I could never tell you
exactly what's going on inside my head,
so I'll write instead.
Drown my thoughts in paper & lead.
Keep my hands alive,
and my expression dead.

Mama told me
Beauty laps at my skin
And youth is wasted
By my ingratitude

But I was too tired to see it
I was 23
Now I'm 25
And I've died a thousand times
Over
By this point.

That night
I blew the candles
Like I was supposed to
Greeted the guests
Shared cake with them
Under a sky so
Swollen with stars
So burgeoning with promise

Then I walked them to their cars
Gave hugs and thanks
Like I was taught.

But mama never taught me
That niceties are only
Skin-deep
That happiness
Is as cosmetic as my cover girl concealer
And I can apply it to
My skin to
Cover the blemishes of
My pain
Carved between my
Freckles
Scars that
Hang under my eyes like
Eternal exhaustion.

Yes,
I was alright that night.
Alright, being relative
Which just
Meant that I was suffering
A little less.

A term that meant
That a Pabst and some
Hard lemonade and
My birthday champagne
Would ease.

It meant that my inhibitions
Would soften my
Anguish
And my sharp edges
Would rounded
Into lovely
Curves
Soft enough for a man
To touch.

And I did.
I let that man touch me
On my happy day.

For so long I have
Trivialized my own
Pain, pretending it
Didn’t exist
Burying it into
My darkest recesses
Hiding it in my mattress
And under my pillows.

You see,
I have built walls
Even too high for me
To climb.
So I sat there
On my birthday
With the candles
And the lights
All turning, turning
Red cups luring
Us into a suspended
Stupor.
All bellies bloated with
Good company.

Ah, how nice it was.

That night
I watched
My life through
The window
Outside
Like I could see
Happiness
Painted on my
Face
While inquietude
Sat in my
Chest
Strangling my
Progress
The sadness
Plaguing the
Recesses of my
Mind

I grieved:
“I’ve made it so
Far,
So please
Don’t go back now.”

I inhaled
Deeply
And allowed myself
To be drowned by my own
Breath,
And I blew.
And I said
Happy birthday to me.

They said our 20s were supposed to be easy
They never said that i would have to
Count backwards from one hundred to
Curb a breakdown
They said sedation will calm you
Down
But no one ever considered
That my neuroticism is what gave
Me my power to write

No one prepared me for the nights
I dont remember
For the car accidents that happened
But never really happened
The accidents that only existed as scars
On my car
That my splintered mirrors
Only showed a fraction of my illness

I was never supposed to be the person
To leave the party early
Because there was an anomaly in the wallpaper
I was unable to ignore

No one prepares you for the enemies
You make of yourself
Or the holes in your memory
Where your dignity leaks out

I never knew I could tell the time
By counting my tears on my tile floor
And that  springs of my
Bed would twang the sad anthem id never sing

Because i was bloated with
The probability that
My anxiety was
Scrawled on my skin
That my anguish was apparent
And my life floated in a glass
Half empty
And ever-transparent

I believed
No one would want to be with
Someone with so much baggage
I had to check in in order to get on a plane

Ive spent my 20s on the verge of
Implosion
I was never meant to
Crave sterility
And the absence of emotion

What if my mispoken words
Were perfectly aligned
With the trajectory of my life
And that I was meant to
Teach people
Through this story
That even the
“Wrong words come
Out right”

I leave the window
half-creaked open

enough to block you out
enough to let you in