Tag: emotional abuse

The Archivist

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The diary of your latest test object.

Close-up photo of black and white journal
Photo by Min An

What a curse, what a privilege,

Looking through the director’s cuts in my memory,

Playing videos on my phone in an infinite loop

Until I’m sure of your covert treachery.

Context.

Clues.

Abuse.

Proof.

I dig through the pages until my fingers bleed.

Your gags come back to me in waves until I choke,

Spiraling deeper, sinking toward the ocean floor.

They said it was a joke.

The panic attacks,

Sleepless nights,

Nosebleeds,

Fights,

Rashes,

Emotional downfalls,

Mascara dripping off my lashes.

…a JOKE?

My eyes were soulless, my skin bruised and ashen.

My friends told me we could outrun the death wish,

But we don’t talk about the winter of 2024 anymore,

At least not since demise herself told me to perish.

Humor.

Revenge.

Picking sides.

Dead ends.

I’m not sure how I found my way to the lighthouse.

The fog lifted one day, yet I waited for the waves to return.

Waited for your words to serve as the anchor.

Even silence scared me, quiet made my stomach churn.

Nothing.

Peace.

Sunrise.

Sunset.

Routines kept me alive, ink kept me sane.

The grapevine was quiet until a message came through.

A broken sea creature dropped on my doormat,

And I almost stepped on it before realizing it was you.

Obsessed.

Paralyzed.

Greedy.

Antagonized.

I lock the door to keep you out,

Hoping you don’t turn into a sea monster,

But nothing’s promised.

I’ve escaped dozens of nooses,

Even mine,

But yours was the only one that called me alarmist.

Until the day that you rot,

Until my stomach’s in knots,

We will watch each other in perfect symmetry,

Crowds wondering who deserves the penalty.

Keep wondering.

Guess.

I kept the records.

Kept the mess.

Context.

Clues.

Abuse.

Proof.

-Jackie

My Wake, circa October 2024

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Photo of a foggy forest
Photo by Anton Atanasov

Remain quiet behind the old graveyard gate.
The handles and locks make you think that you’re late,
Yet you’re just in time for the freshest slate—
Resurrection of a girl in the gilded crate.

Approach with caution, beware the emerald flame.
Don’t stare at the cryptids, the beast, the dame.
When the clock strikes midnight, shout out your name.
Watch the shallow grave shake from ancestral shame.

Watch it deepen and widen in quiet rage.
The priests will get butchered with a single page,
But don’t you run—wait for the gilded cage.
Observe her blood-red hair, observe that stunning mage.

A man will ask who put her to early death.
She’ll raise a single brow like it’s a cunning threat,
Then say, “Every captain I’ve ever met,”
Leaving you high and dry, stealing your mind and breath.

The mage will stand up only to fall on her knees.
Never trust your instinct to help the weak.
She’s a traitor tailored for devils and greed.
Someone who knew her said she was the Queen of Peace,

But rising tides filled her lungs with salt water,
Drowned her homes and hopes along with her own father.
As you watch her limbs stiffen up, growing harder,
You’ll question whether she’s a lion or a martyr.

The candles spin in thin air as chants come to be hectic.
Were her eyes made by gods to birth heretics?
Her frame levitates, killing your inner skeptic,
And curses bleach your soul like an antiseptic.

The first rays of sun peek through sacred trees.
Wet ground starts swallowing her bones and dreams,
Until her skin turns to dust, until the fingers freeze.
Some spit on her grave, some tremble like leaves.

The crowds disappear until only two souls remain—
A woman in green, a creature with your own name.
The lines on her face are carved from sheer pain.
Your eyes meet, and her voice spills out like champagne:

“She was forged from stone, rubies, silver, and heat.
Resurrections only haunt those who refuse to leave.
I’m yet to learn that lesson—should’ve let her become me,
Should’ve let her slash throats that claimed to be holy.

I tortured her to entertain the cruel and divine,
Until her name became the butt of a victor’s rhyme.
Here she lies, drowned in words that were never mine.
Here she dies, knowing she was buried alive.”

-Jackie

The Great Freeze-Out

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A chunk of my heel has been missing for a while now,

And I bleed in the snow like a doomed ingénue

When the winter breeze told me a year ago

You took it when I stepped out of the lines you drew.

No way to excuse carnivores who eat for greed,

No way to romanticize cannibals like you.

My blood has slowed due to the freezing weather,

But once the spring comes, my pulse will fade too.

The leg might heal nicely until the next winter

Or it might as well rot to the bone like your smiles.

The pessimism in your voice was cut to the gut,

The only taste on my tongue for a month was bile.

I used to dream some doctor reached me in time.

I used to bite my tongue to protect you from swords.

What a fool I once was, what a shiny trophy.

Chew me up, spit me out.

Tell the crew when I’m no more.

-Jackie

Manipulus

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Photo by Lucas Pezeta from Pexels

The gasoline is leaking out of your bad shoulder.

It’s been hurting since you put a hole in the wall

Because she didn’t let you hold her.

Now her face is just an apparition, fading so fast,

And your head is a long lost ghost ship

Fleeing all the safe shores half-mast.

The thoughts intrude and bite down with their incisors

As you recall promising her a sure grave.

Yet – her spite knew you’re none the wiser.

Now her body is cold but you barely touched her.

You merely gave her a foolish idea…

Maybe she was pushed by a bluster?

The flies are eagerly circling your puny defences

But you have all the good explanations –

Only you can’t say it to their faces.

The road ahead spirals like your fetid self-pity

And you know you’re forever haunted,

Even if you leave her bones in this city.

-JW

Capitulare

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Photo by Lucas Pezeta from Pexels

She’s at the piano, playing her fingertips numb and soul sore.

Tinsel in her hair, glitter on the wrists, her childish mind at war.

The party around her roars like gunfire, she almost disappears,

Blends into the background hiding behind her faceless peers.

She’s on her tenth cigarette even though she quit a long time ago.

Whisky in her system, fuel in her one-track mind ready to blow.

No sadness, no regret, just a ton of anger in a short linen dress –

But don’t lose a finger comforting her, she’ll never confess.

She’s rearranging the thoughts but coming to the same conclusion.

The shivers slide down her spine, hurting like a contusion.

“What’s promised, must be fulfilled,” she silently whimpers

And tries to ignore her own violently shaking fingers.

She’s on the balcony unamused, not even slightly entertained.

The man by the bar represents all her guilt doused in heated shame.

The bottles stacked on expensive tables shatter at her sight.

Her lungs collapse under the relief of crashing into the dolomite.

(The people sigh as he winces:

“She wasn’t in her right mind.”)

-JW

The Cage

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Photo by Brett Sayles from Pexels

You might be infected with your prejudices and I don’t have the cure.

Every day it’s a back and forth between me being aloof and you being insecure.

Holding up the frozen front takes too much effort to manage as a hobby,

And you will never hear this poem, but without me you would still need to lobby.

Being accepted is a necessity for most – for you it’s a desperate need.

The loyalty train missed your station, but we were young, dancing to “Dying Breed”.

We were losing control to chilly evenings, promising what we didn’t understand,

And I still recall the look on your face when I was holding somebody else’s hand.

The moon ran smoky pictures of our better days by my empty stare…

If your prejudices cost a thing, every single soul in your path would be a millionaire.

-JW

Written in Indigo

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Photo by Daria Rem from Pexels

You’re my ride or die, whether you leave or try. You’re my own.

I don’t really possess you but you can never leave when I groan.

Left a box of my belongings by the door the other day, without a note.

Put a rose on it the next day and a list of poems that you wrote

Thinking of how we’re making each other mad again, how I’m crazy

And you’re out of your mind. We only stopped fighting when we got lazy.

You’re the worst. You’re the devil. You’re everything I hate about this world,

Even a bit more, as you overexaggerate my words and make the truth look whirled.

I want to say “fine” when you’re leaving again but I can’t stop myself from saying –

Please stay. And you raise your voice again, I lose control. I bet the neighbors are praying.

***

I’m so glad this story only exists in my head.

I could’ve kissed you back then but I didn’t, I fled.

I knew if I touched your lips to cause a mayhem,

I would never be capable to function without them.

You’re the reason I’m dancing in the streets in my nightgown, drawing in blood

Messages to all the lovers that said I’m no good.

I’ve never felt like I’m no good with you, even when I’m sincere.

But I’ve also never seen a pair of eyes that I would kill to keep. Oh, dear.

I can’t promise I won’t kiss you tomorrow.

We’ll see if I dare or drown in my sorrow.

Hope it’s both. Our love story will be written in indigo.

Red. Yellow. Skin color. Then again – vertigo

From your fist. Where to go?

-JW

Sympathy for the Seventh Sin

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Photo by Burak K

Hey, just wanted to see how you’re doing today.

The last time I called I hated you like a lion

Hates to kill its prey.

I’m not religious but every time someone mentions you, I sit there and pray

Hoping you have the means to move on without me there, every step of the way.

But I don’t know what it means to move on. I get finicky.

My pillow gasps and screams your name right back to me.

The strangers all around this place have branded me as “gutsy” –

If they don’t see my crippling heart, what else do they not see?

Your beaming smile was printed in my memory. Then cut out as a simple clipping.

I must’ve been a monster when I stabbed myself to start the snipping

In order to get every last piece of you away… Too bad I forgot the stitching.

All for nothing. The numbness didn’t last. The insides are still twitching.

Do you even understand what has been done?

How many times the water’s under the bridge

But you once again pull out the gun?

And with my own hand you push me out on the ridge…

Will you have what it takes to pull the trigger? Or will you stand there, evasive?

If offered my tied and bleeding tongue, would you know where to place it?

What a shame it is to fall for someone with a soul of tin,

To have this deadly sympathy for the seventh sin.

What an abject itch it is to live with you, without ever having you.

It was nice to talk but I must go. My empathy is due.

-JW

Your Vows: An Abuser’s Battle Cry

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Photo by Skitterphoto on Pexels

With my right hand I’ll hold yours so tight it’ll numb,

And my left hook will christen you a cheater and scum.

I’ll gaslight your way and pave it with malice

So your tears will submissively fill my chalice.

Through your laughter I’ll twist two truths in a lie

Until joy feels repellent, like a parasite.

I’ll feast on your principles, bite and unnerve.

But your worst fear – I think I’ll have served as dessert.

Forever I’ll love you and hold you so closely

As chokehold is not forbidden. Well… Mostly.

I’ll carry your struggles and kiss them array,

I won’t notice the moments you push me away,

And I’ll climb and I’ll triumph, and take what is mine –

Why wouldn’t it be? You said pain feels fine.

What a time.

***

I will steal every last bit of mind that you own

and your credit cards, and your telephone.

Every thought and decision I promise to carry,

only to stop when you’re dull and plain, and simply ordinary.

You don’t need to go home when I am your temple,

your start and your end, don’t be sentimental.

Your resentful cries won’t ever be heard.

Blurred. You’ll become so blurred.

***

With these vows I take your life

To be my lawfully wedded butcher knife,

To care for you when I need it for survival.

But when I don’t, you’ll carry me like an

assault riffle.