~ little one ~

I’m raging out of my skin

Jumpy, electric nonsense, and yet

Convulsing with unwanted sobs

Holding, suppressing, denying

The impotence that scares me more

Than any tangible threat.

My belly clenches up, bracing

Attempting feeble containment

Of the demon churning deep within.

She demands compensation, flesh

Payment for that which was ripped away

A child’s innocence, a safety

Never reclaimed, perpetual instability

The youth that I never cradled close

Couldn’t conceive, can’t even now

I look at children, foreign exhibits

Stuffed behind dusty glass in an old corridor

Something I observe but

Cannot commiserate with, cannot understand

As awkwardly confusing to me as

Some creature from the ambivalence of the sea

Keep them away, save me from discomfort

Let me live still under the illusion

That it’s okay, I’m okay, we’re okay

Even as prickles, shivers, sheer dangerous ice

Skid through my cells, take me over

What could have been, will never be.