A little bit of self-acknowledgement by Elana Waite 

All these poems about love and loss and inherent misery 

and not one about the way it felt to scream  

at the world and all of its swirling fucking blackness 

Not a note about how fire walked with me to the edge 

about how I dug into the rock  

until my fingers bled and my palms were raw 

Not one poem about how he came and went and how I still stood 

Not one poem naming and shaming 

Not a footnote about the fucking terror of being inside 

about how it rained and didn’t stop 

but how I point blank refused to drown 

Barely a synopsis of the cognitive behaviours  

the rediscovering, the unlearning and relearning again 

Not a morsel of salaciousness and sex 

Of feeling so woman, so whole 

(So alone, but so fucking whole) 

Not a nod to the rich tapestry of me 

and how it felt to scream (from the top of my lungs)  

at the world and all of its swirling fucking blackness, 

and how, 

when it screamed back, 

I only screamed louder.