Boundaries Self-love – Hattie Zubie

we walked around mountain tops

we stood at the edge of the world

i didn’t hold your hand

i grasped at the life I could see but never feel

i was tasting it

you were there

maybe you were somewhere else

it didn’t matter to me after a while

i was a hunter

i was hungry

i had my bow and arrow

i had aim

i walked on mountain tops

i stood at the edge of the world

i was scared

i was hopeful

i couldn’t go back

one giant leap in front of the other

limbs scared stiff

we smelled of red dirt

and hot sun

we wore the earth on our faces

and heaviness in our hearts

narcissism doesn’t have tact

doesn’t pay attention to social cues

there’s never a good time to be emotionally unstable

empty canyons

filed up with overlapping disappointment

wiser now

you don’t offer up how you’ve been

you don’t ask about me

still walking through ice cold rivers

unmarked trails

i still have too much compassion for you

couldn’t get out of our own way

better at mapping out the roads we never should have traveled

masters of web making

technicians of blame

our fingers always pointing in the wrong direction

we knew where we were going

we never had the courage to say it out loud

can we say it now

i was always up there

looking down

watching like a hawk

i was a hunter

you, an impersonator

both of us screaming for silence

i was waiting

for peace

for defeat

a discoverer

i had it in me

i just didn’t want to use it

There is too much going on inside of me

Or maybe it is outside

My body cannot differentiate between the two

Pounded by blows from ugly faces with fiery fists

I have dreams of grizzly bears roaming around classrooms

Clawing at my hands and pushing their gigantic bodies against doors

Me, pressing my body up against the other side

Like I could stop it

Somehow I do

I feel under water

But I am not drowning

I feel free

But I am not flying

Free falling

But not exactly plunging

I’m breathing but my lungs only fill up with memories and missed opportunity

I had a dream about cars crashing into a house

I could not see them but somehow I knew there were dead bodies

Dead bodies in the house and in the cars

What crashed into my body and died there

Something is rotting

Something is in here that does not belong

Who did I marry

And what did she take from me

Time

Who did I marry

And what did she give to me

Time

There is still time

Do not fill up on anger and regret

It will never bring you peace

But I look back on those days

And people keep telling me to remember the good times, it was worth it

I cannot remember them

I do not see or feel any of the good that was apparently supposed to be there

It was like a bad dream

You wish you did not have to go through it

And you know you can get out of it

But somehow you stay in it

Asleep

Eyes closed

Hands clenched

Jaw tight

Brows furrowed

Heart thumping

Breath deep and shallow at the same time

Lungs do not fill up with air down there

They fill up with “I told you so’s”

And “what was I thinking”

And “I knew all along”

They say If you see something, say something

Say it

I did not speak up

I did not use my voice

I let it stifle

And fizzle out

I watched it want

But nothing

Tag: Boundaries Self-love

hunted

Awake