What’s it called when someone doesn’t want to get better? When they don’t necessarily want to get worse, but they also don’t want to better. Scratch that. Maybe they do want to get worse. Maybe they deserve to get worse. Maybe they deserve all this pain. I deserve all this pain. I am not good. I am not kind. I am not strong. I am everything but. I am a body built on anger and shame. My hands hold on more tightly to this sadness than the love of my life. And I can’t bring myself to let go. It feels like the tighter I hold onto this feeling the farther away you get and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I can’t stop hurting the people I love. I can’t stop hurting you. And maybe it’s because there are days when I wake up and I don’t feel anything unless I’m hurting you. And I need you to hurt because I need to feel something. I NEED YOU TO MAKE ME FEEL AGAIN. And I know that’s too much to ask of you. I am too much to ask of you. What kind of person wants the one they love to hurt? What kind of person makes other people suffer? What kind of person tells someone they don’t love them anymore? Why would I tell you I don’t love you, when you’re the brightest thing in my life? Why do I need you to hurt to make me feel better? What is wrong with me? There is a monster living in my brain and sometimes I can’t keep it quiet. I promise it’s not me. But sometimes I can’t tell the difference between the thoughts in my head and the truth. I feel like a stranger in my own skin and you are not safe here with me. YOU ARE NOT SAFE. I cannot promise you love and beauty and kindness and joy. I cannot promise that I will wake up everyday and kiss the sunrise good morning. I cannot promise that I will be calm. I am full of natural disasters and chaos. This body holds a ******* storm and I don’t know how to protect you from it. This body is not beautiful, this heart is not kind, this soul is not gentle. I am not gentle. I’m sorry I can’t love you the way you deserve but god made my body into a palace, and the monster in me turned it into a temple where love goes to die.

A stone in my throat

I gasp for breath as I drown gradually

Into a quagmire of useless rules

That no-one cares for, but is afraid to break

We know now why the caged bird sings

But that's all it seems

We know everything, but understand nothing

And unfortunately that seems to suffice

everything about you is beautiful
your soul, delicate & musical
introspective
through your eyes & lens

similar stories
from worlds apart
bound by invisible
quivering thread.

tying us as one

we look eye to eye
the light in one another
beside the setting sun.

from city skylines,
forests green
and lakes vast and blue.

the shared experience
of being human
is what binds me
to you.