It's Not Butterflies

That feeling in your gut is not love - it's a warning sign.

I cannot talk about what happened to me.

It broke my body in half,

Painted shadows under my eyes,

Spaces where the sun won’t reach.

I am hung like sails

With the wind knocked out of them

This is how I show up now.

 

I blame my father

For not being honest about how many of him

Were out there,

For being the first man I ever feared.

 

I blame my mother

The closest thing I had to myself when

I was younger, and how she

Raised me to be chum for the sharks.

For believing her when she told me

That he only does this because he cares about me  �"

Just look

At all the emotions I bring out of him.

 

I blame myself.

For not listening to the murmurs 

Of all the women who came before me,

Generations of mothers, daughters, sisters,

Alive and vibrating in my gut every time he

Squeezed my neck just a little too

Tight.

 

I hope

When my time finally comes,

The wind takes my ashes and the universe

Disperses my spirit,

That I may show up better this time �"

In the well-water and soil,

As the iron in your blood.

 

I hope

When he speaks to you through his teeth

And your stomach scrunches up,

You know it’s not the butterflies.

We held your heart until it skipped a beat

And in the silence between each pulse you can hear

Us all yell the same thing:

Run