Carved in venom

Empty vessel

Image - Zivah Avraham

do you remember what I felt like
the first time
you grasped me by the neck?

you gripped
my throat constricted
and caught my breath
without a safety net
slipping myself through my fingers
grains of time
pooling on the floor
sand soaking
urinary loss
measuring my fear in
millilitres of sunshine yellow
staining your mood
like the nicotine
on your fingertips
orange
sunset blaze
your eyes on fire
with possession
a red rag to a bull
the ache in my groin
testament to a usefulness that I failed to live up to
stubbing out my embers
in your superiority
your potency
your legacy —
affronted
by my empty vessel
mirroring your (. . .) promises
yet still you squeezed
the blood from the sheets
walking us into a future carved in venom and bad intention
chains padlocks tripwires
you don’t want me
but you won’t
.
.
.
release

possession nine/tenths
disposing of my sanity
like so much
waste

if only you had discarded me
me and my empty vessel
aching for its loss
or lit me more meaningfully
than your cheap cigarettes
my energy depleted
by your uranium
consuming every moment
every sinew
every bruise on my jaw

if only I hadn’t disappeared
in the struggle
I’d have burned, incendiary
sunset blaze
my eyes on fire
and now I’d be

free
from the weight of your
emotional debt

your payments are long overdue
I can wait
I promise you

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This is truth couched in poetry which could sound like fiction because sometimes we need to excise infected wounds in a more creative way than writing in our journals, if we can even do that.

Thankfully, this is an archive from a past that never made it into my future, my now. But it still had an impact. So, it still festers. Sometimes. Noticing a glance between strangers that feels a bit off, seeing the body language as a couple pass by, watching the jaw clench and release, clench and release.

Coercive control. Domestic violence.

Pay attention.

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If reading this impacted you and you have the means to do so, you can buy me a coffee - fair warning, I’ll buy books! Or notebooks. Or stationery.

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And.. Or… you can do this!