and allowed me to settle/only where I wanted to escape./the curtains covered my eyes, caressed my neck

The Carrion Flowers
Morgan Sylvia

You had lofty dreams, didn’t you, darling?
Back in those golden days before sun turned to rain
I still have photographs of that chrysalis time
The man before the monster, framed against a stormy sky
Do you know what those colors mean to me now?
Blue and purple, black and grey
Impacts that made my ears ring
Bruises blooming like flowers on my skin
My muscles constrict when I remember
Our pretty flesh is so weak, isn’t it?
So vulnerable to claws and fists and teeth
Your strength lies in muscles and the history behind them
Mine is in the rage of being trapped
I will not measure my worth in hours or dollars
But in scars and breaths and missing teeth
Grace won through grit and rust and carrion severance
Hit me again (watch me shine)
Hit me again (watch me rise)
You always thought yourself a god
But in the end, we are all organs and slime
I found a way out, past the screaming, the broken glass
The blood on bathroom walls
That chic dark tile that never showed your sins
You brought me into the cellar so nobody heard my screams
Cement echoes sound in a way singers envy
Sometimes I focused on the reverb
My rage was wet and bloody
My rage smelled of death
Memories strike like your blows
I recall your voice twisting on smoke
Raise you another grand
Kings and queens stare out from grimy cards
Do another shot, darling. Hit me again
They can put me in chains, turn your lies into
charges as they did once before
Words on paper versus blood on the floor
My left eye is useless now, and my pinky won’t bend
I only understood when the scars healed into armor
I could never escape you
Because I was always free
I put your eyes in a silver box
Keep it by my bed so you can still watch me sleep
Your heart I put in a jar of rocks
I tossed it into the sea with the other foul slimy things
Waters cold and dark as your soul
Your feet and fists are buried beneath the apple tree
With the child that never breathed
Your tongue I gave to the lilacs
The rest of you is in the rose garden
Our love
has finally grown into something beautiful