Unrequited Friend

Love
Such a peculiar word
A weird arrangement of letter
A cage bound by the power it holds
Disney movies will have you thinking it breath taking
The Bible says love is kind
Love is patient
Love does not boast or envy
It is not arrogant or rude
Never really had that kind of love until 2021
The love I’ve always know prior was rough
Scaled edges, piercing wounds , gaping wound left behind that I try tape closed
Was it love when my first love drug me by my hair; beat me while pregnant
Locked me in a closet for days, even had the army thinking I went awol
Was it love when he’d beat me and buy me flowers with my money 
Was it love when at 5 my stepfather locked me in a basement til I was a good girl
Was it love when the same man broke my soul with ever caress on my inner thigh
Btw I was 6
Was it love when my own mother said she wished I died in her womb
Was it her love when she called my father” pick her up or I’m putting her in foster care”
Was it love when she never looked back the day she dropped me off at 6
Was it love when my own brother was shunned because his line was a little curved and not so straight
Was it love when the army told me to come forward and face my rapist
Only for him to say I wanted to be choked, with my face shoved in a pillow as he sodimized me
Did the army love me when they let him walk ignore my photographed bruises
Was it love when a friend drugged me an raped me as soon as I got to campbell
This time I wouldn’t say anything because the army’s programs are bullshit
Where the fuck was this godly love 
when I paid for a baby casket for the only daughter I’ll ever have
Where was the love 
when my cousin’s friends took him to Miami and killed him
Came home like nothing was wrong
Where was this Godly love!!!

This kind of love is gut wrenching
It the deafening silence
The cries of …not bitter …but mad as fuck black woman
Who would come to my rescue
Not prayer, not ppl
It has always been better to be seen and not heard.. just as the pastors wife
They wonder why I never really fit in
Those scars run deep
Deeper than any bandaid can pacify
They wonder why alcohol was my friend
Why I’d rather feel nothing
Be nothing
See nothing
Know nothing
Remember
Alcohol was the friend who calmed my anxiety
Cupped in a glass I was fearless
Relaxed from thought of suicide
A down .. who said that !!!
It removed all pain, anx, hurt even for a moment
Temporary release is better than no release at all

Until I quit my confidant alcohol was her name
Now I feel it all
Experience it all
See it all 
Every look in the mirror
In my sobiriety reverence of clarity came
Overflowing my cup forcing me to drink the truth
The hard bill I was now choking on
I don’t think alcohol was ever my friend
She didn’t tell me that the calmness was the vortex of chained anger
She didn’t tell me the numbness was a ticking time bomb and soon I’d explode
She didn’t tell me she too had caged me like a little black bird
A black bird that had to evict her from life to truly live

Rnb