BURGUNDY.

There is an alarm clock in your chest, Ticking half past weary. Tocking a quarter past jaded. Your mama created you with little to no endearment. Banished you to a lifetime of looking for God in unholy mannerisms then baptized you in the same tears she cried after becoming a woman accepting of never becoming accepted. You spent semesters wandering around empty campuses begging emptier men to love you. Filled yourself up with every woman you thought he wanted you to be until you carried the wrong you across stage at graduation. You are tired. There is no feathery way of saying it. The weight of the world has made a home of your body. Carved a hole in your chest, set its teeth into your flesh and settled into all the ugly things you keep buried at the bottom of your soul.  What you know for sure is that you love him. Brown eyes and browner skin has always been your thing. But this is new. There is something different about the way he lies to you. There is fire in the way he has chose...

    When he broke you heart, you tried to lose weight.  We weave the faults of our lovers into intricate pieces of ourselves. We tangle their mistakes with our shortcomings. We create beds for our insecurities, laying down heartbreak in comfy blankets of blame.  He didnt love you because you are too fat. You were sure of it.  So you stopped eating. Drunk a gallon of water each day, bathed in detox teas, moisturized your skin with sweat from workouts you performed twice a day. You broke your ankle once, then broke out in hives because you’re allergic to self loathing. But you didn't stop. You swear you’re doing this for you,  but when he comes back, because he will, You’ll let him in. After All, he came back because you're not fat anymore. Right?

At three am I used to call on anybody but God to help me.  I'd scream for sadness to unswallow my spirit in tubs of water I wished would drown it all and then me.   I’d dip my body in coconut oil, then shea butter, hoping to heal much more than outer layer scabs and scars. Mama said, to get Here, you have to talk about it.  Don't forget to include the parts of your soul you tuck underneath your bones.  Mention the parts you build muscles to sit on top of. The parts you keep smothered in smiles and passive aggression. Divulge in your cycle of choosing ungrateful lovers with God complexes and smelly sheets. Talk about the semester love earned you three F’s. Don't skip the fact that you love lies so much you shunned the truth for two years. Make no excuses for your difficulty to express aggression when offended.  Dwell on your habit of ending up in rooms filled to their rims with women your lover has tasted.  Mentio...

You don’t do therapy.  You don’t find it fulfilling or even a bit satisfying to tell another person your feelings.  There are many things mama taught you not to speak on in public. You don’t talk about what’s going on in your head.  You swallow down your fears, chase it with your goals, and never utter your mistakes.  You regret a lot, except the bodies. It was never the bodies. It was always the people that came with them.  Fire engulfs every loose secret of yours. So shut your mouth. You open your mouth and somehow your insecurities become the bullet in a gun blazing with the jealous urge to end you. You open your mouth and those 3AM, bloodstained, vomit inducing secrets are plastered on billboards of conversation in the dining hall, in the library, on the way to  six PM Psychology 101 classes. You open your mouth and they hold conferences about your emotional process in dorm rooms full of people, who met you four years ago but speak as if ...

Sometimes, Home will break your heart into the same rigid pieces they will use to cut through the thick skin you inherited. These sometimes that morph into most times are responsible for the dissolution of your soul. These sometimes that morph into always are responsible for the misplacement of your reliance. When being coated in the kind of brown that hasn’t been dipped in gold becomes a metaphysical dilemma you can not conquer, Something becomes necessary about living in his bones, finding solace in his blood, moisturizing your skin with his ego. You should've known there would be a struggle, a civil war between the inhabitants of his former sins and you. There is no room behind the ribs of a man who's unneeded raid of bodies just like yours becomes precedent to your meager happiness. It should have been clear, You can not take baths in his manipulation then sit down for breakfast with his discretions. False bonds between his heart and your ne...