I am a mesmerizing kaleidoscope of broken bits and luminescence. An everlasting whirlpool that makes you need to look away. If broken people were celebrated even half of much as murals, we wouldn’t have to etch “Sought After” onto our skin in bite marks from men too foolish to tell us we are amazing the next morning, eating cereal. I am not obsessed with being wanted. I can be this functional without someone’s heart tucking on me, I tell myself after the third night I’ve waited for the phone to illuminate the room. My mattress to so uneven because I have tucked away all my poignant behavior underneath of it.

Running and running for days in the dark only for the lights to be flicked on by someone you thought you knew and to find your bare, bleeding heels cutting on the track of a treadmill.

I am broken. In my room, I am broken. In your arms, I am broken. At 5:59 pm, I am broken. On a plane, I am broken.

I am aware that when I fractured my ulna, the bone grew back stronger, but when one burns off the path of the axon to the neuron and even one’s dendrites, the burning bridge between who you are and who you should be, they can never come back. Who it was that lite those matches, or who it was that was that flame, could not be easily seen.

Most likely because I cut out my eyes the last time I saw someone who looked at me with love, for I knew all the times I would want to see that same look in the eyes of those I wanted and didn’t would be too much to bear. Much like I cut off my fingers that would write poetry of kissing and sweet words of encouragement to make room for the new models that could point in the mirror and say “get used to being alone.” Those same fingers could reach into my chest and coerce my heart out of my rib cage and into its car. I have not seen her since. Have you seen this girl?

This is a description of what she may look like now: she might be 5’2” with long brown hair. She might have the smile of a zipper because she has not had braced yet. She might have a purple fleece jacket on because she is ashamed of her body. She might have a light in her eyes because she has not yet met the one who will blow it out soon. She might go to her grandma’s and eat ten pierogies and ask her if it might be better to be made of stone. She will not be spectacular but she used to be mine.

I’m not sure when I last saw her because she disappeared when I was looking for someone who actually gave a fuck about me. Quietly, out the back door, with her optimism and empathy in a muddy, ripping backpack slung over her shoulder. You see, I didn’t want her when I had her but now my heart’s gone and that’s an issue when there are times in my life that someone asks me to share her with them. It forces me to give them with hollow paper mache organ that is not warm and cannot beat because it has no soul and is not me. Between paintings, I create hundred of them because when people realize I am paper, I am thrown to the trash.

I lure people in with kisses and sweet encouragement like siren songs and whispers of a succubus in the night. A snake coiling around and up their body with warm sensuality and looks to last a lifetime. With the loud bass of rhythmic panting, one might not notice a serpent in their garden. It is not a lie if I believe it, so when I said that I loved you then, I cannot be held accountable. Just as when I cut all your roses and kill your pet cat, I cannot be held accountable.

When I move into a neighborhood, I should have to go door to door and say “I am broken” because I know not what I do therefore I know not what I am capable of. You kiss my cheek and whisper “I like who I am when I’m with you,” and I replied “That’s good because I like who you are.” I hope you don’t catch that I could not say it back because it is impossible for me to like who I am at any given moment. I do not know who I am. I only know the emptiness of where better things used to be. I know the snake that has made its home slithering, weaving in and out between the course bones of my rib cage. I know I want love but do not believe in it. I know the tiny voice in my head that won’t let me bite the bullet. But I do not know who I am with you, though I hope you can survive her…