Survivor (106 of 365)

Day 106 of the 365 day poem challenge.

A topic I often encounter and dwell on. I want to introduce a word, a familiar word, to everyone's vocabulary. If you know anyone experiencing family violence or domestic violence, they are a survivor not a victim. 

It's easy to forget how much strength and courage it takes to survive constant denigration puts down physical and mental. These people who survive they somehow rise above all of that. Hence the title of today's poem.

Word of the day extant meaning: "still in existence; not extinct or destroyed or lost."

Survivor

I want to drown 

Crushed by the hopeless

Resolve of the hopeful

There is a pincering

Syringe that burns hot ice

Inside of me 

The burning is peace beside

The sound of my scalp smashing

Against the tiles

But no one hears 

I might as well be drowning

There is a dark pleasure in

Feeling my useless flailing arms 

Beat against steel cruelty

And the iron lungs of grotesque

Laughter shrieking doom and death

I can't wait for death 

I pray for it 

I might as well drown

Deep in the wide vast needle sea

And feel the blood and the sting of infection and the pounding in my head and my blood 

I am become a wailing banshee

My animal howls 

Have disfigured me I am choking on ugliness and misconception

And the contempt of the outside 

But the inside is so cold and alone and I might as well drown

No noise can enter hear

No plea can leave here

No light can enter my darkness 

I want to drown 

Crushed within my own 

Darkest turmoil 

I want to drown 

And take the world burning down

With me 

There is so much power 

In my lovely bones 

There is so much only I know

I have the knowledge 

Of doomsday 

I am a witness of life and death 

I am extant 

I am sinking down

And it feels like falling with style 

The cold water of anxiety burns like acid should 

But I am numb and

I might as well drown.