i had a dream i stood beneath an orange sky and sure enough woke up to see a storm brewing on the horizon. same outfit, same routine. thought you’d have evolved but you’re exactly the same you’ve always been.

what was it halsey said…you can’t fill that hole inside of you with money, drugs, and cars? oh i feel so sorry, oh i feel so sad? i just know clout chasing can be real addicting and baby you’ve got it bad.

eyes darting like if i caught yours you might burn to the ground. me the fire breathing dragon, you rapunzel in her castle. never saw your lovers climbing in our window but in hindsight i wouldn’t put it past you.

maxing out 1975s “love it if we made it” probably because we knew deep down we couldn’t. probably knew one of us would sacrifice peace for perception and one of us wouldn’t.

don’t need a truth or dare to say out loud or in ink how much i loved you, how you brought me worlds closer to who i thought i wanted to be. but go ahead and tell ‘em, tell ‘em the things you told me.

-tbrumm

i dream about closure because i know you well enough to know you’d never let me have it because you leave nothing but loose ends, straws to grasp at, an old pair of sweats you slip into when you’re looking for something more elastic

can’t even make eye contact in fear of acknowledgement but here you are parading around a disingenuous and spite-fueled accomplishment. afraid you might be forced back to reality from a delusional subcontinent

afraid you might use it as a jab the next time you go for the jugular, the next time you do something to remind her your love is never singular. always a warm body never anybody in particular

i know you’d never hand me peace in fear you’d have none of me left to hold onto. making sure to remind me i used to have all and then most of you, then some and now none of you

so you saturate my dreams instead. clenching my heart in your fists and putting pressure on my softest parts because to go down swingin’ was the only way we ever knew how to coexist

merging into traffic on the BQE you asked if i remembered when we were the same, “just as mean”. when we used our anger to justify bad habits, revisited our traumas daily, and called it a routine. stripping each other down to the studs right before we’d attempt a game of popcorn on a rusted trampoline

and without fail you’d put every ounce of weight into attempting to take the ground out from under me while making my arms flail wide open. no sign of remorse for what you were knowingly trying to set into motion, blaming me in the end for the causalities of such an explosion

spent years hoping you’d love me to peace instead of pieces, but what time doesn’t tell it sure teaches. because honey, you’re familiar like my mirror years ago but you slithered here all the way from eden just to prove what i already know: if we’re not careful, we’ll be strangled by the weeds we don’t outgrow.

-tbrumm

he’s from the sunshine state and i’ll be the first to say his love burns me deeper than any uv ray…the vitamin d dose my michigan psychiatrist said i needed since age 15 in order to keep the demons at bay

deep creased eye smiles with subliminal meaning showing me there’s vibrato and a whole lot of forevers in our even keel-ing

and if i’ve ever felt empty i forget all about it when i hear him laugh because every bad thing i’ve ever felt shrinks to next to nothing to make room for him, my better half

and if i’ve ever felt defeated i remember when i look him in the eye that everything happens for a reason and he’s my who, what and why.

-tbrumm

on august 16th of 2015 i wrote “cherish kyle souza” in my journal and as hard as it is to believe, i can still find that feeling in a pot of memories that boiled to the top and evaporated into a home that had dried out. a home i poured my whole soul into but clogged on the abundance and 7 years later i find myself walking past 31 diamond st in a brooklyn snow flurry after a few gin martinis, thinking about the time your friend tommy taught me how to enjoy them, about the time we sat at the bar on the corner and decided this apartment was the answer to our emptiness. and somehow i feel a gratitude i didn’t feel when i left, when my friends carried 5 years of history down 5 flights of stairs and your only response was “i want the keys back”. grateful for all you taught me, the mirror you stood in front of me. all the insults we let burn holes in one another like a lit cigarette being thrown into the street. we always said the end would be petty because we felt too much for each other to let it feel like nothing, too much misery to not bring company to witness.

you used to deem this our neighborhood; a place we washed our dirties and claimed our relationship clean. a place we thought we could find the love we were lacking but in the end only highlighted the space in between.

-tbrumm

i used to feel just like that; jealous and angry at the sight of anything that reminded me how fragile it all really is. how it isn’t much at all without the chaos. and how stupid i felt for not seeing it sooner. how i was just filling up the empty space he’s never learned to fill on his own. how i wasn’t chosen, just a replacement for the one smart enough to walk away before me. a short term lease renewed out of convenience. and here we are watching the reboot, knowing it’s bad before it starts because we’ve already seen the original. we’ve been the girl screaming for attention in hopes someone hears all the things we’re not saying and drags us out by our hair. we know how exhausting the never ending blending can be. how he blends into whatever surrounds him, whether that’s a sports team or another woman. blending to buffer the insecurity, blending to break you down to bits and pieces he can swallow whole.

-tbrumm

the bqe at a tight 45 and a salt that won’t leave the air until september. a skyline that used to feel so out of reach but you smear daily keeping with the pace, keeping a finger on the pulse. everything it took to get you here collecting like dust on the dashboard trying to block your view. but it really changed your life, your perspective, and there’s no unseeing that. this place really gave you a chance. hell, a million little chances to be a million different things. new york saved you from what you would have been had you stayed. or shit…really saved you from what you would have remained: small minded, ignorant, so blind and so proud of it.

-tbrumm

Remember why you moved here to begin with, why you hate the Union Square subway station, the way your heart was beating when you first saw the skyline sitting in Holland tunnel traffic with your things packed into a van. Remember all the things you gave up just to be here, including major food groups. Remember LES on a summer night and Central Park after a snowstorm. And if nothing else, remember that New York made you who you are today. For better or worse, but definitely more.

-tbrumm

“what was something mean said to me in my childhood that i carry with me to this day? what would i say to my younger self now?” — in summary, “you’re mean, crazy, hateful.”

i’d say you did the best you could with what you were given. i’d say you still are. i’d say they just don’t understand, that they’ve probably never considered what you’ve endured behind closed doors to make you this way: all fight. all anger. all self preservation and no peace. i’d say the anger will get you through. that angry little girls sometimes grow up to be strong women. vocal women. self aware women. loyal women if nothing else. it’ll fuel you. let it. and then make peace with it. hell, put it on a shelf for admiration because it kept you breathing even if bloody. it said get the fuck up and show us what you’re made of.

and you did.

-tbrumm

I compartmentalized my traumas in hopes to bury them in the mess. In hopes they’d get lost in a stack of loose leaf memories or between the lines. I labeled them “Madison Heights” and thought those 7 sq miles would keep the secrets I wasn’t ready to tell New York, a self storage for the shame I’m still not ready to feel my way through to get to the other side. The shame I don’t even speak to the therapist I pay to listen. Because acknowledgement is confirmation and what difference does the distance and determination make if I’m confirmed the daughter of a drunk who’s beat every woman he’s ever loved whether it be with words or his actual fists. A daughter with the same quick tongue and self defeating sympathy. What’s years of kindness when cruelty comes in zero to sixty, insecurities coming to light through what I’d label self preservation. Groupthink at it’s best boasting “you do what you have to do” because they can’t understand choosing to do what you want to do, that struggle isn’t always strength and that cycles aren’t broken by following what came before. But crabs in a bucket, back to the bottom we go. To a world where we struggle to see the light because it only ever signified the end of another dark period.

-tbrumm