i don't remember who i was last night, let alone who i was five years ago, when i merely dappled in anxiety and depression was too abstract to touch. sometimes i miss the stretch of months where i didn't feel much. of course, when i lost one sense, another strengthened; i could see clearer as i watched my world fall apart. the fractures were more vivid, more detailed, more poignant. lust, a cardinal sin. enter wrath. voices cracking, shattering the mirage of a once-revered man. i learned to be careful who i canonized.

i stopped giving away even the smallest pieces of me: hobbies, habits, feelings. i bubble wrapped my body, except for my hands, i needed some skin to destroy. but i wasn't satisfied with the bloody fingers i'd had for ten years, so i moved on to my knuckles, then my shoulders, then my thighs. i wasn't sure if it was self-harm but i'd been doing it too long to quit, and i never did have the guts to cut. fifteen years now, but at least i'm back to only my fingers.

when she noticed my shoulders were healing, she smiled and said i was getting better. i recall smiling back but i don't think i told her the scars scared me. i don't remember not feeling fear, i'm scared to recover and i'm afraid to stay unstable.

is better a place or a feeling? sometimes it's her arms or the heat in my chest but neither last long enough to keep me warm during the night. better is a fleeting, finite thing. it is only permanent when i am far from it, like puddles on the highway on a humid afternoon.

i fear i'm an illusion, too. i have spent so long reflecting my emotions on tilted mirrors in order to create the perfect vision. even when i put down the glass and open my mouth and try to let the truth come out, i fail. maybe i'm hypnotized by the lies i've fed myself for years and i really am a weight on the world, or maybe they're the truth. maybe my life will serve as living proof that some people don't deserve to live, some people don't have any worth.

my therapist told me to use logic. use science to prove how i'm worthless. so i've started a pros and cons list, and it's halfway done. burden, waste of space, sloth. i've created a hypothesis as well as trials to run, and i'm nearly positive that my twisted logic is correct. when i'm like this, i don't remember my intellect. i don't remember when i believed my last affirming thought. all i know is i amount to all my peeled skin and the platelets i've forced to clot.

I add insult to injury and bleed into the glass

Cut my lip upon the rim and my tongue upon the wine

Red mixing with the red, only told apart by farce

I've no ire; it's what happens when so sharpened is the vine

It becomes a heady mix, and I'll ask for yet another

A vintage with a copper note is too familiar to waste

Greedily embraced and savoured like a liquid lover

I'll drain it to the dregs to bet on changes to the taste

An insult I can handle, and my injury will heal

Uncork, and leave the bottle on the table by the door

But when one becomes the other all the splinters turn to steel

I'll pass the key with kisses, or just spit it to the floor

The night is joined in song, and I embrace it as a friend

For day's the enemy; illuminates where I have bled

If I pour myself one last, will I finally ascend?

Or will crimson be the colour of my resting place instead...

i entertain myself

with the most radical thought

i've ever had:

maybe i am enough.

maybe these words i write

aren't just roadkill

plastered on paper.

maybe my carcass

is art.

could it be?

could i be more

than nothing?

could my chapped knuckles

build gods?

what if i'm

as bright as

the sun?

----

i remember

the words of the boy

whose hair sagged below

his eyes,

who i never appreciated

as much as i should have.

"i mean your face is already fucking poetry

and they were writing novels about the damage it did

to lovelust boys

long before you were born.

fucking hell,

there are so many places

i'd like to touch.

you're a fucking map

and i am homesick for every place i haven't laid my fingers on

and your voice rumbles shrill like an earthquake so great i hope the waves take me in.

you are art

and nature

and thunder

and the sound of my heart as it breaks against my ribcage.

don't let anyone tell you different."

i pick at the thoughts

under my nail beds

and i am left wondering

if oceans can contain me

Moorings fixed

unsalted and tossed

aside, remnants of

regions, catacombs and chambers

The ventricles of

every heart leavened

maybe not for

now but for

when, rising arises

notice the crickets

how sustenance and longevity

align with the small

rubbing little bites

repeated

heartfelt angst is

tiger maul losing

a limb unnoticed

shock too much to

swallow goes by

unremarked

How do you know something's wrong?

When words

Say you need to be unique

But actions and unspoken rules

State you have to be normal

You have to fit in and don't dare to be different.

When it's no longer about who you want to be,

But what they want you to be.

And because they came before

they must be always right.

And because we are young

We must always be wrong.

When people hurt and hate and get away with it

Because it wears the guise of

Religious beliefs and political opinions

Law is to keep us safe

Religion is to give us faith

Safety shouldn't hurt us

Faith shouldn't frighten us

That's how you know something's wrong.

When a girl says she's "not like other girls"

Because she has been taught to believe that all girls are the same

Because she has been cultured into feeling being a girl is shameful

And being "like other girls" is the worst thing in the world

When girls can wear boys' clothes

Because men are powerful and superior

And it shows she's strong

But heaven forbid a boy wear a dress,

"He must be gay!

He's a freak!

Oh! Woe is me!

He must want to be a woman!

How weak! How shameful!

Doesn't he know that women are inferior?"

When certain people have to feel uncomfortable in their own skin

Because somehow your body is meant to define who you are.

I shouldn't feel uncomfortable in my own skin

My body is not me!

This body does not make me a girl nor anything else!

Gender is non-binary, Gender is fluid!

I should be able to be me without being mocked!

But I can't, so I hide.

I've hidden for far too long and it's time to break free.

For all of us to break free.

Cast off the chains! Tear down the walls!

We don't have to live in prison anymore!

But these four walls are all we know.

We were born within them and we'll die within them

Because we are so afraid of the unknown.

What if it's ugly?

But what if... it's beautiful?

the world is constantly screaming at us.

writing is how we scream back.

people are always beating us up.

writing is fighting them.

writing is the moment when birds realize they can fly. When they see there's so much more out there. You're a bird and writing are your wings. Don't miss the chance of flying.

i'm no geophysicist

but it doesn't take a lab coat and a seismograph to know

when the eighth wonder of the world is holding your hand-

the shivers that run down my spine are enough

to let me know i'm experiencing

something bigger, something better

than what the world ever had to offer

i do not need a microscope to feel the goosebumps on my skin

i swear sometimes i hear them murmuring-

asking me if you're mine-

i want to whisper yes,

but birds fly so much higher when they're not in a cage

and i would rather help you spread your wings

than teach you how to find your way back home

i know-

the hanging gardens were not made for one

the great wall was not built for two

and lions were not put on this earth for damsels and daniels-

there's a concept called

the greater good-

i hate to see you leave,

but there's a reason you can roar

i'm no scientist

but i do know that when you make a discovery

and find something wonderful

you share it with the masses

so,

you cannot be mine-

you are not mine

but i,

a mere weed in the garden,

a ragged, empty nest-

i am yours