No Words

I cut myself open with the tip of my pen

Trying to find the words to say to the boys I once loved

But instead there is a fire that bleeds out of me

A raging river of endless need

And guilt

And wanting

And wanting

And never enough

They’ve heard it all already

Sat through every storm I became and watched me as I spiraled into the sunset

Convincing myself they were enough for me

That I could fit into the boxes they built for us

Made out of cardboard and cutouts of their favorite movies

Their mother’s noses

Their mother’s hands

Their father’s absence

What they didn’t know is that the fire that burst from my head was also in my veins

What they didn’t know is that every box they would present to me

No matter how beautiful

Would break me

Would be the reason I drove too fast down the coastline of California

Drunk and dizzy on too many pills

Screaming at them

Which was really screaming at my father

What they didn't know was that anything that resembled a fist

Or a cage

Black hair

Green eyes

Would be what I chased desperately and also feared

The burden of the rage he beat into me only sometimes dissolving

Under the salty brine of desperation in my heart

The need to be held without being hurt

whimpering

begging for forgiveness after the bite under my tongue had torn them to pieces

These two parts of me always at war,

a war they never agreed to but were forced to fight in

When you carry these hurts in your throat like bullets ready to discharge

Where do they go when the targets keep getting further and further away

Softer and softer

There’s nothing left to say

So I let this river flow inward at myself until each of their faces

Each of their names

Every woman I was and tried to be but couldn’t

Is burned to simple ashes

Scattered across the moon of my subconscious

Colorless

Vacant

Always there but never making a sound