Trigger Warning

Fresh from the abattoir.

***************************

when

sacred

was sucked

from the room.

I became too small

to even fit in a thimbles dimple.

The air 

iswasiswas 

heavy weighted,

warm and wet

pressed stinking against my face and neck.

The black dog, still a puppy

(outside)

Shrieks swallowed

by the dark desert

(inside)

I am afraid,

But not in an outside way.

And my traitor's tongue

will trouble not one

of no god’s creature’s tonight

*

breathe

*

I am become so small

I make my sleeping space

In the old suitcase

I brought with me.

It smells like my alaska momma

One breath

*

Then I am but four and only a tidbit more

and a bloody door

Hangs open in my head

*

now

breathe

then

Space,

Exclamation!

& A point (or two)

and a tommyknocker period

of gaping time.

And I am aping,

Fine.

I’m just fine.

twitchily Tapping

a naked

middle finger 

thoughtlessly rapping

on the keyboard.

Minuscule machine gun reports

s.o.s. 

save 

our 

souls

*

Breathe

*

And then

Grey gravel peaks and points

In word pictures rush

Down

And Around

and over my head

(where are my hands I can’t feel my fucking hands)

*

40 years of uninvited relative(s)

insistent persistent yet still so maddeningly distant

Half aborted memories

Lie 

(and lie and lie AND LIE)

toxictainted

in last night’s

substantial attempt

to entirely absent.

*

It’s not addiction … 

that’s a passive man's game.
This, 
my dear, 
is a goddamn

 leisurely 
lullaby-slow

suicide of substance

in the name of numbing out. 

*

“IT’S FUCKING MEDICINAL!”

The baseball bat mouth

wrapped in barbed wire

dipped in Dread

Revenge Starved

BITCH IN MY HEAD

screams

at no one in particular

that I can see 

*

In a hail mary display

of the power still potent

wielded by waste paper golems

summoned by some forgotten nerve 
I haven’t managed to burn out yet.
*

Stomped silly

Punch drunk

Child soldiers.

Each pushing past

To tattletale 

PIERCINGLY 

(as children often do)

In effort to drown out the gears

Of The grinding down

in earnest emphasis

for the flattest affect

I can fairly offer of my face(t)

(pay no attention to the old woman behind the curtain)

Natures nurtured nerves

gnawed down to a nub.

The tabasco turns

my cuticles red

&

burns my traitor tongue 

 stains my tshirt

*

two breathes 

and I am 8, no more

the door is locked but slotted.

Far and away an angry tv whispers

 “There'll be no locks or bolts between us, Mary Kate... 

except those in your own mercenary little heart!”

There are more slashes of noise and light…

Then comes much darker desert night

*

Breathe, Selah, pause, reflect.

*

I will still 

perjure myself

in the court of public opinion.

Again.

*

I said I’m fine!

Don’t fucking touch me!

Your embrace 

comes fully laced

with your signature, 

only slightly muffled

 sharp-edged sighs/

I smell the sweetstinkrot of your panic

 through your shitty Walmart perfume.

And I know.

I just know.

*

How am I?

I’m fine.

just fine.

*

I have stories,

much like you I bet.

Some to shape for show and tell.

Some I'm content to keep to myself.

*

Disappearing only on the inside

gagging only a ghost.

 But not afraid. 

Not in an outside way.

e.holloway 2018