【by Rebecca Arabian】

i’ve been spiraling again            i study
the bumps of the plaster on my walls
and i feel like scooping out my brain
with a melon baller     nobody
can understand why you
claimed to have corrupted me     it tore
at my ego to be seen as a broken
doll or a worn penny                over
the winter i heard someone call
you kind            two months before, you had
made me into a fool      the world tells me
every day men are bad but i still needed
to find that out myself            you saw me
one day and decided to replace the shame
weighing on my chest with your own
body                   once, i saw myself
in the mirror my   face all
swollen and bulbous   not
a corrupted monster or girl but
still something beastly               in the winter
i heard of your kindness and felt that every
one of those voices in the world
was calling me
stupid               crazy                  bitch
because you were kind             once
and then the kindness  for me
drained out of you        like a poison