Million Tiny Knives

I spent seven years feeling

like my skin was inside out

Plagued by panic attacks

the body found ways

to communicate

and detonate

the truth

Deeply unhappy and deeply

in love I couldn't see the killer

but I could smell the blood.

“something is very sick in my life”

Couldn't put a finger on it

long enough to make a case

No amount of evidence

was enough to persuade

Him of disconnection.

Him of self-denial

Him of severed instincts

Unwittingly on trial

Karmic threads that extend

my comprehension of their

lineage stitched themselves

tighter, trapping me inside

a dress that wasn’t mine to wear.

I turned a blind eye at first

thought they’d stop once they knew

we were in love

They didn't.

They wanted incest.

Wanted family.

Wanted blood.

Skin a clammy pallor

two Victorian doll eyes

belying no emotion and

every emotion all the time

One glance my way felt like

a million tiny knives, I could

never quite explain why it

sent shivers down my spine

“At first they felt like scratches

I didn't want to make a fuss

until one morning I woke up

and I was covered in my blood”

My dreams began to die

by a million tiny cuts

crisscrossing softly over time

noughts 'n crossing through the

night until the day that I decided:

Enough.

Cut to today in LA life,

I saw their first victim last night

We hallelujah'd and high 5'd

“Congrats, you made it out alive”

and the strangest thing I learned

is that the dangers in my life

were so much worse than all my fears

worse than someone who could connive

Abusive, sick, violent, illegal. Somebody wild, wounded and sad.

And though it won't mean much to others, it disturbed the peace I had

because I'd felt it all along and I had seen it from the start:

A serial killer mind hiding inside a darker art.