Synonyms For Destruction:

synonyms for destruction:

girl 
pretty face but sad eyes 
and you know she’s going to ruin you 
gently, but it hurts 
the way she tears you apart and 
picks out every thread 
as careful as when she sews you back together 
smile lopsided and wrong down to your bones. 
destruction does not come fast, is not easy. 
is quiet and gentle, pulling you apart the way the world ends- 
a collapse inward, broken doll 
on joints that could not stand 
folding, paper with edges creased 
and a note that says 
"i love you" left on the bedside table while you sleep. happiness like a corrosion, spreading through your veins.

for sharp-edged women, made of thorns, points and needles:

you have been broken, beaten and abused to become who you are.

your eyes are tired from always searching, never daring to stop looking for where the next attack will come from. you sleep with one eye open.

scars are your badges, medals of honour you wear to remind yourself not that you let someone do that to you but that you survived. there is no greater challenge than this-

to live in a world of softened, loving people and to be what you have made yourself. a creature of hard edges, claws, teeth biting and words cutting like knives.

you are difficult to love, and maybe, you do not want to be loved.

it is enough to stand on your own two feet in the shelter you have created, safe in the knowledge that no one and no thing can hurt you unless you let it.

and you won’t let it.

no one comes close enough to even touch your points and if they do once, they never do again. you are wild and free and self contained all in one; you are your cage, your door, and the key to open it.

if someone looked close enough they could see brambles weaving through your hair, claws like knives instead of fingernails, razors hidden behind your throat and the iron that runs through your body instead of bone.

you are fire and ice, clawing your way from underneath the dirt and falling from the skies.

everything you have, you have had to fight for, and everything you have you deserve.

you make and remake the world in your own image, shaping your daughters to be strong, hard, guarded and full of wit- something you wish someone had done for you.

no one told you that the world would break you, your heart and bones and mind, and no one ever warned you of the dangers of pretty green-eyed girls and dark haired boys who slit their wrists in the name of love. you have lost friends and love that way, and once, almost, yourself.

and you wish someone had told you that edges are not something to be scared of, that you could stand on a precipice and not fall off. brambles guard the castle holding everything you love (and when you love, you love fiercely, the sun chasing the moon and dying to give it breath) and needles are what you sew yourself back together with.

for the women who are strong- you understand.

hello rain.

give me a world cleansed of hatred, discrimination, humanity. tell me, how is the rain not an attempt to wash away the stain of our past lives? a futile offering in the face of our sin. and now: a flood, the myths foretold, to wash away the vestiges of guilt, jealousy and all our other emotions. how have we not been swept away yet? ‘the storm is coming,’ the weather forecaster says; except he doesn’t know the true meaning of rain. it’s not something to be taken lightly. it can take, and it can give life in a cycle only the storm knows. tell me again, what you said- that the rain was just rain and it couldn’t come inside- when I could feel it already in my bones filling up my lungs? tell me how to stop the tide that breaks in my chest. give me a world in need of cleansing, in which we suffer from an evil of our making and the storm will wash away our bodies the lives we pretended were our own. tell me, no i’ll tell you- you could not have stopped this if you tried.

my voice crackles like the edges of burnt paper / absinthe and green tea the lining of my throat / is ragged from disuse and the effort of healing. my words are sparks and gasoline / burning their way up again and again and the scar tissue covering my wounds / is made into flame

@cityskylinesofimaginaryplaces, SCAR TISSUE (excerpt?)

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.