survivor – seantcjwriting

I know you’ve been hurtin

bellow loudly
profanities
smearing the trinkets of your sanity
across the face of the man
you call your father

Sharpen your damn words child –
like that bits
of broken promises
that linger in your
ventricular valves

You want him to know
what he puts you through

You are still human
You are still a child

but he robs you of that
with each word –
fresh rose thorns
taunt your skin
when you beg for something rougher

Suicide ebbs and flows
into the thoughts of the
most beautiful 14 year old
girl I know

And there is nothing
that I can do
to change that

Feed her hope
Feed her praise
Feed her morality
Feed her bravery
Feed her empty nothings

give her everything
but what she craves most

She too
is a prisoner

HE
hit you at 15
and now he mystifies her
with words that evoke

(~~I can’t bring myself to write it~~)

The play is reaching the intermission soon
bystander
sitting in the nosebleed seats

If I really loved her,
why am I not doing
something meaningful
right now?

the steam from the shower
was spilling from behind the coral reef
a veil
between the shower
and the cupboard of a washroom
he wiped away the steam
as his towel clung to his
protruding hip bones

he grabbed the cloth
on the windowsill
to wipe away the moisture droplets
embroidering the glass

he grabbed the moisturizer
he grabbed the foundation
and he began to apply scoops and heaps

first the bruise from last week whose fading pink gave him
hope that the scarlet purple adjacent to his left elbow
would soon heal
he tried his best to make the dark and blotchy wound on his
right inner rib match his own skin
but after all the creams made it darker, he clutched the
sink and gave up
letting the shampoo drip from his ears

he heard the knock that made each bruise
reverberate
two low resounding thumps
all it took was two before he answered
on the other side was his father

he shriveled to move past him
allowing him in
as he turned back
all he could see was the half lit cigarette and mug he knew
to be filled with coffee dangling between his father’s
mouth and ring finger

he missed his step mother
because at least she could quell his father’s rage
but he learned to remain silent
he remembered to breathe once back behind the closed door
of his room

– he heard the two low resounding thumps
he knew a storm was coming again

Tag: survivor

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