Distortions

Charlize Colle Fernandez / POETRY

TW: Mentions of abuse and dissociation, flashing imagery

It was not a spark, but a forest fire, that kindled the days of my childhood. 

The days spent receding into safe places 

like waves into the ocean. 

Embracing the white lie of dreams, 

escaping the black truth of reality. 

Oscillating between bouts of cold fury 

and warm affinity. 

This was the home my father created. 

It was a house that I could never leave. 

My body is a temple ruined and scarred, 

forsaken by the irreligious, 

its divinity forcibly taken. 

My body is a temple 

that is no longer sacred. 

This was the body my mother created. 

It was a body that was no longer mine. 

The walls of my truth are painted with mourning. 

My grief spills over the loss 

of what I did not have, 

of what I could not have. 

When I look into the mirror, 

I am not the same person looking back. 

I am here, but not there. 

The blurred lines of identity. 

Maybe there isn’t a me to go back to. 

I was too young to be ruined so terribly.