Painful Habit
I've only really known pain
The language to describe my woes
So many words to say it hurts
So many ways to say I hurt
I've only really known to talk, share and discuss
With my mothers, their mothers, their sisters and brothers
Tales of patriarchy hidden in bruised bodies, in stolen lands, in anxious hearts
Hidden deep within mental illness that bring about hysteria in good women
Promises made, unkept I've only become too familiar to empty words
From a lover, a brother, a friend whose promises bestowed hope but delivered
Nothing more than disappointment once again
Happiness or rather the words to describe joy, true contentment
Only but a foreign territory far too wild to be part of my story
Unfamiliar to the fullest extent in this heart that learned early on
More ways of concealing pain
Than one to describe happiness merely present for a moment
A glimpse, a shadow, far too rare to become a habit
Far to foreign for me to learn to be happy once again
It is a habit, merely a fact that I keep learning within
Over and over again
To talk of pain, and its remains
Because this world no longer knows how to heal or mend
But only to break and wreck over and over again