Baring my Soul
Just so you know
I have voices screaming in my head
My soul is fighting with itself
I can’t type this
My computer is so cold, my mind is on fire
Angry, yelling, screaming thoughts
Rage
Chaos in my brain
So much
anger
hate
sadness
Why?
Why did this happen?
Am I fucked up forever?
Why did you do that to me?
WHY?
Does it really matter THAT much?
YES
I’m over it, right?
Right?
NO
Thing of the past.
Hot tears
Bu these aren’t real
These are fake, fake tears
Because I don't deserve them
Feel sorry for me
I’m a victim
This is nothing but a fucking pity party
A pity party for one
Because it lives in my head
And nobody knows
I lay in the dark and wonder
thoughts racing, tears falling, anger aching so bad my fucking teeth hurt…
Is this real?
Is this anger tangible?
Can I touch it?
Can I taste it?
I feel like I can grab it and choke it by its throat
But it’s not there
So it must not be real
I cannot prove this, show this, explain this feeling…to anyone.
Only I know what this is
ONLY ME
NOBODY FUCKING UNDERSTANDS
I don’t understand
It’s just ME
Seventeen years later
in a dark room
crying the mascara of a woman
for the soul of a child
But I try to explain this on a fucking laptop
A FUCKING LAPTOP
Seventeen years ago, I wrote by hand in a child’s journal what you did to me
Fuck a laptop
It will never express what it’s like to be me
Nothing can
They will never understand
No one will
I am so angry
I am so sad
This dark room in this dark place in my head…this is where I live
and have lived
for sixteen years
I hope you enjoyed your childhood.
I did not enjoy mine
Because YOU could not be a fucking grown-up...
I did not get to be a child
You took it all from me, and I feel guilty for crying
No one is watching me
I am alone
but still I wonder…
is it right?
Should I be crying?
Grow up
Get over it
That’s what I tell myself
This dark place in me…
it never leaves
Fuck you for my dark place
IT NEVER FUCKING LEAVES
Worse than what you did in 1994, is that in 2011, I still have a dark place
Fuck you for that
Fuck you
This shit is not poetic
This shit is real
Fuck
You
This was previously published in “No One Spoke Up for Us": For The Children Who Had No Voice and For those finally finding Theirs and is republished here with the author's permission. As she wrote for her submission:
For Kristen Katz, This one girl from Austin (who's effing amazing)
I, too, was a child that died. I am a perfectly healthy adult now, about to go to law school, and doing well. I am, as you said, one of the (rare) lucky ones. However, I knew exactly what you meant when you said that your attacker had killed you. The child I was died seventeen years ago. I was never a child again. I was never the same person again.
[Note-Kristen describes this as "a disjointed, emotional, angry poem-esque type thing that I wrote in the wee hours of the morning after another sleepless night haunted by cruel memories and bad thoughts" I think it is beautiful but haunting. ~SwedishJewfish]