i finally updated!! and thank you so much for 4.9k reads and 1.1k votes!!! i really, really appreciate it. sending all my love.
also, this poem is a bit long. oops.
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i haven't yet learned
the language of my pain
that speaks not in words
but in throbbing aches
rooted deep inside
like weeds with a heartbeat
i haven't yet learned
the language of my pain
that tells nothing of
my wounds
or how to trace them
back to the blade
and to who
wielded it before,
and if i am more
than this soul sadness
that even music
and its gentle hands
can't pick apart
with glissandos
and grace notes
i haven't yet learned
the language of my pain
or how to understand
the hurt that heals
without a scar
and how it should be
remembered
when there's no proof
of it ever existing.
was it ever there
if the crimson only spilled
against the ivory bones
inside
and never stained the ground
beneath your feet?
can a healed wound
without a scar
ever be forgotten
if i keep falling back
into memories
--the quicksand of them
holding on to me
and letting time
do the killing
in between the hours
of hushed midnight
and crowing dawn--
getting hurt
over and over,
trying to understand
what went wrong
and how love
became a language
i did not recognize,
and how pain
became as familiar
as my mother tongue,
how sewing myself
back together
took longer
than when you
ripped me apart,
severing my soul
into two,
taking half of me away
when you left
and set our forest
ablaze
with the matches
you kept between your teeth--
but first you waited
until i have forgotten
the burn of a fire,
the taste of ash
on my trembling lips
that only remember
sweetness
not soot
only then did you
bring the flames
to the haven,
only then did i mourn
the language of our love
in the leaves,
only then did i hear
the foreign words of pain,
watching your wildfire
consume us and the underbrush
with fiery breath,
and there are not
enough words in the world
to contain it
what hurts most
is that no one saw
the smoke
love,
mari