The Muse's Revenge- Ilya Milstein (2019)

When she can no longer put words together or dance to the familiar sound of furious scribbling on paper?

What then?

What does the writer do when you have violated her so badly she has no words left to share

No stories to tell

There is no flowery language to describe what happened between you and the writer

You have stolen the concept of a choice, you so cruelly have broken me- no her- that even writing offers no comfort

You took what you wanted so harshly, she walks around an open wound

From the soft dent of her scalp’s middle to the tips of her toes, she hurts

The sadness is plaguing; the realization even more depressing

How does she say it with metaphors and synecdoche that you touched her in her sleep?

I’m not sure, I don’t know either;

How to properly describe the betrayal that cuts her heart deep and plunges her into regret and self blame?

I don’t know.

To say,

“I still remember where you put your hands, i can clearly feel your erection on my back, I feel your hands; my body stings in remembrance. I am disgusted with myself, I fault myself for trusting you, I am not insane. I know what happened. I don’t know if I deserve this, I hope I/you die”.

There’s a dark place where the artist should not go, must not go, because only a lucky few make it back

It is sorrowfully familiar; imagine a dirge on loop, Imagine fire in your chest with your throat wrapped around in thorns

Imagine the body you were learning to love becoming a total stranger; a shell of a good thing

This is where the writer sinks

She remembers and so she dies again, an unending cycle

No amount of distractions, thrill seeking or scrubbing body soap would make her clean again

The writer loses herself, her ability to write and something else; an unable but tangible source of meaning

Eyes awake, she weeps the loss of whatever was stolen from her, a daily ritual of anguish, her mourning routine

The echo of this robbery still remains even if you don’t care.

She wasn’t given the choice of not caring since you touched her in her sleep

The writer is unable to write, she can no longer wax poetic.

She gathers the residual language -no big grammar-from her brain’s store room to testament her undoing

Perhaps as a prayer or a plea, an attempt to seek reprieve

Maybe someday it will be easier.