Documentation of Love - Extracts

Here are a few poems from a manuscript I wrote in 2024 called "Documentation of Love."
The book reflects on my experience dating for the first time as a CSA survivor.
If you have any comments or questions, feel free to reach out on my tumblr!

The Broken Desires of Lonely Girls

Last night I tried to love
Something new.
I let myself be pretty
And said the first hello.

I thought, "I will grow bigger
Than I could ever let myself be.
I will step into life barefoot
And sacrifice my desire to the world."

Instead I came back home crying
Drunken tears,
My shell too small
For my soul to flee.

I cried for me
And for all the lonely girls,
Those who fall asleep crying,
Those left bleeding,
Those killed, abandoned,
Body rotting.

Lonely girl, I cry for you,
Because the world was meant
To be kinder to you
And you alone.

I may never love,
She may never love,
Tied together
By a string of melancholy,
Leaving us bare like bone

In a wind too cold,
In a world too kind,
with smiles too bright,
And hearts too mellow.

Lonely girl,
may your shadow keep you close,
Burying you in warmth
When a stranger passes by
And refuses to look your way.

Find beauty in tree branches,
Low under the grief of summer,
Because you're growing
Closer to God,
Older, wiser, almost dead.
And yet still unloved.

But remember,
Love is in everything
If you're willing to see it.

And lonely girl, I love you so,
Because the world was meant
For those who love.

Love Can Be Cheap and Easy

I lie naked on my bed,
White light shining like a godless
Sun on my skin, and I feel
Pale, lifeless, dead.
I tempted the luxury
Of loving myself for a cheap neurosis
That came back black with sorrowful
Glee. Now look at me. I lost myself
In between the legs of a stranger
Only to discover her again, how it felt
To lay bare without a god
To answer my prayers. I need
A shower. But if I walk by the mirror
I will see her. The loneliness
Of someone waiting to be saved.


Mary Magdalene's Reflection in the Mirror

1. December always hollers with the Lord
And I grow sick of it too early.
On the road I saw a sign that read,
"Jesus offers you
A new life."

2. Men grow on me like something
Divine. A compliment
Becomes a prayer, and my tears
holy water. I am trying to forget
How he whispered in my ear
as he made love to me,
"you are so good."

3. In the metro I stood and looked
How everyone sat alone. Then a man
Walked in with a sign that said,
"It is never too late
To choose Jesus."

4. There is something blasphemous
About the phrase, "good girl."
I felt too young in my body
When he whispered it
To me. Before leaving
He looked me in the eyes
And said, "that was
Amazing. You were
Amazing."

5. Church and Wellesley is
A gay neighborhood older
Than the border that makes it.
In an Irish pub there, a drag queen
Called Gay Jesus wished me
Goodnight when I left.

6. I used to kneel by my bed
Every night and pray, but
I forget what I prayed for,
Although I can guess
It had something to do
With the violence of his hands
On my body. Now I kneel for men
Again. This time with a profane
Tongue I begged another God
For liberty, and He
Listened to me.

7. I want to tell Jesus,
"It is never too late
To choose me."

The Post-Holidays Depressive Episode

I got strangled by ambitions
Of liberty. My body is mine
Until it isn't. In Winter
The snow on Mont Royal Avenue
Shines chromatic under Christmas lights.
I looked at the colours dancing on white
And cried. I wasn't sure why.

I was raised
By a man's obsession
To a chaste secret, to a whore,
To something barely existing
In-between whispers of hope.
All I want is to be held,
To be told, "you are not
Broken."

I want to tell everyone about him.
I walk home and every passerby
I want to stop and say,
"As a child I bled until I became
An empty vessel, white and cold,
And I don't understand how I grew
To be twenty-five. Can you see me
Bleeding? Can you save me?"
The snow is shining red under the tree's
Purple lights, and I see the carcass
Of my twin from another life. Grey feathers
Everywhere. A pigeon who forgot
How to fly. Maybe attacked
By a cat. I take a minute to
Look in its lifeless eyes.
I want to tell him, "I know
How it feels." But it would be
A lie.

I need to be loved. I need to be loved
Before murder takes me, before suicide,
Before I turn to forgotten roadkill,
Body rotting under the empathy
Of those who dare not stop
To save me.

(If I die tomorrow, I will die loveless.
I refuse to die loveless.
Please love me before my lips
Turn cold.)

The Crime of Whoring Lovingly

Every time I bleed my mind runs
Against lucidity. Is it the plague
Of our bodies? We all heard tales
Of hysteria, and I wonder if I am
A textbook case of female madness,
Yellow wallpaper surrounding me.
If I were to lay naked in the snow
I would leave red on its white-
Impurity. "You violated the innocence
Of winter." I told my therapist
I saw a whore in the mirror. She said,
"You have a healthy sexual life
For a twenty-five-year-old."
But every time a man touches me,
I feel dirty. As if sex were a crime,
One step away from homicide.
And I was told love would fix
Everything. "Is it truly criminal
If there's passion and empathy?"
It was criminal. It feels criminal.
But can a crime be sustainable
Without a trial? I used to walk by
The courthouse every day
And I would dream of his hands
In cuffs. Now I cry every time
Someone kisses me tenderly.
But can love be sustainable
Without a trial? It feels criminal
To be held so close.

All Men Want Is Sex

Yesterday I lay in the arms
Of a stranger, the tip of his fingers
Hammering my skin as if building
Something solid on the hope of a first
Meeting. I told him how a boy
Broke my heart in a month, and he said,
"Are you a bit crazy?" I laughed and blamed it
On astrology. "I'm a Scorpio." Born under the mythical
Moon of November's nostalgia, stars aligned me to passion,
I said. Nothing about how I tend to attach myself to every man
Who is kind to me, because I fear of dying alone in a house
Haunted by ghosts I refuse to recognize.

Another man the week before asked me if I had ever been
In love, my head on his naked chest and he smelled like sex.
I told him, "I don't know. I think so. But what do I know
About love?" He said he had been, he said he loved loving, he said
He wanted to fall in love again, and I wonder if he meant with me.
He asked me if I wanted children, and I told him I'd make a good mother.

Another boy said, "Men will say anything to get laid."

I want to be held, from morning to night, by a different man
If need be, but arms around me constantly, never letting me go.
Organic love takes too long. I need it now, without patience,
Because what if I don't make it to spring? My funeral will be floral
And gay, all my friends holding hands, and all the men I let inside me
Crying crocodile tears for the body they will never penetrate again.

Another man said, "I really care about you."
But my heart refused to listen. All I could hear was,
"I will leave you once I get bored." Now I wonder
If I should blame my heart for the loneliness
That keeps me surrounded with men who refuse to
Hear me cry when I feel blue. All they want
Is to taste how salty my tears can get.

Another boy said, "All men want is sex."

Nobody ever asked me,
"What is it you want?"

All I want is for someone to mourn me
When I die by their hands.

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