(Thank you)
For giving people the strange,
seemingly entitled right to hurt me.
Truth is, the difference between you and I is that:
Yes, I hurt you.
At least I can be the only one to blame.
And it is only me that can stitch sorry
into wounds if needed.
But you let them say all the ***** words for my ears.
And that's the one of the saddest realizations.
You let them, with ease & sweet sympathy.

Giving up:

It is when you look at the chef's knife at a strange hour wondering if it is sharp enough to draw blood. You already know it is, but the white lies beg to stay within your skin.

Don't you dare say I gave up, or I am giving up.

1. Especially when I cry with anger glassing over my eyes.
Bleeding out all the bad truths & rusty faults, for a better day.
I have not given up if I look for truth over sweet fiction.

2. How ferociously warm and red my cheeks are. The kind of red reminicent of berry stains in tumbled laundry. Truth is they were slapped by a ghost's hands.

Or when I found out that hot tears and hot showers feel the same.

Do not say I lack the strength to stay here, when my veins dance to a heartbeat; loud & defiant.

Don't ever say to someone: 'You gave up easily' unless you know the exact & imperfectly precise way their thoughts align into dizzy constellations.
Like the way you know the back of your hand.

*Don't.

A stomach full of disappointment.

Price: Lips stiched by all words I wished to say.
*Discount: If you have the kind of bitterness found in burnt toast.

I'll burst into a slow bloom
from
the tongues & flickers
of
fire
itself.

For I have cut through spidery wisps of white lies.
We have both lived through pin-****** of pain
and
see, I told you there would be smudges of sunshine again.

Once I saw an x-ray of a heart and I was alarmed by its smallness, its translucence.
A thing we ask entirely too much of.

Blame is a highly, highly strange thing.
Latching onto anything, it sews itself into the weak, the strong, the inbetweeners.

{Like fire-flies to light. Vice-versa. }

Simply because the world needs a bad guy.

In the same way, we need good hearts.