"what are you, without your words?"

it's a question that blindsides at midnight, the car that jack-knifes into another, the man with the gun who shot all the women and children. i blink back my shock, my anger—where does all this rage come from, dear?—and look at him, this question mark, this silhouette of mystery, wrapped around me in the darkness of my room. his voice is a whisper, a prayer, but i cannot bow to it. my knees are weak, now; grazed and tired, wrinkled. scarred. sometimes, his cold finger touches the skin there, fumbles around the knobbly bones, rests on the outer edge. he's doing this now, as he questions my sanity—my existence on this spinning globe of fear and pain.

i do not answer. i shift into the darkness and breathe it in, breathe him in, scent of musk and silence, of a beach on fire, of fresh wooden floors. he smells like every house i've ever been in, like the trauma that wandered the halls of 2012. that year was a home that i did not ask for, and now he carries it on his skin; a reminder. a warning.

when he leaves i stare at the ceiling, counting its freckles, its dimples, its hill-ridden surface. it stares back at me in contempt; the room is an elephant, and i am in its belly. i sleep as though this surface is a bed; the backseat of my mother's old car on a road trip to somewhere better. you can't live on a journey. i can't live in this process.

when he does not return, i begin to write a poem—a mess of words upon a page. that is what I call my blood; poetry.

what am i, without my words?

the cursor blinks.

i have my answer.

  ∞

i was in my sister's kitchen when i wrote this poem, and i was really caught up in it for about a few hours afterwards. i was just really stuck in one thought: if i'm not a writer, what am i? it's a tough question to answer (i'd recommend it to all the creatives out there) and it's one i'm slowly coming to terms with. what these terms mean is yet to be known. but i'm excited to find out. 

ALSOOO. this little book of poetry has reached 1k!!! thank you so, so much guys. all the love. 

  — jay.