i want to hug strangers on the bus. i want to cry on their shoulder, tell them

can you believe? how do i do this again?

let them stare at me in surprise and pity, marvel at how hard my life is

maybe somebody will know. they'll say

you've did it time and time over. it happened time and time again. you're still alive and you still will be

and i will be comforted

and I won't think at what cost, at what cost. why me again and again.
I'll know my strength and won't wonder why it isn't someone else's that's tested

they say love's not supposed to hurt but oh,
i make it so i bleed
your mother's sheets are stained with it
a rusty dagger in my lungs
and everything, everything is spilling out
i can't contain it

do you ever listen to the song i let play that night?
do you feel the fingers on your skin like i feel them on mine?
do you feel used?

I let you rot my insides
over and over again
so my anxiety has something to clutch to
like a fly on rotten fruit

i wish i could be the girl who turns off her phone when somebody's upset her.
who doesn't check their messages for hours, to make them feel bad back.
i don't know that I'll ever be able to be like that.
i have to know, have to be there to rip myself open again and again to make them pity me, to make them empathize.
i don't think anyone will ever notice my pain if i don't shove it in their face.
i will walk through the door and try so hard not to look back, but ultimately still leave it cracked open.

i pluck my skin clean off
and collapse into myself
it keeps playing in the background
  i don't think i love you anymore
it twists and tugs and yearns for release
but do i release for attention?
it keeps playing in the background
  you don't have to hold me anymore
my eyes have needles in them
they make stitches through my head
it keeps playing in the background
  i don't think I love you anymore

it escapes me
how you can patch me up
so quickly
with one word
a promise
and I'm blissful again

take me somewhere where everything's silent
where we won't be heard
interrupted
take everything I am and everything I have
expel me from my body
and conserve me in yourself
as I turn perpetual in time