when you look at yourself in the mirror, do you feel real then?

when you walk around and everything is blurry but not and your body is miles away and hopelessly heavy, do you feel real then?

when you tear into the skin of your arm because you’re desperately searching for color, do you feel real then?

when you can’t focus your eyes, or you can but it doesn’t work right, do you feel real then?

do you look at yourself from years ago and think it’s not you?

i don’t think i ever had any discernible sense of self to begin with.

when you feel emotions, but they aren’t really yours, do you feel real then?

when your chest gets heavy, but the weight is never enough to keep you tethered to reality, do you feel real then?

when the still, flowing blood rushes and freezes in your ears, do you feel real then?

and when everyone tells you you’re okay because you look okay, and you smile, but you didn’t make your lips tilt and you’re screaming at yourself, begging yourself to reclaim your skin and your mouth and your hands, and your body moves when you tell it to but you didn’t feel it move,

do you feel real then?

i am not different like this.
take these colors snd scrape them down with a knife.
look at the lines you’ve made and how they overlap like oil pastels.

i am not different like an oil painting where the colors blend when you ask them too.
i am not different like watercolors where you can add water and change the saturation.

i am different like a picture drawn with crayola markers on printer paper.
drawn by a child in class while the teacher looks on with thinly veiled concern for the child’s mind.

he presses too hard sometimes and the ink blots and tears holes in the paper when young, uncoordinated hands try to keep it in place.

i am not different like clay molded masterfully, or even haphazardly.
i am different like holes torn in paper with too much ink to have any color besides a wild sort of black.

breathe.
breathe.
breathe.

breathe.

breathe.

breathe.
breathe.

breathe.
underneath the flesh you’ll find
the writhing mass of blood that’s mine.
it leaps and twirls like graceful dancers,

it scrapes my bones and leaves unanswered.

breathe.

breathe.
breathe.

breathe.
what’s the point of taking breaths
when im dizzy and coiled and trapped on my bed?

my chest rabbits up
and it rabbits back down.
i’m breathing, or trying, but i still end up drowned.

breathe.
breathe.

breathe.

breathe.

i’m losing
perception of every direction.
infested, infected with fear and depression.

breathe.

breathe.

breathe.
breathe.


breathe.

this is the mood for a poem, i think:
skin crusts in corners whenever i blink.
i was feeling quite down just a moment before,
but now i’m a shell, like i was times before.

it’s short-lived, i hope, as i write the next line,
hoping this wont be like previous times

this is the mood for a poem, i say,
as my dreams and my hopes and my thoughts drift away.
i wonder if they know that i’d like them to stay.

read something, watch something, write something, stop.
the words start to slow, then the moment is gone.
stories and poems alike, gather dust.
and the gears that turn thoughts, grind as they all turn to rust.

i blame it on the water that never comes out.
the kind that’s trapped behind eyes when you struggle to shout.

this is the mood for a poem, i write,
as the words stretch beyond what i thought was just mine.
write something. stop. no. it’s not done.
i set the pen down and i reach for a-