One.
I am broken
fully shattered by myself and others,
trying to pick up the puzzle pieces
I’ve been left to find.
Worn into a two edged sword
that has cut my skin and left me unloveable.

Two.
Some days it will seem like I am cured.
I will look whole,
as if a miracle came from heaven
and fixed my aching skin
and wrapped me up in something that will never happen.
I will seem okay as if everything before was just a phase,
but I need you to know that tomorrow
I will be me again.
Jagged lines drawn across rainy skies
that never quite made a connection.

Three.
I am trying.
Can’t you see from the bags under my eyes
that this is eating me alive?
I was two steps from Hell,
but now I am four,
trying to dig my way back to sanity.
There is peace in giving up,
but I have opted for chaos.

At 12 years old
you learned the majority of stars
were already dead.
They are masters of deception
giving you hope that beauty
is permanent
and love is forever.
You learned that love
is too often a lie
and promises find themselves
shattered on linoleum floors
that you step on in the night.
At twelve,
you learned that your bones are fragile
paper thin like the birth certificate
you’ve never seen,
buried under other things
you never really cared about.
You found truth
at 3 am in your bedroom
followed by rivers of tears
and open pill bottles.
You saw life
and you saw death
and sometimes those nights
when you were twelve
are the only things that make you feel
like the world is real.
When you were twelve
you found out the stars were dead.
When you were twelve
you found out that you were not.

I feel one hundred and two
decaying from the inside out
a skeleton of mistakes
and regrets of things I should have done
broken teeth scattered across my bathroom floor
and empty pill bottles lining my shelves
I feel older than I should
already preparing for death
it looks me in the eyes
and tells me everything is all right
so I will go quietly with it
into the night,
I feel my bones shifting as I sit
waiting for another day to pass
until it doesn’t anymore
and I am somewhere that isn’t here
not living but free
escaping from what I tried to be
but I never was,
fingernails gnawed to the bone
and bones jutting out from the crevices
of my own mind
I am too young to feel this old
ready to give up
who I am
to anything that promises relief
irreconcilable futures rest in the horizon
and I am here bargaining away
what time I have left.