Andrea Esquivel
You’ve stood here before
Where the earth scorched your feet
Where the steam rose so high and thick
You felt—knew—you couldn’t breathe
You couldn’t even hear yourself begging anymore
Crying in desperation
To just wake up
To just get up and brush your teeth
Because the draining effort of waking up
And brushing your teeth felt like it would make you collapse
Like the steam would swallow you in so heavy
And so thick and stubbornly
That it felt less like hell if you just let it eat at you
And yet you still got up
You went to hell every day until it became what it once was again
Just life
You let yourself feel beautiful again
Even on the days where it felt like a sin
And yet you looked in the mirror today and found that
The pain of agony cannot be hidden
Even in the most beautiful faces
You already knew this
You already knew that the porcelain like beauty of tears was a lie
You knew that pain took away beauty and grace
So why did it sting so much?
Why did it hurt so badly that for a second
Everything became hell again?
Did you uncover the lie that hid on top of all the bitter reminders
Of who you are and where you’re from?
Why did you come back to me?
Your old friend the pen?
Because this is all I am meant to do for you
To regurgitate in the moments that feel like a heart stopping relapse
The ones where you lay back and shake
And all you want to do is vomit your insides
Until you’re an empty body inside a casket
Until the woman who ripped her body open to birth you
Lays over your gravestone in memory of a fantasy she created for herself
The perfect little girl you never became
The one who got up and did more than make life just simply not hell
Because not hell is not enough
Life is not enough
Where did all the beauty go?
When will the steam condense so beautifully
That you can sit back and admire the chemistry
The chemistry
The material beauty of this world because it needs to be so literal
It needs to be so tangible and real and physical
That you forgot what the abstract is
You forgot what love feels like
But how could you not when every day
Only feels like perhaps it’s a good day
Until every day is a good day
And then what is good anymore?
And so we have found your downfall
For you must make things so terribly awful for yourself
So you can feel the validation of good coming back around to knock on your door
You must tear good away from the inside out
Until your own bones are disintegrated
Until you’ve drenched yourself in the ugly practice of self hatred
Of hating every single thing about yourself
You like to scare good away
You like to cheat on her with dishonest lies about her
And everything to do with yourself
You like hitting her and making her curl into a corner
Until she’s no longer recognizable
Until after moments of agony she finally ups and leaves
And then what do you do?
You clean up and you make every day as less hellish as you can
Until good finally knocks on the door again
Until you finally let her in again
But what happens when she doesn’t come back?
Well
You’ve been here before
Where the earth scorches your feet
You’ve stood here before
Where the steam rises so high and thick you can’t breathe
You’ve stood here before
The moment before you fall to your knees
The moment before you put the pieces back together
So do it again
And again
And again
And again
Until you can put me to rest
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