the doctor

my fingernails are growing out again, but the skin is still torn. i look down and remember a time when the smell of her, ralph lauren on montreal boutique velvet, was enough to make me feel at home, anchored. then he started popping pills and nothing felt safe anymore, as her jewelery boxes crashed down the stairs, as rage took over his muscles and amphetamines scoured the pleasure zone of his brain, as he threw her against the stone wall, her voice pleading, her agony. and now i feel the old fear, the darkest dark i have within me, put there without my permission- crawling up my throat, pulling out my hair, bloodying my lips, projecting images that always seem real, till later when it occurs to me i was alone. where do you go when you go crazy? do even the crazy people know? is this what he gave me when he put his hands on me? "illness"... nothing i can point and shoot at. something like cancer, it spreads. i can't kill it without killing me. he says there's a pill for that, but that's what doctor said when he put him on meth, when for years i cowered in the pages of books, paper the only thing i had left. there are some things i won't swallow. oh, i know his veins are thirsty, and his son's, and how i wish i could ease your pain. and how i wished it, as i brought him his pillbox, that my hands and not their contents would be enough.

i look up. that's the past now, and i am in control. i am in control. they both know i can't take orders anymore because i don't want the poison to spread. i don't want to be bitter and jaded. i want to be held in someone's arms without doubt and fear tainting love. i know now that i must accept it. scars are beautiful. what an over-used word... but by that i mean they're a blessing and a curse, a moral-to-this-story, a small dark and shivering being that i use to turn pain into beauty. would i or could i speak without him? without those darkest things i couldn't bring myself to say welling up inside me? a pool of inspiration, my forlorn little muse. you only want someone to hold you.

look down, look up. still torn, still beautiful
and a spritz of her perfume on my neck.