Sometimes things burrow themselves so deep inside my skin
inside my life
inside the sanctuary of my mind
And it’s so hard to remove them

I want them gone
Vehemently
I want them gone yesterday
I want to yank them out like weeds in my mother’s backyard
So I’ve been pulling
and dragging
and digging going on 5 years now

Nothing works.
Dragging at these little pieces hurts
I get blisters on my hand
I get scars and bruises
Dragging at the weeds means dragging at myself
I want me to stay
I want me to stay rooted
Burrowed in the soft, welcoming earth of who I am

Lately I’ve been trying a gentler approach
Lately I’ve been trying to gently unlearn parts of myself
the parts I don’t want anymore
I want to unlearn them all
the habits
the people
the misconceived notions about life and happiness

I want to sit in the library inside my head
and calmly take a pair of shears to the pages
the ones...

We said we’d hold each other.
You hold me,
I hold you.

Sometimes you held me so tight
You pinched me.
Your palm lines etched themselves into my skin.
Sometimes I didn’t hold you tight enough
you slipped through my fingers

But then you let go
So I held on for both of us
But truth is, my hands are only big enough for one of us
I let go.

The first time I got my heart broken,
I thought it would have never gotten worse.
Imagine the sound of a million bones breaking and being reset over and over again.
Imagine the echoes.
Imagine the muted moans of agony.
That’s what it felt like.
My heart fissured.

It was easily a 5 on the Richter scale.

The second time I had my heart broken was minimal.
It wasn’t even a break.
It was a little trembling of the earth.
It shook me up and knocked me for 6,
but I quickly recovered.
If you were to ask me about that instigator to this day, it would take me a while to register that our lives did indeed intersect.
I pass number two in the street and all I feel is the bittersweet surprise of a long buried memory resurfacing

The third time was the killer.
It wasn’t until my heart got broken for the third time that I realized number two was just scrape with no scarring and number one was...

(La Bretagne, France)

Some days I wake up to the sun rising inside of me
Some days I wake up to cumulus clouds
To birds chirping deep inside the recesses of my spirit
Some days all I see and feel and want is light
Some days I’m happy

Other days I wake up to cumulonimbus
To rocky sea and broken glass
and all the omens my grandmothers knelt and prayed to fight against
Some days I walk on eggshells around the insides of my mind
Some days my skin and my soul feel unfamiliar;
Tarnished
Like someone came in and disturbed the furniture of who I am,
borrowed my favourite sweater and put it back in the wrong place
These days I have to relearn myself

(for my daughter in her heartbroken moments)

Cry
Give yourself time to cry.
Allow yourself to be sad.
Parcel out all the hours and minutes
and days you think you need.

Let yourself be engulfed in the hurt
and disappointment
and anger.
Hurl.
Scream.
Curse.
Bawl.

There’s nothing wrong with feeling a little sorry for yourself
But feel these things
and then stop.

Give yourself time to wallow.
Build yourself a fortress in your pillow
and in the nook of your palms.
Make my shoulder your safe haven.

But don’t stay there sweetheart.
The woman you want to be doesn’t live there.

Heal.
Because nobody who hurts you is worth losing your smile for.
Nobody who made you cry until your lips quiver,
‘till the stars in your eyes make way for splotches of angry red,
'till your heart trembles and breaks
and splinters in your chest,
'till your emotions warp from happy
to hurt-to anger-to...

I envy my skin
I’m jealous of how quickly
and completely it heals

I’m jealous of how it repairs itself
from deep inside to the top of its silky surface

I envy how it fixes itself even
after the most toxic of things
pierce it
burn it
try to break it

How does it heal?
I want it to teach me

dissociate the memory of him from everything
wash his touch-
his kisses off every inch of your body
erase the memories he helped you make in your favourite places
revisit them
create new ones
better ones

cleanse your favourite songs of him
listen to them over and over again
listen to them until they make you numb
until they no longer remind you of him
until your once favourite lyrics sound like a prayer you’ve repeated so many times
the meaning has been lost

take back your life
take back your favourite bra
your favourite places
your favourite things
don’t let him ruin them like he ruined you

He’s a paper cup

You’re a waterfall, my love

Can he contain you?

You gave me kaleidoscopes
Kaleidoscopes of butterflies
Butterflies in the pits of my stomach
Dancing and cartwheeling on the tips and middles of my feelings
Awakening other butterflies
The ones I thought were dead after the last time

You gave me kaleidoscopes
Kaleidoscopes of feelings
Feelings from giddy to giddy to goofy.
Goofy to somber to sad then right back to happy
Happy you awaken my kaleidoscope of butterflies.

You gave me kaleidoscopes
Kaleidoscopes of butterflies who know what to say
but say everything
Everything but what’s important

You gave me kaleidoscopes
Kaleidoscopes of images.
Images of me happier than I’ve been in a long time
Images of sunshine and rainbows and spilled red wine
Images

Truth is
you gave me kaleidoscopes
Kaleidoscopes of butterflies fluttering
But they fluttered because they were trapped
Kaleidoscopes of dead butterflies
Butterflies that clogged...

I take up so little space

I bend

and contort

and shrink

to fit into the tiny spaces

people carve out for me in the fabric of their lives

I take up so little space.

I edit

and delete words.

I cut down the word limit of who I am-

what I feel-

what I want -

All this for people who make me feel

like I take up too much space

fuck you

Vanessa Roseway