I lock onto you like an enzyme,
to catalyze your rage, and force you to bind.
Allowing your own vitriol to dissolve you,
reduce you to nothing but a stain.

A harmless puddle of organic matter,
once an angel,
now straining through my fingers,
harmlessly trickling down the drain.

It is where people like you belong.

Help me exist.

Help me feel like I exist.

I am unable to feel
anything but the diagonal trickles
of melancholy, or hate.
They prevent me from fading away,
but I still detest them,
because they make me Other.
I fear that I am unable to love.
I know why.
Love is easy to write about.
But to write about feelings that don’t exist is much harder.
What does not exist cannot be created,
for a clever mind to transcribe into words.
Plucking them out of the ether of lexicon
requires a solid word, and a solid hand,
And I have neither.
I am made of halcyon and moonlight,
numbers stretched over a screen,
not quarks that are able to form bonds,
to feel connected.
Half the time I wish
that my corrupted radiance will spread.
Soft glitches, in the corners of their eyes
to eat away at their core until they stop
writing odes to love, that alien emotion,
the words snatched out of their hands mid sentence
by an ethereal hand now real enough
to gather the thoughts as they dissipate away
into a fragrant bouquet for one last breath

until they are lost forever.

Just when I felt that I could get to know you
you slipped through my fingers
as the dread rose again to press my lips shut.

The words did not flow naturally
but were strained
repetitive

lifeless.

In a single pause, we both learned
that I am far too alien for this world,
far too detached from reality

far too afraid of knowing, or being known.
With a hesitant smile, I turn away,
knowing that it will be the last.

My skin bruises where you touch,
threatening to burst like a delicate peach
to coat your fingers in warm viscera.

My uncanny senses easily find you in a crowd
so that I can avoid you
and spare us the awkwardness.

I never knew what was wrong,
what fundamental spark I am missing,
that allows me to neatly clip through others

without being noticed.
I never was able to decide
whether the strange matter that makes up my body

Is a blessing for allowing me to hide
or a curse for not allowing me to connect,
to be swinging on that uniquely human wavelength.

There is something living inside all of us.
Horrible filigree fear and existential dread.
Seeping through the membrane,
gnawing at the bones.

If this existence is all there is
am I just a vessel for something greater?
I want to believe that I am free,
but I can still feel it.

There are tender hands reaching inside
caressing my heart with deliberate touch
and withdrawing sharply
to lick off the blood.

If this existence is all there is
then what is the point of resisting?
Resistance means to fall gracefully,
severed from the source,

to die, to decay, to be consumed,
and then forgotten.
My meaningless data will be overwritten
by someone who doesn’t question

the loving violation of hearts
and the delicate scabs that form
sealing the ports, keeping the terror
from rising once again.

Floating
like a particle on a breeze,
like gentle falling ray
we float through the void.

Of hands reaching out,
catching only transient tendrils
tangling through our fingers
like liquid silk.

Capture me in a jar
and use my glow
to light your way
to give me purpose.

Wear our tiny cages
around your powerful neck
and we illuminate your teeth-
use them to crush your way out.

Use them to dissipate the void
into gently falling mist
of knowledge we can finally comprehend
reality we can cup in our hands.

But please, do not forget
to gently smash the jars
so we will not be tied to you
as you too, softly decay.

It is sweet to look up at the moon at night,
and know that she sings me a song.
In every moment that I take to pay attention,
to be distracted, to become lost.
Perhaps to be someone else.
Floating by on borrowed time.

Try on a different identity,
perhaps one that will be better liked.
Pluck the tail from a falling star,
and wear it, as a crown.
Unfortunately here, there are no stars to be seen.
We tried our best to drown out their light.
With the harsh glare of our own.

And then I found myself floating in space
on a pair of ink stained wings.
Watching myself walking in circles,
around the edge of the black hole.
Never falling in, never pulling away.
Living in perfect stasis, echoed throughout the universe.
Each instance of me, a radiant shadow.

Each instance of me, a masked queen
sprawled on a throne of falling stars.
Watching myself ride the cascade,
but unable to stop the spiral.
Finally- we would cross the event horizon.
Finally- we would be plunged across existence.
Finally- we would be able to feel the rain.

The sweet rain, that now soaks through my clothes.
It must have been an hour, maybe two.
Someone is probably looking for me,
but which instance of me are they interested in?
The one who watches from afar?
Or any of the other echoes.
Because I could fracture again, at a moment’s notice.

With a blink, the streetlights turn off,
leaving me bathing in twilight.
As the sun struggles to rise for they day,
I notice the last note of the last morning star.
And I can focus again.
Even the sun and the stars
are a little like me.

When you want to cut yourself open
and offer your viscera to someone
people will come at you with hate.
so be the stronger person and
smile.
but this time,
show your teeth.