I lay my skin out bare
For you to see every vein
Unfold every roll
Meet the aftermath of pain
Caress the white hairs dug deep,
Waiting, for time’s curse
They will try to repel it,
To prevent nature’s call
Anti-aging creams cannot postpone
the growth
Of my soul
Can’t they tell?
The wrinkles in my skin
Are soiled ground
Don’t they know?
I’ve been waiting for a lifetime
To finally say ‘Hello’.

What does love look like today?

love today looks like mountains that I can’t make move or see over
like breaking and no space to sit down and put the pieces back together
love today looks like rain w/ no peace to lie down and enjoy the falling
like the sun building up its walls in reaction to me
like myself building up walls in reaction to me...

They pick flowers off of their backs
and feed them to me
hoping I would grow into leaf,
Any use but these motionless roots
that just won’t move
As it uses up precious soil.
I would gleam into the most beautiful and nutritious of fruits
If only I knew how to
I want to tell you that water leaks right through my soil
That birds plummet to the ground after nibbling on my greens
That everything that touches me retracts into nothingness
And I have no scent
That a human could pick up
But the insects resent me
They think I’m trying to poison them
I do not dare try to convince them otherwise
Because I do await my precious snakes every night
Luring them in with hisses and offerings
I want them to mistake me for shelter,
To trace my stem all the way down to these stubborn roots
How I would love to be coated in so much venom
that no amount of water would ever deem my soil habitable
that flowers would wilt and die upon being placed on my grave.

Don’t make a home out of me
My roof is damaged beyond repairing
The cracks in my walls are not enough to let the light in
My darkness is unbearable.
Don’t familiarise yourself with my corners
I rebuild everyday
If you stay in one place for too long
You may never be able to leave
Even when you desperately want to
Don’t bring me the world
I’ll repay you
In disappointments
Don’t blame yourself
For not being able to fix me
I don’t need fixing
I have worked my way around my broken edges
Learned which turns hurt the most to take
And I take them
Because scars will heal
But you won’t.

Your eyes,
So familiar
Looked like a window
Felt like a mirror
So I avoided your gaze
Afraid
If i stared for long enough
I would start to see
everything I
despised
In human form
Your eyes,
Like a mirror
Confronting the deepest
sorrows
Giving them a voice
To speak
To exist
Anywhere other than
the poisoning smoke
Of a fire
Your eyes,
Like a mirror
Knew where to look
Like cleared throats
Masking swallowed words,
Collapsing lungs,
But they were silent
for a reason
I didn’t want you to reach
that far back
Or come this close
To the truth,
Your eyes,
Like a mirror
I shall shatter
Like I do
To everything that makes me see.

I am not one to mistake
Neglect for love
but I have an empty wooden-box
for a heart
that the cold shows no mercy
So just the thought
of another soul
having inhabited the emptiness
And warmed it up,
If just for a little while,
is enough to keep this box from freezing
and I am not one to mistake
love for suffocation,
but sometimes
The air that slips inside this box,
Is too heavy with memories
that it just fills it up
So when I tell you
I have no more space
For a new face
Even if it comes with the promise of eternity,
Know,
that I don’t want it,
I am waiting for the time
When every silent cry uttered
Is echoed through the walls
inside this box
and it is so cold that
No soul dares come near it,
Let alone look in the direction
of the incoming snow,
Then,
and only then,
Would I shatter it myself,
having spent eternity,
avoiding having it scratched
By someone else.

I hand my heart over to the shadows
Refrain from breaking it once and for all
Head to the abyss
To the only place
Where I’m warned before I fall
It rings in my ears
Day and night
A promise of an always-empty mind
No more aching
No more frights
No more dull, silent nights
I want to jump
But there’s so much more
So much joy I cannot ignore
To get there,
I must leave the heights
And get through another silent night.