The Rose.
Pin my arms to the bed
Like you’ve pinned your claim on my chest.
A “J” that pierces my left breast as a signal to passerby’s
That I am only yours.
You are my scarlet letter. -
Janae
Shake the Earth with your fury.
I will steady your hand.
Drown us all with your tears.
I will bring you to shore.
There is no segment of who you are
That would make me love you less.
Make a home out of my heart,
A warm bed of my love.
I have always been yours for the taking.
Janae
You ration your love.
I starve for the satisfaction of commitment,
For the savory sweet taste of your guarantee.
You drip on my tongue from between your legs,
I taste what I tell myself is your dedication.
But when I come up from the sea of your pleasure
And breathe in the beating sun
There it is yet again.
The sound of your “not now”
The siren of “I’m not ready.”
The distant echo of his moan on your skin.
I hear the wail of my own loneliness from when you left
And I know – I am wishing for the fullness in my belly
That you will never give me.
You will always belong to you.
We have this in common. -
Janae
I am a contradiction. I know you love me in the bedrock of my soul and also there is nothing I trust less in the entire world. I am kind beyond compare and yet I can be diabolically cruel. I am cold and yet an endless deluge of love and compassion. I think I was never allowed an identity and now I am so comfortable in the fugue that I float tactfully through the layers of who I have created inside me. I am Cybil who was told in church that she must worship, in bed that she must perform, in his arms that she must be small and on the stage that she must shine. It is only here in the words on a page that I can search for the girl who existed before you all made her into your pottery. -
Janae
You think by opening my wound
In the same fashion it was created
Will help it heal.
That is one possibility.
Otherwise you do not think
Of my wounds at all.
You only think of how many mountains
I climb for you despite it.
And how beautiful a flower that makes you feel.
Stupid or selfish.
Janae
Don’t beg. Don’t plead.
Don’t let her see how much you need her.
In my hands is the handle to a pump.
This pump links to my arm and every time I push it down
Blood comes from my insides and feeds itself into your ego.
Every time I beg for you a little bit of me dies
And you live just a little longer.
You are eating the days of my life
When you require that I sacrifice my pride.
I’d rather be cold. –
Janae
I think you’ve taught me how to be cold.
You taught me that no matter how close I get to you –
you will never truly open up.
And that I need to guard myself
or else you’ll tear apart the meat of the chambers of my heart
until I bleed out for you.
I think today when I wasn’t disappointed,
when I wasn’t so hurt by the distance
I think today I learned how to let you go while still having you near.
I can’t tell if this is good because I am not vulnerable
Or just the first step on the familiar road of self-preservation that will lead to empty resentment and eventually indifference.
I wondered today when I didn’t care, when I didn’t cry, when I didn’t beg
if you’d finally ruined us. -
Janae
I can tell that I’ve scared you.
You don’t like the feeling of my cold skin.
You’re so accustomed to the warmth inside me.
You don’t like the way I look when I’m not on my knees.
You look me in the eye and you see
That I have already left you.
And instead of trying to get me back
You, the coward, you stay in the corner
That you built for yourself
By yourself
And whisper in your own ear
How I am the enemy.
You did this to us
Janae
If you leave,
If you find it in yourself
To abandon me
Just one more time
I beg you please
Stay gone.
Let me heal
Without the constant blow
Of the wind as the doors
Open and close
Upon your whims.
I am not your plaything.
Janae
You take without giving. You are a monster. The most incredible actor. A liar. A deceiver. A duplicitous angel of death who will not even do me the decency to release me from the pain it causes me in my life. The worst assailant on my self-worth. You are the darkness I will overcome.
Janae
I am not your work of art. I am not your silent support. I am not the smile behind your broad shoulders. I will never be your stepping stone. I have a path of my own. Cobblestone railroads to my castle. The castle that I build. I do not need your hands to guide me. I do not need your condescension. I am my own. I am my own. I do not belong to you. I do not exist to make you feel big. I am my own. You do love me. You love me for the way I do not need to speak louder than you to feel important. You love what you think is weakness but what you will never see is that I do not need to scream to be heard. My existence alone was stronger than you expected. My life had a worth that did not need to be explained.
I am my own. I am my own. -
Janae
Thank you.