mouth.
Its too late for that, now.
Sometimes its me who I think the worst of.
Sometimes I think he deserves so much better.
Hes beautiful, warm, kind, and someone who has his shit together.
Im a bag full of bruised fruit whos still learning how to stand straight.
I ask myself what he sees in me, if anything.
I wish I wasnt terrified of this simple truth: I like him, I really do.
I do miss him when I dont see him.
That much is true.
But I wish I could tell him its more than that.
