Reading Disorder

I’m awoken to the sound of heaving
It is a sound I thought I had become so accustomed to,
But it’s a miserable sound, no matter how hard I tried, I never quite get use to
I turn to see light, splintering out around one of the room’s three door frames
And as I make my way to open it
I’m afraid to see the pain, I soon find on the floor behind it
No matter how I wished to be apart from it
I know that I’m inescapably a part of it

Inexplicably, I attempt to be there for you
As I ask you if you’re okay, your eyes quickly reply, telling me that you are not
And it’s not for a lack of trying, still answerless, in my ability to understand all of this
But problems only seem to multiply, with the entrance of each one of my sentences

You misconstrue all the intentions in my words, with that pocket dictionary of yours.
The one you found on the clearance rack, mimicking your life, written in only past tense

So your past tensions begin the progression towards a relentless retention covering your body with every painful memory
With your hands resting on cold ceramic and your head wearily above it, you lean
Barely above it, you heave with a hollowed revereb, that only a bathroom can lend

You give up the food, that sustains your every act of existence
In hopes to purge yourself, of those memories, that keep reenacting your inflictions

Disease, disorder, abuse, control, trauma, and self hate
Mirrors, beauty, identity, family, what equates to in one’s weight
All become words, as cold and meaningless as the ceramic bowl, you hug onto nightly
As I hang on tightly to memories interpretation of what once was known as you

I too, find my own books on the clearance shelf, in order to fix you
Those words inside paragraphs, pages apart of chapters, front to back, cover from cover
I broke so many spines, searching to find, what to do
Ink imprinted paper, carefully edited, but never perfect, misled me dearly, even more away from you

I searched for a universal answer, to what I falsely called my particular problem
All while you defied the universe’s ends with your own particular beauty
And that’s all you needed to be, and that should have been what I embraced
But like almost all others, I was trained to fix, solve, abstract, and equate
And so I subtracted you from you; from the specific
Dissolving our connections; our bond, dropped reflecting your weight

Colder than the tile floors, colder than the ceramic bowl
I gave you a cold shoulder to cry on
In which you refused to take
Intake, input, internalize, the very Culture that I hate
I stopped touching you as if it was you
Gave up your smell so distinct; forgot it, as I never knew
Share, compare, compartmentalize
I continued to commodify
All your despair into a word; into emotions
Deny, demote, decide, demolish
For what it all comes down to
Annotations; your entire experience
Touching, feeling, breathing another
Become disposable experiences
Long before I ended us; you and me

Entering into a relationship, your past tense dictionary, could not define
Being not having, my clearance rack stack of books, three words in a row, never able to find

So you heaved, in hopes to give more than food
So I left, in fear that I was owning you
So we both wrecked, too damn busy, to listen anymore

Heartbeats, gone ascounding, left pounding
In your breast and on my chest
We both became blind, dumb and deaf

Impaired beyond repair
We got scared
And lost touch

Relationships always start with that very first touch
And inevitably end when we give up the belief that
To touch, that to feel, is no longer enough.

Written from the Nueces County Jail

(Transcribed by Charity