Sometimes I get startled by my own thoughts,
they creep through the walls of my mind
haunting like a ghost, physical like a corpse.
And I only notice them when it is already too late.

When they have already been formed,
they already exist, weight.
I’ll throw them like stones to a pond
and they sink, sink sink
until it fills fills fills…

I remember smiling brightly
and laughing
when talking about you–
as if you were still alive.
I don’t know who I was lying to,
if to them,
to your memory
or to myself.

We scream in silence;
shout to the void
in a hope we’ll ever
be seen.

But no eyes lock when you are looking away
so all that stares back
is the dark.

The darkness of our fears.

I look in the mirror:
my ribs shape my frame,
like lines that never go away.
They cage my heart,
turn it small.

A week sick.
*****.
Smell of decaying flesh.
No food for a week.
Only the necessary water to live.
I couldn’t breathe.

Now it has sculpted my frame,
made it fragile and small.
I put a shirt on;
hide it, push it away.