Something inside of me is broken.
Some piece of the machine has cracked, the gears in my mind have come to a stop, rust has begun to collect.
Some days it feels like I might be dying, or that I may already be  dead.
A numbness creeps into the spaces between my fingers and toes, spreading slowly up my arms and legs, wrapping itself around my middle like a snake, squeezing the life out of my lungs, the last of my air pushed out from between my quivering lips trying to form the words to scream for help.
I used to think that I was strong, powerful, mighty, but I’ve come crashing down in a ruin that would put Rome to shame.
The pieces of who I thought I wanted to be have collected around my feet, crumbling so severely that they blend in with the dirt beneath me.
I have been left naked, without any sense of self, afraid to look down and see what scars people may have carved into my two-toned frame.
I’ve tried to be so many people recently that I’m not sure I could pick my own mind out of a crowd.
My thoughts revolve around people and places that I want to reach for, but my heart holds my hands at my sides like a straight jacket, doing all it can to not be torn apart before it has a chance to find a way to pull itself together again.
The blood in my veins has begun to flow red hot and ice cold at the same time, two separate types of burning which should balance out but instead have learned to coexist.
I want to slice open my veins, pour out the two streams, mix them into a lukewarm state of nonexistence, so that maybe I can feel something somewhere in the middle of two extremes.
I am scared.
I feel alone in a crowded room.
I crave attention but shy away from the light.
I like the shadows.
I like the darkness.
Sometimes with a body lying next to me, but oftentimes with only blankets to pull closer.
I like to feel protected but I hate that I haven’t yet figured out how to protect myself.
I haven’t figured out how to give myself over to a person, to trust that they’ll give me back, to learn how to take myself back.
I haven’t figured out how to not be serious.
How not to love with everything.
How not to feel pain when everything is not what I get in return.
I want to learn how to feel any emotion except sad.
To be able to touch my own body and feel more love than in the fingers of someone else, as they trace over the skin I’m still tracing myself.
There is an incomplete self-portrait in my brain that I have been relying on others to finish instead of transforming the mangled pieces with my own hands, letting my fingertips smudge out the harsh lines to become soft.
Soft is how I want to feel.
Soft, like the sand underneath the smooth stones and sharp shells by the ocean.
I want to blend myself into oblivion, until I am nothing more than the idea of a body, until only my mind remains, and I learn that soft is not weak. Soft is powerful. And neither is something to be afraid of.

Do not fear the lion breath. Let your cheeks sting with the power of it, let the tears drip from your eyes as the cold whips across your face. Feel it rush across your bare arms and legs, across your torso, your soul. Breathe it in, deeply, the salt burning as it surges into your lungs, slowly spreading throughout your body, filling every empty space.

Do not fear the lion breath. As you look into the deep dark mouth of the beast, white froth swirling on its surface. Do not flinch when its echoing roars crash upon the shoreline, breaking against shattered but smooth pieces of earth. Instead, listen closer for the purring it makes as it recedes back into itself, pulling at your toes, urging you to follow.

Do not fear the lion breath. Jump into the mouth of the beast, let the cold rush over your head, feel the waves at their birth below the surface. Let it wrap its overwhelming power around your arms and legs, around your torso, your soul. Let it into your mind, replace your thoughts, memories, everything you’ve known to be real. Replace it all with cold truth. Reset your mind the way we do clocks after the power fails us and we are left in the dark. Shock your heat into beating a new rhythm, in time with the crashing of waves and the roaring of beasts.

So do not fear the lion breath. Feel the sting strike your skin, hear the roaring song, smell the salty spray. If it rips the tears from your eyes, let them mix with the sea water which drips from your hair, rivulets rolling off your body. Let the salt drip down your arms and legs, down your torso, your soul. Leave behind you a puddle, shed like the skin of a snake. Sit beside the roaring beast, new, heart beating in time with the waves, breathing with the wind.

No angels there to guide you,
you must do it on your own,
with no one there beside you,
you must brave the dark alone.

No demons there to hurt you,
only fears get in your way,
they creep around inside you,
they are yours alone to slay.

No mother there to help you,
no father to hold your hand,
as through the hourglass of life,
drip your memories as sand.