I understand the game, pain, disconnection, the whys,

On my soul, understand, you never needed to lie,

It’s not about what we say or we promise each other,

It’s about who’s by our side when it’s time to bury our mothers,

Who does not fear the silence if you don’t have the words,

Who can display they have heart, not just  pretend that they heard,

It’s who grabs onto your hand when the noose slips over your neck, 

Who challenges you to be better, who keeps your demons in check,

Who meets you on your knees when the pain makes you crawl,

Who pulls you out of the flames even when you lit up the walls, 

Who reminds you you’re gold when you don’t have a dime,

Who reels you back in when you’re losing in your mind,

Will they walk with you through hell to know your eyes and your soul,

Will they show you love even when you are cruel and cold, 

Do they talk to God about you while you sleep on their chest,

Do you trust them to be there when you force out the rest? 

Do they remain solid, up and down, through and through, 

Did you already know that the opposite is exactly what you’d do? 

When your two halves fight inside you, one truth, one liar,

Do you care that I suffer and burn after you set me on fire,

You run from yourself, numb with the bottle, her touch,

Keep settling for less, I’ll keep being love, keep being too much.

Confused by the way you smile when we,

Grab onto each other, like you almost feel free,

Always holding your breath like you’re under water,

Forget you’re a son of God and I am a daughter,

We come so close to destroying our demons,

Yet Fucking and fear won’t lead us to freedom, 

Feel you so deeply I believe it’s the truth,

Yet I felt the same way when I tightened that noose,

The rush of your skin when you slide right inside me,

You take all my pain, fuck me til I can’t see,

You stop holding your breath when my arms are around you, 

Like you’re finally home, can’t tell me that’s not true.

Collapse into me, my nails leave marks on your back,

We don’t rest when we’re wicked, I know this is fact. 

DNR

I was created to be a lover in a wasteland of souls, 

But my tits on your back can’t make you feel whole,

Your touch and your lips sweetly set me on fire, 

Yet your touch is not truth, fuck feelings, they lie, 

Trace your skin with my fingers, just confuses the facts,

You say that it’s you but I know it’s your mask, 

You’ve worn it so long, do you know what is real? 

If we run with our demons, we are destined to fail, 

We find comfort in Hell, we don’t know how to trust,

Scratch my nails down your back, controlled by my lust, 

Conflicted and cold, finally feel something again, 

Disconnected and bold, naked thoughts, skin on skin,

Crawling to you on hot coals, alive from the burn,

I give in, you get lost, left me waiting for my turn,

Hypnotized by your voice and the taste of your tongue,

Loyal to you and my pain, loaded, ready to run,

Soaked and stained by the past, our sins never come clean, 

You can’t show me your heart if you don’t want to be seen. 

Wounds

Letter by letter, I hear the wounds echo,

Each tone rips me open, reverberating,

Each sound wave crashes against me, 

Revealing small tears in my unhealed past.

Places I believed I had walked through, 

Where reality shows me I was still frozen, 

Soul not yet ripened or willing to truly know, 

The kind of knowing by which shame is released.

Those parts of me recoil from the light, 

Sodden and heavy with false representation,

Of myself, of my beauty, of my lacking,

Of my ever lessening stain of self loathing.

Obsessive compulsion, to cleanse the soul,

Too fast, too often, too sterile, 

Unveiling an unattainable picture of what should have been,

What the soiled, sick nurture has said is so. 

Love is not sterile, nor is the truth,

Embracing, longing for what is raw real, 

Dirty, disheveled,  pride in reverse, 

Freedom, accompanying compliance with imperfection, 

Foreign feeling of radical, redeeming acceptance. 

Rejoicing in gifts of visceral, venerable pain, 

A novel conception of weathered old wounds, 

And the bitterness of unclenching a fist, 

Allowing recoil from familiar chaos,

Creating space between critical me and condemnation. 

Courage through the burgeoning unknown,

Uncovering the grace of surrender, 

Softening the nettling of new naked skin,

Skin that mends, not masks, magnificent echoing wounds. 

Megan Forrest

January 1, 2022