I saw you once in the forest, still as a deer. And I loved you.
All the analogies we connect to various landscapes,
And all the love we feel toward people we don’t know.
I see her in Lisbon, bright smile, soulful French beauty.
I see them in my house kissing me lustfully while I don't know
What is swirling in their head like a goldfish in a bowl,
How I am the carnival ride and fetish, though I felt like a human
The whole time.
I see the old lady at the coffee shop every weekend.
The way she both forgets and remembers me when we talk
Makes me feel warm and tired. I wonder about her life.
How she is old and seems happier than me.
I go on dates with strangers.
No one knows I was sheltered mercilessly in a house,
And that my therapist refers to my childhood as “cult-like” unless I tell them.
Everyone tells me what was done to me isn’t who I am. I don’t know who else to be.
I don’t trust my own impressions, I can’t tell if he/she/they
(and all the lovely pronouns that are here to describe the magic of identity)
Like me or not. Our pronouns don’t do the trick.
I shudder at the thought that anyone would want to be real with me
While I pop open my heart like a bottle of champagne and overflow with the
Truth of my experience and then run away into bed, afraid.
They will finally realize I am unlovable, just like I was shown and told all those years ago.
Those years bear on my shoulders, like a bad high.
Those years continue to construct a false narrative to my questioning ego, fragile as my broken
Body that I push to the brink out of guilt and a stumbling desire to prove I’m strong and
Capable, even though sometimes I can’t walk.
When I’m myself I’m strong as a lion, and vulnerable, and real, and tender without fear of
What anyone thinks. It’s scary to be real, the way my PTSD makes me blindly terrified of being
Creeped up upon. It’s scary to tell the truth and not run away, but stand in it, like jumping in
A fountain, standing on a stage, making the first move.
To stay hidden, I think of going to the local bar and finding someone to sleep with.
I would only have to say a few words. When I walk in a bar it only takes a few minutes before
The men start rushing toward me. It’s disturbing and gross and I like it. It would be easy.
It would be cheap. It would fulfill the slut in me. I wouldn’t have to open my cast iron heart.
But I’d end up empty, crying in the shower, after giving another piece of myself to someone
Undeserving of my touch. I've done that too many times already.
I dream of someday opening, not just my legs, but my innards (all scalpel proof) to someone,
And maybe they won’t be scared, and maybe they could even smile at what they see.
The way I smile in the forest, still as a deer.
