Congolese man Nsala looking at the severed hand and foot of his five-year-old daughter who was killed, and allegedly cannibalized, by the members of Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company militia.

white noise

I was watching a child run between older male family members tonight - carefree and giggling. Yet I found no joy in the child’s innocuous nature - only suspicion in the men’s motives; and, it happens often - a hypervigilance of children with zero relation to me. My esophagus usually turns sour as my gut bubbles with distrust.

Then I wondered, “Why were you so trusting? Where were your instincts? Did you know? Maybe you adopted the belief- out of sight, out of mind. Were you even a good parent? Where the fuck were your instincts? Or were you just a slow release opiate that provided me with doses of false love to distract me from the pain of those agonizing years?”

And my mind began to flood and my cheeks grew flushed and my tongue began swimming in blood as I bit harder and harder on the insides of my cheeks. Trivial chatter made my brain swell with dissociation.

White noise.

I excused myself to the bathroom to spit my fragmented heart into the sink and locked myself in the stall donning furrowed eyebrows and glassy eyes. The static between my ears transformed into thunder and I realized everything in my life from that moment on has been a painting of the butterfly effect. I’ve been riddled with all of these holes because of you. Violated, manipulated, rendered unlovable by all the bad men because of you. Abandoned by the captain in treacherous waters. Planted, but never watered.

I spent so long blaming myself for loving my red slippers with the shiny strap, for always choosing floral printed dresses. But none of that matters now. The guilt and the ache and the emptiness and the disease and the fear and the wariness are the threads in the fabric of my being. For everything, for all of this, I hate you.

ramble ramble

I have so much anger because I have so much hurt and I don’t know why I always go back when I know everything always grows deeper and murkier and crimson and fiery and awful and I can’t describe this sense of worthlessness and I think that’s what makes it worse - that there are no words that illuminate this darkness. i just think of itchy blistered sun poisoning that never heals and you can’t scratch the fucking shit because it only causes more pain and I’m so tired of it.

I am so tired.

And I can’t focus.

And the words are like waves of acid crashing upon my rib cage and my lungs are no longer protected

and breathing begins to ache.

And it feels like do it but then it feels like don’t and I’m so tired of it.

I am so tired.

any day now

I knead my knuckles into my temples and

I pray it takes me

I pray it takes me

I pray it takes me

I float in salt water as my tongue balloons and impedes my speech.

Can you hear me? Could you ever hear me?

Chills travel down my spine like a seismic wave and my organs quake with grief.

I am blue.

It is not this time of year, it is this … time, in its entirety.

The curtains stay drawn and my lips stay chapped as I sleep on a bed of jagged, crisp rose petals — petals that once bloomed with a rosy vibrancy so long ago, like my former full cheeks.

When I was a child, I used to ask him if the monsters I dreamt of had homes.

He told me only if I built them.

Me? An architect? This whole time?

I am him.

the wall cushions my fall as my back slides down green tile,

and I assume a child- like pose

where I am cradling my head in between my thighs

and I think of how the African wild dog is considered the kingdom’s most successful predator,

and I wonder, who is my predator?

who sucked the flesh off of my bones?

did he do this to me?

or is it my fault?

and I think of the ease of a mechanical movement, and how gracefully the spring delivers energy to power the timepiece.

and I wonder, when did my gears grow powerless and weak?

can pain be fixed?

can the screaming burn ever be silenced?

or should I befriend my African wild dog ?

The best night of my life. I wish I could tell Andy Hull how many times he has saved my life. I am forever grateful.