soon.

xxviii.

̶ ̶ xxviii. BEHIND CLOSED DOORS.

he stares at me
wild eyed and scared
for here i was, finally
fresh from the home of my mother's womb,
looking up at him with wonder,
not yet able to comprehend how
or what he is.

as time passes
and things grow from colored pots and thick stems
he begins to lose the attachment of what we were
no longer scared to abuse me behind closed doors.

when mother returns
with liquor on her tongue
and a rolled cigarette between thin lips,
she confesses her love to me,
covering my hair coated head with peppered kisses,
not even noticing the new spot on my collarbone
from when my own father had curled his fingers
and cursed me of ever being his.

i'm lost.
i don't know where i belong.
a child who is scared of who she is,
a lost, restless soul who never understood what love felt like because hate was all that ever surrounded her.

a father cries
crimson and black lashes don't curl 
the way hers do in a glossed over coffin
smaller than one he's ever seen before,

a mother hides vodka in
a tin bottle,
numb to the feeling of forgiveness,
confusion,

only withering away in her sheets when it all washes away,
the realization of it all draping over her as if it's her own blanket,
keeping her warm as her tears dry only when she's asleep.

high in the sky,
where a man gives her a golden heart,
smiles of the evermore,
the only thing at the tip of her fingertips,
she finds
love.