I used to be hues of yellow,
Green, blue, purple, and red.
With the sky as my soul
Feeling vibrant and bold
Like the stories I spun in my head.

A girl made of stars
Is bound to burn out
If her light can no longer be fed.
Learned the rules, learned the game,
Then I scrapped my old ways,
Sinking in water that I used to tread.

Your face was a charcoal portrait,
So I touched it to just see you smile.
But I smudged you all up and I’m covered in gray,
And the light, it retreats when I’m in the sun’s rays,
And I feel like the night everyone wishes was day—

But I take a deep breath.

And I find that old spark.

Just to realize that it never even went away.

I see my life through plexiglass
Trying to bulletproof the past,
Nostalgia? No, but I recall
That rising up precedes the fall.
But the films I watch inside my mind
Are missing parts I cannot find
So I fill the blanks with what I see,
I fill it up with what I need.

Now is it truth, or is it lie?
I like to think that I am right,
But I’m not the well-oiled machine
I used to think I used to be.

I am in a room where the darkness writhes.
I am fine I am fine I am fine I am fine.
The silence—
It chokes me,
And still I swallow it down.

But in this doggone echo chamber
All I hear is myself.
I am going insane to the sound
Of my own voice.

I beg the shadows
“Please, don’t leave me
Here,
Alone,
Forever.”

I scream,
“SAY SOMETHING TO ME.”

I cry,
𝘞𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘦 𝘢 𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯?

do you remember the time
when you said that you
wished you could send me back?
that you wished
you had never adopted me?

do you remember
when i called you a
substitute mother?

I was only 6
years old,
but i should have known better.

the first half of my life,
i was the problem.
i broke rules—
broke trust.

broke you.

eight years later,
everything was a fight.
i didn’t hate you,
but i hated our relationship
because it was a minefield.

ten years later,
and we’re teetering on the edge
where anything i do
can send us over.

i almost miss the constant fighting
because at least i felt angry
instead of scared.

scared of doing the wrong thing,
because i always do, every time.

at least then,
i did not have to live with
the knowledge of my guilt.

but i should feel guilty,
but it hurts.

but i should be hurting,
because you are hurt.

i want to scream,
“𝑰 𝑾𝑨𝑺 𝑱𝑼𝑺𝑻 𝑨 𝑲𝑰𝑫”,
but you were just a mother
being dismissed
by a child who you only
ever wanted to love.

now, i am the one
whose every mistake
weighs heavy
because it is one
out of a tall, tall stack.

now, i am reaping
what i sowed,
and swallowing
the bitter fruit.