When you texted saying that
you had
started sleeping with your ex again
shrug emoji

I pictured in my mind
a razor blade cocktail sliding
down my throat
capillaries

I had only met you once
You told me things were messy
I knew all of this from the very very start

I kept my countenance
Texted back a few glib things
Already knowing they'd end up that most awful thing
left on read

I resumed my laughter night with close friends
Chatted with the uber driver on my way back to the city
Then got home and
cut myself repeatedly
as i am wont to do.

None of this was really about you.

You were just a concept to me.
I think the doc might have been right
when she told me
*you have BPD

Maybe I cry too much.
Maybe I lie a lot.

Maybe I drink too much.
Maybe I don't eat enough.

Maybe I learned the wrong things.
Maybe I care the wrong way.
Maybe I love the wrong people.

Maybe I broke too many bones.
Maybe I had too many surgeries.
Maybe I should have had pain medicine.
Maybe I grew up with drug addicts.

Maybe I can't think straight.
Maybe I hit my head too hard.
Maybe I should have seen a doctor about it.
Maybe I should should see one now.

Maybe I'm sick.
Maybe I'm depressed.

Maybe I shouldn't own a gun.
Maybe I shouldn't keep it loaded.
Maybe I shouldn't keep it in my nightstand.

Maybe I'm just being dramatic.

Maybe I'm just tired.
Maybe I'm just tired of being so self-aware.

.....)
I will oscillate without rhyme
purpose pattern
or reason
between jagged velvet nihilism
and hedonism soft toothed
until I eventually maybe
improbably possibly
discover something worth living for or drown in numbful lustness
unconcernedly disturbed
disturbedly unconcerned
that I never found it
(.....

I should have seen this coming
You warned me you were cold.
But the silence doesn't hurt much less
Just because it was foretold.

I try to find
the beauty
in every living
thing
and you once
told me
that wildflowers were
weeds.

Smoke yourself silly.
Drink yourself drunk.
Cut yourself repeatedly.
Insist that nothing's wrong.
Hope they don't believe you.
They always seem to.
Are you that good of a liar?
Or do they just not want to know?
Would it matter if they did?
It's no matter now:
You've long accepted your own soft, sorrowful implosion.

Asterisks
because the search engines
and social media software algorithms
block out anything containing the ******* keyword
because god forbid we have some safe place
to talk about it
share our scars
joke around
wallow
ask for advice about how to
best debride
necrotic tissue
without furthering the infection
without being preached to
or told that
it gets better.

Because we can't go to doctors
and we can't go to friends
or family
or anyone.

And because people who have never done it before
or maybe once or twice in high school
with those banal ******* symbolic wrist tattoos
ask us just the stupidest questions
and tell us that we shouldn't display
our scars out in public
because they might trigger some hypothetical person.

My addiction is not a keyword.
My body is not a trigger warning.

****.
****.
****.
*******.