Dysregulation

Unnatural sense of panic
Fight or flight barely held at bay
Dysregulation finds a new pattern
Breathe - Breathe - Breathe it away

-gws

Discomfort

I breathe and it is not enough
I pray for help for life is tough
I tire of carrying this broken trust
I wish to just feel safe again

My skin too tight, my mind too loud
I seek to avoid the merry crowd
I am now scared when I once was proud
I wish to just feel safe again

I fell asleep so full of hope
And woke within the hangman's rope
Fear wedged deep inside my throat
I wish to just feel safe again

Trust once lost is hard to earn
Apprehension in my belly churns
Quiet rage, set low, still burns
I wish to just feel safe again

Discomfort visits everyday
A mix of feelings eating away
The world no longer morally gray
I wish to just feel safe again

-gws

Unmade

I cannot be a human today
Let alone a woman
I am a raw exposed wound
Showered in salty
Reminders of the abuses 
We have already endured 
And I am unmade

-gws

Smoldering

I still hold the smallest flickering flame of hope
Smoldering painfully in my belly
I keep trying to stomp it out
Smother it
But it persists 
Despite the obvious futility of its existence
It will not listen to reason
Will not extinguish beneath showers of bitter tears
I must endure it
Ignore it
Until it gutters and dies on its own

-gws

Broken Love

All of the anger
This hurt
This loss
This heartache 
Was once love

You handled it 
Roughly 
Carelessly 
Thoughtlessly 

You returned it to me
A broken toy
Remorseless
While crying insult
From my lack of gratitude 
At your “effort”

-gws

Dueling Truths

“My heart says, ‘I love him,’ and my mind tells me to keep running.”

This is the complex reality that no one can comprehend until they’ve been in it.  It tears at my own mind, and I struggle to split one instinct from the other.  To compartmentalize these dueling truths so I can continue to protect my peace.

-gws

Ruins

You burned every bridge
then burnt your home to ashes

Now you wonder why you stand
naked and alone in the ruins

-gws

Gaslighting

You refused to take responsibility 
So I accepted it instead
Until the day I found 
You in someone else’s bed

You didn’t do the right thing
You clutched your pearls and said,
“If only you had been the wife
You promised when we wed”

At first I shrank around the wound
Thinking you were right
Believing that it may be true
That I’d been a lousy wife

I thought of all the arguments 
That were constant in our life
The years of ugly, cutting blame
The insistence you were right

But then the rage came rushing in
You would gaslight me no more
I said that you were full of shit
And kicked you out the door

I realized I had done my part
In holding up my vow
It was you who failed on every front
I’d not be blamed right now

You made choices on your own
Now I have made some too
So hit the road, you selfish prick
Gaslighting days are through 

-gws

Devouring

Black walls splashed with red light
Black pedestals shoot up from the floor
Every odd stalagmite topped with dark tributes
Each a void
A violent event horizon
Containing a blackness so deep
The minimal luminescence of the room
Feels blinding by comparison

Like calls to like
The black hole I hold
The emptiness that inhabits the center of me
Demands it’s recompense 
Otherworldly hunger crawls up my throat
Forcing my chest to expand as I open wide my jaw
I inhale deeply
Tears stream
The void within me begins to consume
Every point of absence in the room

Monuments yield their hollow prizes to me
Each devouring punctuated by a scream
Inhale a void
Exhale a scream
Until there are only walls
Red light
And echoing screams

-gws

My demons tell me …

My demons tell me
I’m not enough 
They rake burning shame across my skin
Hiss monologues of self-doubt
In the echo chamber of my ringing ears
They use your voice
Never silent
And they laugh 
At the cleverness of their torture

-gws