Poem For.....

I was in a session a few weeks back and had been trying to find words for something wordless (as always). In the end, frustrated and hopeless, I said, "I can't explain it".
"I want to understand", she said.

This is my response.

Where Were You When?

"I want to understand"
Bright smile and stinging eyes
Oesophagal agony
Screams that won't come.

Where were you when I needed you?
When darkness cast deat into me
I bled black for years.
Tears turned to stone and I screamed
each time I passed a tear
through ducts too small for stones.

Where were you when I had words
to spill and spout and squander?
And my arms ached and ached
from holding the binding skeins apart.
And I retched unseen as they tangled
and strangled deep in my gut.

Where you when I was figthing?
Punching holes into a silent wall,
Spitting truth bullets into denial's flesh,
Kicking the dust and biting angry hands
that levered my bitten, swelling lips apart,
and rammed words back down my throat.

Where were you when the salt burned like sulphur?
My beaten pillow, wet with censored pain
And twisting, I writhed with the knowing
Of things yet unknown.
And my cheeks smarted with their rage
Truth-shy handprints scorched my skin.

Where were you when nothing was left?
When slivers of cold metal comfort
Whispered sweet numbings into flesh
And I bled silent pools of hiddedn sscreams
On shiny, hard bathroom floors.

Where were you when sweat and tears
Plastered matted hair to my face?
Smothering silent screams,
I twisted and turned and gasped,
As I aborted myself
and bled secret shame
onto my sheets.

And it's too late now
For your saving reach.
My cold corpse
Can't feel your comfort.
And it's too atenow
To breathe life
Into the bloodless womb.

"I want to understand"
Echoes in the hollow
And I am filled with sickness
And grief swells like thunder.

In my head
I spit on your floor
And walk away.
You can pay your respects
But don't fuck with the dead.