“Open Journal, Entry #4"

Clean slates and

Blank pages

Thick skin, tired legs survival

Peace, love, and coconut oil

Oxford comma for suspense and

In curly hair that I still smell

Outside of awkward silences

Ellipses spaces

Off, again, but on

Today phases, she exhaled

Feelings she won’t say as

I catch them in invisible ink

Breaths

Trying to decipher broken

Language while languishing

And bathing in a

Never too far off or forgotten anguish

Traveling back and standing in

REM where triggers pressed

By pretty fingertips, spat tight, spiraling

Bullets leaving PTSD memories

Of the burn,

Now remembered as just being grazed

Facing sun firmly set horizons

That bring rising to daylight’s

Saving of…