In Light Of Recent Eventsi Think Its Understandable That My Voiceis A Little Shaky & That I Cant Speakany

in light of recent events i think it’s understandable that my voice is a little shaky & that i can’t speak any louder than a whisper. scar tissue is building up in my throat layer by layer & i can feel it begin to grow. this is a reminder every time i open my mouth that burns take a long time to heal. even years from now i don’t think that i will ever stop rasping my way through explanations of my fears at night when i am alone & a list of reasons why my voice shivers when it rains & how i always sound like i am the rough-hewn edges of a dock scraping against the murky water, waiting for someone to jump off it.

SCAR TISSUE :: o.m. 5. august 2016

don't lie to me if you're putting the dog to sleep

i know what you're doing. you think that you can protect me from the tragedy, the inevitable spiral i will go through until i hit the ground and sit there clawing at it, ripping up the flowers from last year's graves. the only thing we are capable of giving is death, i remember saying to you, and now i am killing the lilies you planted to make it look less like the entire yard was dying. in my head this happens in an instant but when i look outside the flowers already dead, from thirst and heat. it's the middle of summer, no rain for weeks and nothing can grow without water even if there is a body decomposing underneath the earth. we cannot afford to water the plants we have grown. what did you say? about how there is beauty in the destruction of things. now i remember why you love me. the car engine starts and you are trying to talk me out of going by not talking at all so i am talking for you: and i call out don't leave yet i know what you're doing. i can see you carrying her out to the car and this isn't the reaction you wanted, you were hoping to be quiet but now you have to take me along. now that i've seen the blankets and the unwashed sheets there's no going back. not for all the flowers in the world. don't you dare lie to me and say that's not what you were doing. i know you better than that. i have to persuade you that closure is better than a lie, a hook slipping into place when you clasp that chain around my neck i know that i am difficult at the best of times and dangerous at worst but if i am to bear the weight of this one more time let me see the tragedy unfold and let me watch it with my own eyes. there will be a peace in knowing there was nothing we could do. you sigh and shut the car door behind me. i cradle her head in my lap and on the way back we buy more flowers for the garden. we can't be sure that these will live either but anything is better than nothing. you won't look at me and i tell you it's not your fault. i had to know and i'm sorry that you thought this could go any other way. besides, how did you think you could hide it from me? i would've known when you brought home the body. at least this way we can bury the guilt together.

U.S.S.R (Ukrainian Remembrance)

i am in love with the way she says Ukraine like it’s not a place but a presence & the little trill in the back of her throat where it resides, waiting to be released. on the way home she tells me home is not a home anymore, or what it used to be; i’m not sure of the translation. she remembers as a child living somewhere that wasn’t here & how it felt to have to lose her words to find new ones. i am ashamed that i love her voice so much when for her it means she will never belong but there is nothing i can do to tell her. now blue-blonde-purple hair swings in my face as she turns the key & opens the door into a world of 33 letters, made up of people fleeing from the past. her accent stays in the air with me long after the door closes on all her words, shut in the back of my throat. i try out the sounds in my mouth to find they aren’t as strange as one would think & that maybe a presence could live inside all of us if we let it, or learned to grow to love it. inside they rejoice because 24 years ago an empire crumbled to its knees. now they celebrate to the sound of the warbling voice of time singing along to old national anthems, only it can’t remember all the words so instead it just sings freedom, freedom, freedom & hopes everyone understands.

prove to me i'm not gonna die alone

you start talking about me when you think i am asleep but i can still hear you. on the phone you wonder how i can be too much and too little and nothing all at once, giving voice to your concerns and things you would never say if you knew i was awake.

you are afraid to leave me alone when there are sharp things around and sometimes you wonder if i love you or if i just think i need you. while i am sleeping you watch me and simultaneously beg me to wake up and wish that i never would. you don’t know what’s wrong with me and you don’t know if you ever will. your life would be so much better without me and my “condition”. you are afraid to leave me.

i have forgotten to breathe for the last few minutes, desperate to hear you when you think you are alone and now i am heaving quietly (is that a contradiction? can you be suffering and shaking but still be quiet enough not to be heard? i think so but according to you i am made of contradictions.) until i am crying silently and for once i actually know why.

you and the phone continue your wretched pacing while i weep and you keep wondering why i am like this. the list of reasons and questions i cannot answer keeps growing, multiplying because you won’t stop asking.

during my angry days you want to hit me and scream and you want to do that during my sad days too.

come to think of it, you cannot remember the last good day we had and i am sorry but i have no control over that. your good is not mine because every day i live is good for me.

someone on the other line interrupts and you are left standing still. i don’t know what they ask but your answer is that you are afraid to leave me because i cry in my sleep sometimes and you’re afraid that if you left i would have to die alone.

one time when you found me i admitted that no one ever tried to stop me before and now i am shaking on your bed trying to prove that maybe you don’t have to die alone either.

this is not a love song.

I DON’T WANT LOVE. I AM SICK OF IT. I AM TERRIFIED OF WHO I MIGHT BE WITHOUT IT. I WONDER IF I EVER KNEW IT AT ALL. PLEASE. I AM SCREAMING LOUD AND PLAIN AND WITHOUT KNOWING WHAT I WANT. I AM FULL OF “I"S AND THOUGHTS ABOUT MYSELF. I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IF I HAVE EVER KNOWN LOVE AND IF I AM CAPABLE OF GIVING IT. I SAY THIS AND EVEN NOW I THINK, I DON’T WANT IT. I DON’T NEED IT. TAKE YOUR LOVE AND GIVE IT TO SOMEONE WHO DOES. I WOULD NOT LIKE TO KNOW YOUR LOVE OR ANYONE ELSE’S. I HAVE A LIST OF QUESTIONS THAT I SHOUT SOMETIMES INTO THE VOID AND THIS IS ONE OF THEM. COULD I BE LOVED? AND IF I CAN, SHOULD I?

requirements for the making of a myth

there must be blood. wait. start the story with a hero but it’s not clear who yet. it could be the brave one. it could be the smart one. it could be the king. enter the gods: they choose the one you don’t expect. it is the lowly, about to be raised. cue the quest, hero exit stage right and prepare for battle. in the beginning he will be weak but remember this is just the origin. magic begins to weave its way in in the form of a sword, a poem, a monster. the sun drives across the sky and in the evening there is a possibility of love. foreshadowing? in the night the visions come and so do the monsters. first battle: the hero is almost defeated until- here are the gods. they are making plans and waging wars and placing bets. hero, they are using you for their own gain but you do not know it yet. you won’t know it till the end. it is not the end yet so you trust the pretty woman who tells you what to do and which monsters you must fight. variation: the hero does not battle actual demons and instead performs tasks. or: they wage war on their own demons caused by the gods and their petty actions. next, the hero kills the first monster / rescues the first maiden / finds the first impossible item / does the first of many things. all of this before a fortnight ends and maybe there is love if the hero is lucky. the hero is happy and the myth ends well. the myth does not end. life continues on and the hero is in debt to the gods who saved their life that first time. (insert a thousand quests and wasted days in the service of someone who does not care about you). somewhere along the line, a god is angered. a god falls in love. someone steps on someone’s toes and the hero is inextricably drawn in. hero, you should know you are being used. you will not know until the end and the blood. exit hero, cloaked in darkness and a god’s spite. here comes a sword, a wall, a destiny they cannot escape. heroes are fated to kill (someday not to but instead to die) and yet, they plead “haven’t i killed enough already?” this will be the last quest and it will be the one they cannot stand. enter the blood. cue the rivers and floods and oceans of it. this is how the hero will pay for the assistance and favour of a god: with blood and with their life. leave behind sorrow and a wrongful sense of justice. leave behind gods who mistakenly frame heroes in the sky and call that an honour that makes up for their sacrifice. the only relief is that heroes will not be forgotten, even if the gods last forever. that is the point of this myth: heroes are fleeting and so are all humans. you are in service to a force greater than you. freedom is an illusion and so is this life. exit magic, wisdom and gods. end myth. blood still stains the corners of its pages.