Rage Fire

The truth has lit a rage fire in my belly
Where there was guilt and pity
There is now a simple aching coal
Burning so hot it challenges the sun

-gws

The Rocky Path

I’m walking between worlds 
Both in a nightmare
And waking from one
Navigating the rocky path
One footfall at a time
Calling on my ancestors 
Those women who each
Did the same in their own way 
As I step out of darkness 
Into the healing light of freedom 

-gws

Burn

I sat in the flames as it all burned down
Trying to douse it with tears
But now I see things for what they are
And I step back to watch it burn

-gws

Box of Postcards

I wrote you a box of postcards
I never sent
I could not set the stamp
In place
I could not address it 
To that space
You weren't there anyway
You never really were

-gws

Learn to Say Goodbye

I see the grief in your eyes
As the carefully crafted reality you made
Starts to fracture into a cascade of spiderwebs
The part of me that still loves you 
Wants to comfort you
Tell you that everything will be ok
But I cannot do that
This disillusionment is necessary
And being trapped inside your bell jar
Has nearly ended me
I will not forge you a new one with false hope
That I am still your refuge
Because this all must end
You must face the world
On the other side of the looking glass
The real world where the damage you have wrought
Lays exposed before you
A cold world where you are finally alone
My heart breaks because it didn't need to be this
I wanted to love you
I tried to
But you didn't know how to accept love
And you didn't know how to give love
Because you don't know how to love yourself
You don't know what healthy love feels like
I feel the grief in my heart as I watch you
Watch your world unravel
I mourn for both of us
For the future that will never be
For the past so full of pain
For the love we both deserved but
That couldn't survive your demons
I did love you
I loved you so much, so hard
I forgot how to love myself
I grieve for all we are letting go of
I grieve along side you
As my hand slips from yours
And we learn to say goodbye

-gws

Unintended Consequences

I tried to love you
In spite of yourself
I couldn’t know
That I’d forget
To love me
In the process

-gws

Wants and Needs

Everything's become about 
Wants and needs
So much so
That we forgot 
How to just
Be

-gws

Thousand

I've told you a thousand times I hate your demands of my body
You've shown me a thousand and one times you don't give a shit 
I've swallowed a thousand silent screams of frustration
I've cried a thousand silent tears of rage
I've counted a thousand agonizing seconds waiting 
For the understanding to etch across your face
That OUR relationship is more than just YOUR needs
But it never manifests
A thousand and one times this exchange plays out
Like ghosts caught in the temporal fly paper of their last moments
I can't even pretend I'm okay anymore
I will not arrange my face into a mask of acceptance
I will, instead, blank my face and retreat into my mind
Counting a thousand heartbeats enduring the unwanted attention
Disguised as affection that is really an affliction upon my person
One would think that a girl who looks like me should be grateful
That a boy who looks like you is so obsessed with a body like mine
I will admit that some part of me is flattered
That my thousand fat cells bear your label: SEXY
But when the package is more valued than the contents
It feels like a thousand Christmases where the kids 
Like the boxes better than the presents I agonized over choosing
I have identified a thousand random shapes in the ceiling paint
I have taken a thousand calming breaths
While screaming a thousand times in my mind 
STOP TOUCHING ME
It is a thousand moments of madness
When I want a thousand and one moments
Seeking my enthusiastic consent
Instead I endure a thousand days
Until the thousand is down to one

-gws

No Longer Invested

I am no longer invested
In getting you to love me
The way that I need to be loved

I am no longer invested 
In your opinions of me

I am no longer invested 
In trying to meet you in the middle

I am no longer invested
In twisting myself into broken shapes to please you
When my only reward is pain

I am no longer invested
Because I have divested you
Of your access to my serenity

-gws

Adjectives

On the night I was arrested
Our argument ended when
You called me a 
"Fat. Lazy. Black. Bitch."
Our children heard you
I heard you
I couldn't believe you said it
But I heard you
The words hung in the air like poison
Choking the tears in my eyes
Choking the rage in my throat
Time stopped
Suspended by shock
Each painfully silent moment 
Accompanied by the roaring blood
Rushing like a raging river in my ears
As I stood in the kitchen
Eyes wide and mouth open
Speechless
Everything suddenly clear
As I stared at you in utter disbelief
It was over
It had been over
And with that final insult
Those four ugly adjectives
It became unmistakably understood
I was done

-gws