Everything
Inside me
Is fighting a
War
For my
Soul, mind, and body
There are so many battles
I can't keep track
Anymore
I just try my best
To shut out the sound
Of bullets and
Clashing swords

There were days
I remembered
To put my heart on my sleeve.

The other days
I hid it
So deep inside my body
I couldn’t find it for myself.

The terror of anyone finding
Me judging me
Seemed to linger in the air
I inhaled.

when i lost myself
it truly hurt the most
because how do you heal
when you are the ghost

s.s

Sometimes, I am a paper girl.
I look in the mirror
To judge my blotches and creases-
I am a pale, thin tissue
That bows to the howling wind
Transparent for anyone who cares enough to look.

If you like pretty pictures, I'm the one for you-
A roll of film scratching laughs
On curious cinema screens
That could run into infinity
Just to fuel your smile.

I soak up your messes willingly:
All the colours that bleed and mix
To form the specks of sadness
In your eyes at 10.p.m
And the grass stains that roll
Down your bare gypsy feet
And the sunflower seeds
That stick to your inky lashes-
These things give an echo of the flavour
I miss.

I am vain
I regularly conjure up poetry on my skin-
Do not give me yours.
I will recite it to my last paper breath
So I can kid myself that paper is power.

I am not the phantom you teach to play piano
Under the helter-skelter moon,
I am far too fragile for that-
My paper cut fingers bend
And bleed light all over the keys.

My hands are a canvas
For anyone's ***** details
For if enough titles are painted on my body then perhaps
I will learn the complex trick
Of gaining depth

And maybe the world will look as full
And real as I read in books
And dance with in music
And maybe my edges will stop being ripped
Or my corners cut
Or my pages burned and tossed aside.

Sometimes, I am this tiny
Vulnerable
Origami creature
And my cream card bones tremble like feathers
A bad caricature of life.

Sometimes I am full of wonder-

But right now, I am this.

relapse on the regular
prescriptions pass the time
too many thoughts crowd my head
can barely make this rhyme

searching through the dictionary
stored inside my brain
maybe if i put a bullet through it
the right words will pour out like rain

then i'll write my pretty poems
with the blood on the bed
to forget even prettier memories
stuck deep inside my head

then i'll laugh at my ceiling
let the blood trickle out
i am just hallucinating
there's no way to figure this out

s.s