Penance

I hated you for your iron, 
cracking and slipping through my 
own disaster, 
weeping,
engraving linoleum into my bones and joints
and praying to stand but never having the heart.

You shoved my face into the wall so many times-
forcing my skin under your fingernails while you smiled-
I began to think it was an embrace,
shaking my head to shake you off
and hoping you didn’t love me 
as much as you claimed.
I dreamed of the day I could return the favor.

Then you turned back.
I already had my fists raised and
curled around their handful of air,
stretching the atmosphere taut
while you covered your face.
Unexpected fingers draped 
careless over your head,
grieving 
and choking me into stillness
-the lone candle wick before your sorrow-
You sobbed from your own crumbling center-
the kind I make when no one's listening.
You felt for my mouth, and desecrated my lips 
into pillars of salt -
the ones you mocked time and again
for weakness.
And maybe I deserved it, 
because I stood with tears in my eyes 
and fire in my veins
and metal in my mouth.
while the world wheeled beneath us.
I stood downcast amidst the stars,
and all the ashes of god and gomorrah,
and mumbled to myself

I 

don’t

trust

you.


I can’t ever trust you.

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K K Iloduba Jnr

Date: 10/12/2009 6:07:00 AM

i can`t f* *king trust you........the best aspect of this poem.solid!

Nathaniel Köhp

Date: 10/11/2009 12:04:00 AM

You. Are. Amazing. This poem is so vast and so deep yet so brutal. It's a poem you want to read half of and then leave, feeling sickened. But you have written in such a way that you just can't. Each line drags you in further. This is just iconic. It doesn't even read like poetry, it sounds like a face to face experience, as though the reader is there as the narrator tells all. You mofoing legend. Daff you're so getting published too and I'm gonna be there cheering like a maniac! Love ya! Bugz

Sara Kendrick

Date: 10/7/2009 5:23:00 AM

There are many today that have these same feeling of distrust of an abusive man and rightly so. These men go back and forth from abuse to oh I am so sorry then the I am so sorry get futher spaced. I live the way you approached the subject. Women need to have their eyes open to the fact that this exsist. Keep writing. Sara