From A To Z And Nothing In-between: A Poem

I tried to make my peace with you and

Your actions when I didn’t know how.

I tried to focus on everything that went on

Beneath the rage, the outburst, the violence

In the air that I inhaled, mouth to mouth,

Gut to gut, but it came at a price,

I saw how broken you were inside and why,

And you realised my understanding and abused it,

Played with it, you mastered fire, my compassion,

In your hands, draining me, your mouth kept

Raging and punching, your body kept annihilating,

I dove into my empathy, for you, not for myself, and

Let you in, let you twist everything inside,

Tearing me apart, exhaust your welcome,

I tried to find peace, a cure for your behaviour,

Against me, against my body, everything that looked like you.

You never let go of your hate.

I let you feed me with it.

I tried to find a drop of goodness in it

That I could eventually transform into someting

That was of my own creation.

I didn’t know that I had to get away,

That I had to scrape you off my body.

You exasperated the bodies of women

And didn’t stop at the body of your mother

Everything started there

The body of your sister

Sickness to sickness

The body of your wife

Doing what you wanted

In the name of love

You had no idea

The body of your daughter

Lines are drawn, slowly, there to stay.

I concentrated so much on the causes of the fire

That I died a hundred deaths because I swallowed your smoke.