“I’m sorry I left but it was for the best, though it never felt right.”
Such words pleaded to be untrue to you.
They would never really leave you.
They’re coming back.
Why would they leave?
They wouldn’t.
You’re sure of it.
You just have to wait, and they’ll come back soon enough.

But then—
how could they leave you alone just like that?
Betray your trust?
You feel your blood seethe under your skin,
your chest tightening.
Burning.
After all you gave, all those moments shared—
wasted, as if they meant nothing.
Vile.
You told yourself they never cared,
bitterly weaving lies to shield your fragile heart,
fending off the grief with barbed fences of hate and resentment.

Oh, what you’d give for a second chance.
Anything.
Everything.
Memories replay in your mind,
flicking through every word you ever spoke to them,
thinking of what you could have said differently.
Surely, if you had acted differently,
they’d still be here with you.
Just like always.

You don’t want to move.
You don’t want to eat.
You don’t want to sleep.
Or really, you can’t.
An empty hole in your chest is left behind,
taking the space your heart once filled.
How could you be angry?
If they were struggling so much,
why couldn’t you just have helped them?
Maybe then they wouldn’t be gone.
A rope you never held suddenly slipped from your grasp.
Unable to climb to the surface,
you drown in a pool of self-hatred,
every bludgeoning, deprecating thought attacking you
with relentless, mindless force.
A piece of your soul,
ripped from your body.
The beast in your throat begins to claw,
but the tears in your eyes don’t dare to escape,
even though freedom waits on the other side.

Your candle is still lit.
A strange realization when you’d sworn you’d blown it out.
You hold your hands over it, seeking solace in its warm yet burning touch,
softly pricking your skin.
Even when you blow the candle out,
you can always light it again,
even if it’s not the same flame.
It will always bring you light,
even if it’s not the same kind.

And when the candle runs out,
you’ll still have a jar of memories—
small flickers sitting quietly at the back of your mind.
They may not feel important,
but each flame shapes your soul,
a warmth that never fades entirely.
You keep going,
not because you forget,
but because their light becomes a part of you.
A light that will never go out,
even when the flame is gone.

”Oppressed by controlled by my feelings, I strive to escape them. Yet, if I succeeded I would not be as human as I yearn to be. Doing so, I would reduce myself to what others would call a villain, not a person who is trying to tear away the binds of life and set themselves free.”

Дать второй шанс — это как дать кому-то второй пуль, потому что они не смогли убить тебя первым выстрелом —
Я научился этому тяжёлым путём.
То, что ты когда-то дал, стало тем, что тебя сломало.
Говорят, что соль похожа на сахар —
Мало ли я знал, что пословицы созданы по какой-то причине и не существовали бы без этой причины,
некоторые, как я, просто достаточно неудачливы, чтобы попробовать соль.
Даже один раз — это слишком много.
Ты никогда не забудешь тот ужасный укус на языке,
как горло становится сухим и напряжённым,
всю ту воду, которую ты пьёшь, пытаясь отменить последствия —
но всё равно остаёшься сидеть там с жгучим языком и сухим горлом,
сожалея о своих выборах, как всегда.
Зачем ты это сделал?
Ты должен был проверить этот «сахар».
Зачем ты отдал эту пулю?
Ты должен был знать, что они хотят увидеть кровь, которую они так и не успели рассмотреть после неудачного выстрела.
И они скажут что-то вроде: «Всё в порядке, потому что красный цвет значит, что я тебя люблю».
И ты простишь.
Снова.
Снова.
Снова и снова.

Со временем у тебя возникнут вопросы, почему ты остаёшься.
Из отчаяния?
Или из любви?
От чувства вины?
Паранойи?
Но прежде чем ты примешь решение уйти,
они уйдут первыми.
Несмотря на тот сложный план, который ты уже выстроил,
зная, что ты уйдёшь —
быть оставленным первым больнее, чем ты ожидал.
Так внезапно, что шок ломает тебя сильнее, чем осознание, что они не любят тебя,
зная, что ты больше не являешься всем тем, чем они когда-то тебя называли,
отчуждённый от слов, за которые ты так долго держался, чтобы убедить себя остаться.

Время пройдет.
Некоторые дни ты забываешь —
некоторые дни всё, что ты можешь делать, это помнить.
Чувство уже не такое разрушительное,
но это не помогает факту, что оно есть,
и оно всегда будет.

One Person.
Two Eyes.
Three Reasons to cry,
Every reason to lie.
Four hands I see as an ocean of what I bargained with to forget fills my vision.
Five sharp pains tearing at my throat while I clench my teeth together,
the scalpel of a tear running down,
carving an unsightly incision.
Six seconds.
Hold my breath.
Then breathe.
Seven minutes I feel I want to pass away where I stand,
fade from all that are granted sight.
before my phone blinks at me once again with its one blinding eye.
Eight notifications I choose to ignore,
their glow a blinding bright.
Nine voices whispering, “Let yourself go, you’ll be alright.”
Ten quiet promises;
tomorrow will come,
even if I don’t believe it tonight.

I despise time.
I despise having too much of it.
I wait too long and it forces thoughts I’d kept hidden for as long as I could to resurface back to my conscience,
some invisible force that serves to torture my being,
tearing at my core,
as if my chest held a crumbling hour glass.

I despise time.
It goes as quick as it comes,
taking everything I desperately hold onto along with it,
washed away in its corruption.
Family.
Friends.
What I love.
What I keep close to me.
All ripped away in time‘s merciless hands.

I despise time.
Too long in the dark,
staring at walls—
it warps my sight,
summoning that of which I beg to never see again,
yet somehow always comes back.
The faces.
The shadows.
Waltzing around my head in a mocking game,
I lay,
clutching the pulse threatening to burst through my chest.
My stomach hollow and twisting,
my mind unable to divide the real and unreal.
Are the shadows illusions of unnecessary fear?
I can no longer tell.
I look to my left,
and look to my right,
and wake up.
. . .
No I didn’t.
Time seized me in its spiral once again,
smearing colours of confusion and panic across my weak mind—
staining it in thick strokes, never to be peeled off.
The shadows gone,
disintegrated back into each corner of my room,
but the everlasting nausea remains to taunt me.

I despise time.
It creates questions never to have answers.
Why must I become a victim?
No answer.
Why must time steal from my life?
No answer.
Why must it cause my pain,
my grief,
my fear—
yet still bring happiness,
fleeting contentment?
No answer.
Time cannot speak,
questions remain unanswered.
Actions speak louder than words but time makes sure I can’t unravel its intentions,
enjoying observing my suffering,
my anguish,
and my sorrow.
I cannot escape time,
no beginning,
no end.
It traps me in a prison I’ll never escape,
leading anxiety and paranoia into my life instead.
Those are no keys,
my cell will not unlock until time allows it to,
freed by death.

Giving a second chance is like giving someone a second bullet because they couldn’t **** you by the first shot—
I learned that the hard way.
What you once gave became what broke you.
They say salt looks like sugar—
little did I know sayings are made for reasons and wouldn’t exist without them,
some like myself are just unlucky enough to have to taste the salt.
Even once is one too many times.
You never forget the awful sting on your tongue,
the way your throat becomes dry and tense,
all the water you take to try and undo the effects—
yet you still end up sat there with your stinging tongue and dry throat,
regretting your choices like you always do.
Why would you do that?
You should have tested the ‚sugar‘.
Why would you hand over that bullet?
You should have known they’d want to see the blood they never got the chance to look at after their failed shot.
Then they’d say something along the lines of ‚Its okay, because the red means I love you.‘
And you’d forgive.
Again.
Again.
Over,
and over.

Eventually you’ll gain questions as to why you stay.
Out of desperation?
Or out of love?
Guilt?
Paranoia?
But before you make your choice to finally go,
they leave you first.
Despite what intricate plan you had already devised,
knowing you would leave them—
being left first hurt.
More than you ever expected.
So abrupt that the shock shatters you more than the knowing they do not love you,
knowing you’re no longer everything they once said,
alienated from the words you held onto for so long to convince yourself to stay.

Time will pass.
Some days you forget—
some days all you can do is remember.
The feeling isn’t as heartbreaking,
but that doesn’t help the fact that it’s there,
and always will be.

The mirror before me does not lie,
no matter how much I beg it to.
Soft spoken words once given to my appearance have now only faded into shrill and distorted knells in my ears,
screaming things the devil could never utter,
even in a pure fit of rage.

My eyes see myself,
yet my mind can only stare at a horrid, warped creature,
turning whatever dared to reflect such a ghastly image like itself to stone.

Not all scars are seen,
but the mirror plucks them all out into view,
even from the darkest corners of my mind.
It watches.
No pity.
No remorse.
Just a quiet surface of glass which exists only to howl truths long buried within myself,
the kind of noise that echoes in the soul, leaving no space for peace to even think to enter.

Then it shatters.
The sheer weight of my existence making even something as inanimate as a mirror break down at the sight of the mess I call my person.
The tiny fragments look up at me with pure disgust,
a thousand images of myself encircled around me.

The mirror never spoke a word.
It never needed to.
The voice I heard was only my own,
yelling from the depths of my reflection,
weaving a tapestry of shame only I could create.
It did not judge,
nor distort,
nor condemn.
It only represented me thoughts I had cried at myself in silence for years.