Ashtray

I threw out what was in that ashtray today. I was saving the half-smoked spliffs in case you came back to my bed. Can't wait any longer. Can't get high on what you left behind. The memories are too sobering. With lids closed, I still see you with your hand in mine, for a moment you squeezed so tight. Looking around…it's hard to tell you were ever here. Your green eyes turned icy that last day.

This shit is too familiar. Something I know about myself is that I'm not fucking crazy. I'm not insane, I'm logical. Every time I try to reason with someone it doesn't work out. Why the fuck do I feel like the all-seeing eye? I can always breathe the beauty in front of me, taste the glory and light, but never am I able to shield from the shit that invades from the left. So much love given, so much trust laid, it's impossible not to feel betrayed.

I wish there wasn't so much hate flowing through me. I hate the way men eventually speak to me. I hate the vacancy in their stare. I hate the footprints made when they walk away. I bet he forgot the ugly sentences spit from defensive lips. I hate those words now stitched to my tender ears. Sucks to suck dick then be flippantly dismissed. I hate being left so much I talk to my ghosts daily. Racing dialogues flood with things never said, things I never got to overexplain. Funny how even their curated apologies don't sound honest.

Maybe I do have daddy issues. He didn't really abandon me, he's still around hanging out with his white wife. He loves me in the only way he knows how. I can accept that. He did walk away from my mom. Fled and galloped actually. Traveling back into child mind…I didn't learn what love is from them. Two adults hiding between beige walls became resentful strangers. Woven together only by the confused bruised fruits of their loins. My mother was meant to be alone. It doesn't make her sad, it makes her powerful and complete. Why did I learn so much from this gorgeous woman but never absorb that? Floating through my days untethered doesn't always produce power. Most weeks it hurts like starving with misty lashes.

The cognitive dissonance that cyclones through my head breaks my goddamn heart. I know I'm loveable. I know nothing if not that I'm the most fun you've ever fucking had. I know I bring sarcastic silly true blue impassioned joy to the people I meet. But I don't get kept by lovers. By those I chose and are moved by…they don't stay. Am I candy? Taste me, savor me, swallow my essence yet forget the flavor as it drifts down your throat. Sucks to be sucked but never truly held.

"Crybaby, dry your cheeks. Time moves slow but it only goes forward." Oh Christ, leave me alone. Let me swim in this. Last thing I know for sure, love will kill my body but not my soul.