Auseinandersetzung / Altercation: A Poem

Your words came a long way.

I think I gave them legs, I may

Have given them mine. By

Mistake. I didn’t fully understand

What I had done. I just wanted to

Help you. Help you out of your

Misery. Enable you to take new steps.

Towards life.

 

I incorporated your words.

I gave them more life through movement,

I ran away from them without knowing

That they had long lived stitched to my

Own vocal cords.

 

Your voices were fighting with mine

In my head and I thought that’s all me,

I am chaotic, I am destructive, I am falling

Apart. I scratch my skin until it bleeds, I have

Seen it elsewhere, I’ve seen her doing that, and

Her voices and the ones infiltrating her, the texture

Had been sewn, the faces mingled, skin within skin,

She had been done, for her it was too late, I’ve seen her

Die, in my mind, I’ve felt her there, fighting and losing

All battles and wars, I couldn’t allow your words

To tear down my white flags that I hold so close to my body.

 

Your voices needed life, to exist, to contaminate, to possess

And rob, you wanted me left with nothing, except endless

Apologies to you, endless fake gratitude, endless clinging to

You, blinded and silly, you never wanted me to grow up, taking

The  credit for everything good, that I made work, after all, my

Victories you construed as yours, wanting me to be dependent on

You, thinking it’s all you, and my legs never felt like mine.

 

I allowed you to disconnect me from my own body.

To start the swallowing process from my feet upwards.

Abusing my hands, my mind, chasing the wrong people,

To feel the heel on my throat, again and again, you taking over,

One gutted life story after another, circles of shards, cracked mirrors.

 

Your words led to action.

Your actions became mine.

Your mental illness set root and rot within my body.

But something within me had always put up a good fight

That never seemed to end, that would never give up,

Never bow to the injustices done, always stepping up,

I let my own voices sing in choirs, father, I raised myself

As a loud daughter, louder than you, louder than the words

You shoved down my throat, I have always been more than

Ready to revolt and uproot what’s grown too comfortable

In my skin that has never been yours to begin with.