I’ve always been too big, too vivid and I keep standing out when I’m trying to fall deeper and deeper into the crowd. I’m the first to argue and just too loud. My jokes don't make sense, I’m sure I’m the only one who finds them funny. When I think really hard, I wanted to tear each trait out from the root that weeded my body and burn it. The less space you take up the more valuable you are or so I’m taught. You should see the light through her thighs and the hollow of her collar bone.
Ladies don’t fight back, their voices are supposed to be high and quiet. I take up too much space to be valuable. Eventually, I figure I'll learn various pieces scattered behind me. Eventually, I'll pick them up but right now you're still on my mind fishing around my foundations until I crack, killing my security. Because in my mind it was more, not just hands, gestures to hold us together but you let go and I am in pieces. It's my fault, though, every time I do the same.
She didn’t make me breathe, catch in my throat or my heart beat through my chest. She was beautiful in a way that made me feel safe. She made me feel the same way music does, her crooked eyeliner in city lights and clammy hands in cold breezes. They weren’t shaking, they felt at home.
"Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.”
No one can ever convince me that sticks and stones hurt more than the names we were called in school. As if broken bones were more painful than scars that were ripped open again each day. These calls and brands, they stay through our lives and decided whether or not we will and can feel loved by ourselves in the future. I never knew how someone could be so mean. Well, right now I want to stay alive while nothing matters but I’m not sleepy, just tired of trying and failing and crying again. I want to sleep for decades at a time while the world grows and falls and while people create and disintegrate. I want to cry but my eyes are dry and my eyes under pressure. My stomach is in a knot that reaches my throat, and I don’t want to talk and I can’t even breathe because the next sound I make will sound too much like a scream. But I’m good! been busy :) hbu? keeps more friends. 15 were gone I don’t remember why, but I remember it changing me for good.
My head grew heavier as it sunk deeply into the concourse of my pillow like someone poured hot water through both of my ears and it was flooding my skull. The warmth was welcomed as all noise drained out, a full silence washed through my body. Jolts of pure energy reverberated through my veins with a vicious pang. I could feel my heart collapse into a steaming pile of flesh. I could feel the burn marks scorch my ribs and lungs. Everything felt so fierce and so raw; it was like the sun and I was too close.
Lips slightly parted, dry from slow, wispy breaths. She said the pillow case felt like a silk finger tip, cool and smooth against her cheek. And her skin felt like a thin velvet layer perfectly contoured over mountains and valleys of dainty bones. I felt rosy at her words and the covers felt like clean sheets of ice to my fingers beside her. She could turn anything into poetry but I think that’s what heartbreak does, it turns anyone into a poet.
Everything seemed motionless except for me. My mind was like an abandoned home, worn in and used but empty, and I could feel water boiling and simmering against the lining of my stomach. Skin shrank to her bones as it turned to paper and bone became glass.
At 4:00 a.m. the city is still sleeping and I climb, awake. Looking over the rusted rail, I see bare concrete and can hear the echoes of the wind reverberate, smoothly ringing off of the walls. I flourish in the deep loneliness that covers the city. But when I walk home from class at 2 pm., I can still feel the city’s emptiness. It’s not as calming in the day with thousands of people passing me by with empty faces and anonymous lives. These people are nothing to each other, just a place filler in a mass.
During the long day, I anticipate the unwelcome feeling of loneliness. A thousand lives connecting for seconds in infinite combinations but the connection is never actually made, just looked at.
I struggle for air when I get lost in swells created by the crowds. I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out. I want to ask for help but there's no one who can help me. And there’s nothing to say. No one wants to hear it because they'll believe the lies on your lips to avoid the truth in your eyes and they'll check your wrists but never your hips.
There’s more comfort in a lie than there is in the cold truth. You were gone in the morning when the light came up alone in my apartment once again today. Days move slowly as the weeks blow by, pressure overwhelming as my mind runs dry. I promised myself that night I wouldn't let you that close, but you took my hand and let me lay my head on your shoulder and you let me pick the show we watched while you looked down at me. I had sworn I saw hearts in your eyes so I gave in but then you kissed me goodbye and I never heard from you again.
