TANESHA NICHOLE

1.

I slam goodbye so hard

the door is no longer on its hinges

Vodka bottles break to fill the silence

The destruction doesn't seem so loud

when quieted with a chaser

I pour myself into her,

a vessel to hold me for the night,

that is, until we are both empty

promises with nothing left of ourselves

to give, so she leaves,

and I shatter

​

2.

When sweeping what

remains of my glass heart

I always save

the largest shard for safe

keeping a reminder to

not drop my guard so

quickly again

The night I drop the shard

into my skin

and draw crimson

will mirror the mourning

I've buried that is only

present when the trauma

needs a reason to keep me in bed

and I will stay here

laying so still

​

3.

It's 4:17 a.m. some Monday in July

I am sharing a bed with a man

I met less than three hours ago

A stranger I thought could fix

all this broken over a girl

who couldn't love me the way

I should be loving myself

​

4.

"I've never done this before"

​

5.

By "this" I of course mean

"I've never compensated my

sadness with a man before"

​

6.

We finish the conversation without words.

Only taking cues from the other's body language

carrying out the dialogue for hours

though I do not believe they

spoke in the same tongues

​

7.

After I went down on him

​

he didn't return the favor

​

only pushed me back

and proceeded to thrust

'til he got off

​

inside me

​

8.

This is the first time

my body hurts like this

cries when I move it too quickly

You'd think I'd learn by now

sex always leaves me

more dead inside

The kind of dead that

leaves me vulnerable

and bleeding

​

9.

When the self-medicating fails to work

               again,

just as I knew it would,

I will reach for the other bottle,

the one prescribed for bad days,

I will reach for it in the same way

I reached for the lover,

or the glass

It, too, will be sacred

I will chase with water

This time

the burning

won't be from vodka

I will call this   good enough.

Call it  healing.

Call it      alive.