a name like water
flows from my lips
into the darkness
through the abyss.

i watch you quietly
you do not see
you never will
and it is killing me.

we are all made of stars
cast down from the heavens
and turned into
a form we can recognize.

perhaps
we are not all made for a life
on this planet
and should have stayed with the stars.

maybe that is why
some of us look for a way
back to the stars
because we were not made
for this.

Shards of glass
crash to the floor
tiny ruby droplets
dust their surface.

Words like knives
cutting,
killing,
blame the victim.

Wrong place wrong time
not true
it cannot be true
there is only one at fault.

Look up at the sky
dusting of stars
go to the place
where all the dreamers are.

There are tiny cracks,
working their way down
his back.

His hands are rough,
as though they
are turning to stone.

His heartbeat slows,
the edges beginning to harden
draining his life one pulse at a time.

He is nothing,
he cannot feel,
he cannot see,
he cannot live.

He has turned into a statue,
forever immortalized,
but never free.

Mirror, mirror,
on the wall,
reflecting back a stranger.
They say I'm supposed to be… this,
what they told me I am.
Boxed up,
labeled,
filed away neatly.

But the edges fray.
The corners don't quite fit.
Like wearing someone else's
hand-me-downs,
scratchy and wrong,
against my skin.

I try on different clothes,
different personalities,
trying to find
the one that feels real.
The one that doesn't whisper,
"You're faking it."

Everything feels like a costume,
for a play I never rehearsed for.
Who wrote this script?
And can I please get a rewrite?
Because this version of me?
It just doesn't feel right.