Head and shoulders back.
Staring down the world over the bridge of your nose.

That’s the why of it;
you are framing the vista with your own experience
inserting yourself into the centre of every landscape you admire

I however, fold inwards
Protecting myself from a violation you don’t even believe in.

You are crushing flowers into the sidewalk.
i am desperately avoiding standing on the cracks

this is not despair
this is weariness
the simple truth that

there is no weight to darkness,

i’m not reaching for it,

but for fleeting moments it is necessary.
to catch my breath and let the
vibration of my skin
subside.
i can’t explain the energy required to remain whole
when the
light and bright and noise of the world
presses in to me.
my eyes
my skin
my nostrils, are full of it.
it demands that I provide a constant counterweight
just to stand still
just to breathe and stay awake
and remember that
this is not despair.

i want to know my shape
but i am made of vapour
I have spent a lifetime draping myself in shrouds
so that i cannot see the edges of myself
I am hazy and undefined,
desaturated and without contrast
my flesh is a metaphor for everything i am
and it terrifies me.
i have given all my energy to crafting myself from disruptive camouflage
so i would not need to apologise for,
so I would not need to know,
the contours of who i am
so I would not take up space
but i want that
now
i want to find all the parts of me i do not recognise
my spine
my voice
my worth
my shape
I want to look at a picture of my life and for the first time
see me in it

it hooks in sharp between my ribs
and twists.
crushing my ribs against the
Bang. Bang. Bang.
of my heart it,

leaves no room for air

it’s the sort of feeling that needs drowning
in whisky and gin and
oblivion

but I’m being good.

I have my fingers in my ears and
I’m humming tunelessly
as it grips me by the back of my neck
like a cat grips a kitten
limp and powerless,
hanging
jaw clenched in impotent fury
as
it
fills
up my
skin.

we scream in harmony
silent

I lay the table in its formal best:
mahogany, silver and candlelit.
Then in separate bowls, each coloured rich and warm
I put the pieces of myself

and offered it all, banquet style
to you
the rank and sour smell of it heavy in the air

‘they’re miserable’ you said
I know.

and we were both shocked
because I thought you knew;

that’s why I need you

because we both understand darkness
but yours is not inside you.

we live in delicate balance, the universe and i
from time to time I steal myself to look
breath held and shoulders tense
cynicism brandished in anticipation

I look because I believe you when you tell me
there is beauty out there too
I look because I believe in you

but when it gets too much I fold back inside myself
and leave the fight to you

because you were made for it
in a way few people would see or understand

because it is not the cold bright intellect
that you hold, a tempered shield, against the world
that keeps you safe

it is the core of you

where anger, love and innocence burn white hot,
fierce and beautiful.

and so real that even when I am crushed and lost
in my internal black,
when I have no lightness of my own to keep me whole
I feel the light of you

and I believe you
when you tell me there is beauty
in and outside of me
even if only you can see it.

I have been living here for years
quietly
gently
in the cage of my own dysfunction

I have let the soft abrasion
of how we think
slough off the edges
of myself

the me I did not have the strength
to scaffold on my own

the me I did not want the responsibility
of defending from the world

so now,
I will not tell you the cage door is open

I will draw your attention to
the bars
and roof
and floor

to how calmly I hold fast to my perch

but I feel the open space

I feel the air come in and
I can taste
who I am
on my skin

and it brings me joy
and pain

because this is beautiful
and maybe, I am beautiful

but I cannot share this with you
yet
maybe, ever

because if all you see is what is not the same
then it will feel less

I will feel less

and I need to see the whole of me
to see all of me through my own eyes