Before Sean there had been
Other men and their characters
As their intentions had been
More pernicious than those
Of the young Anarchist, who
Was, despite the dissolution
Of their relationship and her
Subsequent hostilities still
The truest example she had
Of romantic love
=
Trent was a man of charm and
Device he had pursued her, his
Predation catering to no sentiment
Close-guarded or otherwise, a caveat
He extended with his name, a caveat
His smile diminished in the extension
Of hers. He regarded solely his own
Curiosity and appetite, her feelings
Were not 2nd class they were beneath
Consideration, her body, her madness,
The challenge that’s what he wanted, he
Craved aberration, scars, vulnerability, a psyche
Dismantled at the behest of his own insatiable narcissism
=
Trent introduced her to drugs and not the
Helpful pharmaceuticals her mother gave
Her as dictated by a professional but those
Substances which derange the senses, which
Strip from the hollows a vital marrow and from
The eyes the protective lens of reason, a lens
In herself already asymmetrically placed she
Became more unstable, dependent upon the
Serpent for survival and venom
=
Her veins as her flesh were littered with bruises,
Daily inflicted. Trent never beat her but he fucked
Her as if he intended to imprint upon every cell in
Her body the ferocity of his need and the shadows
Of his lips and fingers branded her but it was the
Shadow of his words inside those gutter bound avenues
Parasitically leeching her life that caused the most pain
=
For all his faults, of which there were many, worst of all an
Unapologetic and exhibitionistic infidelity, she had loved him,
Not simply loved him but had grown so imbedded in her
Addiction that on losing him she had stripped her pipes
Vertically from wrist to elbow in a bathtub of nearly boiling
Water. That was the day she died and the day her mother
Came unexpectedly as an angel and for the second time
Gave her life. A life she bitterly resented, because there was
No longer a “he” or even an “I” to claim responsibility for it
=
She spent the next year in a Rehabilitation Facility extracting
Trent piecemeal from her bones, only to find that he had
Siphoned away everything she had ever known of identity,
Of truth, even of love for which her faith had rendered her blind.
Portrait after portrait of self came up with sunken black eyes
And a mouth angled so far down as to make of her face a puppeteer’s
Mannequin. She occupied corners, catatonic, angled as if broken,
Paralyzed in her grief she clawed the walls of a much abused epidermis
That no longer seemed to contain any trace of her being,
Stripping from a cadaverous pallor ribbons of fresh blood which
Stained her surroundings in open-mouthed shades of agony. She
Wrote letters to Trent on the walls of her room with a charcoal pencil
When he didn’t respond to her telepathy but he never came, only her
Mother ever came and through every moment, no matter the level
Of inferno in which it resided she remained the source of Absinthe’s
Belief in love and ultimately the force which shifted the detritus enough
So that she could return, if only temporarily, to the surface
This submission is for
mindlovemisery 