Scratch. (unedited)

Scratch
I call your name, scratch

Why did I do that?

Scratch again

My neck, itchy
patterned with crusty, dry patches
so I scratch at it
until the patches become smooth
or numb
or

Until I can’t say your name out loud anymore
without burning

Somewhere between these moments I left-side my obsession
I shoulder the lights out of these constant
thoughts provoking postponed personal development
Or maybe my obsession tackled me, pinned me down
and sucked the light out from my eyes
either way
I was married to a split moment and I noticed:
An addiction
is just an itch that feels like
will never go away
It’s constantly distracting
It’s unimportantly urgent
and it’s so reasonable to scratch, at first…

I scratch
scratch, scratch
scratch until I
carve myself into halves (halves, for Christ’s sake)
until those halves become halves
and those halves are halved
and all that I have
isn’t good enough for you?

Britta B.

mypain

I can be honest if you want me to
but I’d much rather lie…
beside you
I’m sorry, I’m evil like that.

Last week, my first weakened thoughts
fell down like ash to a filter-less lit stash of some hash
around the compassionate desire to have a companion;
I thought I needed something to hold on to
something to let me command it
I wanted control

And now, I find power in pleasing you
Like teasing a pet with food, I rattle my hand in the air
and watch as you pant with joy and jump from your seat for me

To you, my hands are full but I know, I’m filled with nothing

And still,
I tease you, and tease you
to ease
my pain.

Britta B.

For the potential traveller.

They say, “Everyone smiles in the same language”
But what does the rain sound like in France,
Columbia or Saudi Arabia?

What does Chinese food taste like in China?
Or how about green curry in Thailand?
How do Egyptians get sand out of their eye?
And what is it that’s keeping people up at night in the city that never sleeps?
I wonder if we share the same dreams…

I wish I could pack up my bags and take ‘em down
to the fastest way out of this town
Dive heart-first into a crowd
full of foreign faces
Untie my laces, wiggle my toes
and dig my feet into the soil of what somebody else calls ‘home’
I want to find myself getting lost
in the middle of the world everyone else seems
to think they know
so well.

Britta B.

running after an afterthought

you’re not even…

you’re not even perfect for me
you’re uneven;
you’re odd

and I insist
because I am skilled
at resisting anything

*
I took myself out on a date
and wore my ”I’m better off without you” smile
but of course,
after a night of convincing the rest of the world how confidently
vulnerable I am

I came home.

Britta B.

I have a story, I bet you do too (Revised)

Last week I had a conversation with a friend
and without meaning to inspire me he reminded me,
“The whole point of language is to be understood”

I wrote that down on a piece of paper in hopes of saving it for later,
“The whole point of language is to be understood”…

It’s funny ’cause just a few weeks ago
this friend of mine was a stranger
And years before that, the English language was even stranger

For instance, I remember when I was a baby; I had my own
ways of communicating:

Cry if I’m hungry
Cry if I’m sick or scared
Laugh if I fall down
Or cry again if someone’s watching just to have them
pick me up and hug me

Since then, I’ve learned so many words to help others understand what I want
but sometimes the things we say
can turn into ghosts that haunt
the backyards and playgrounds
of our hearts
Maybe that’s why making new friends can be so hard

I get shy just giving people my name sometimes
because I’ve come to realize
I’m not so easily defined…

First of all,
I consider myself lucky. I have scars to remind me
there’s a survivor underneath all this skin

This skin, is a smooth rocky-road brown
bordered with train tracks reminding me of where I’ve been
and how I got here
This skin, holds me close
like it knows it’s got something good inside,
something too good to let go

I’ve got skin to keep me together when I feel
like my world’s falling apart

Hey, look- so do you

But just because yours ain’t the same as mine
don’t mean you should treat me any different

What I do with my hands is far more important
than the colour of skin they are wrapped up in
That’s like if I gave you a present and you spent more time
criticizing me for the way I gift-wrapped it
than noticing what I put inside

Take a look at what’s inside!

Don’t let all this skin I’m dressed up in fool you
I am human too

It is so cliché
to talk about how cliché it is to it is to say
to “Never judge a book by its cover”
But I bet the world be a much better place if we just opened up
and gave each other a chance to get to know one another

I have a story, I bet you do too

Britta B.

Simple Girl.

I have no control
I made myself let go
because I learned I never had it

And the beat goes on, the beat
goes on

She had angelic eyes
and the Devil’s lips
She made me feel like a burn victim
was swimming in my throat

I was shy
to say the least

And the beat goes on, the beat goes on
The beat goes on
The beat goes on

And now she’s looking right at me
I feel so holy tonight
and I’m losing my religion
in the darkest parts of this
dimmed-down room

She’s taking me from my man

I know, there’s nothing I can do
I’m just as confused
as you are too

And the beat goes on, the beat goes on

Oh, you simple girl
you impress me

Your simple-ness
is interesting

And it takes me away
from my man

And the beat goes on, the beat goes
The beat goes on
The beat goes on

Britta B.

The third week of January.

I recently realized that my parents got married
during the week of the year that holds the record for highest
rates of suicide and depression.

Isn’t that lovely?

Romantic?

Intriguing?

How often is a foreshadow supposed to fly over your head?

They got married that week to cure their desperation –they eloped. Therefore,
my life was fixed; I was born into fear, naivety
I was raised by two children who never grew up because they were raised by
children too
and never got to feel mature love
affection
attention
even when it wasn’t deserved

They needed each other;
they were still at the stage where they had to hold hands to
cross the road
because they were too afraid of losing control of each other

(Maybe that’s why I’m still sitting here on a curb
waiting for someone who is never coming to get me)

…I think about how my Ma text me today saying she was
in a ‘grumpy mood’
and couldn’t grasp a clue as to why. I staple the facts
that they separated a year and a half ago and their 23^rd anniversary
is technically this week to a memo-memory
and put it in the
“Re: the worst week of the year” files of my mind

I come across about a hundred more weeks living at home 
tucked into the folder…
It’s sad to see they missed the clues

It’s sad to see I miss them too, together
And now

Never again.
 
               Even if it’s for the better
it’s still the ‘Never’ that taunts you.

Everyone wants their parents to be the ones to prove
that people in this world
can keep a promise

Because when your parents get a divorce

                                you start to believe

that there’s a possibility
somebody could stop loving you.

Britta B.

migraines and other things

this is personal,
the real me
revealed

I am afraid to get out of bed most days
because I don’t think I can live up to who I am
…and I blame the linen

for not letting me go

yet I am rejected
I am incongruent,
mispronounced in frequent conversations
that I’m convinced people are having about me
but just because I can hear their voices between my eyes
it doesn’t mean that I can see them

I couldn’t recognize myself in a fitting room
so who’s to say I know what belongs?

the lips of my ears mouth the words, “Get up,
you’ve been through much worse” as the grind of my forehead against the wall
barks back, “I know, but this still hurts”

this still hurts; it hurts
to be this still

kilohertz
me
every second

Britta B.

loneliness

feels like

cold showers with hot water

the weight of responsibility, devoid of forgiveness

laughter disturbing the peace

homelessness
loneliness, homelessness

loneliness feels like the blinders they strap to racehorses’ heads;
curbed peripheral vision…

too often we find ourselves alone when we are indeed
surrounded by the rest of the world.

Britta B.

BrittaTube: Below Zero