Our ruins
are our beauty
the dust within our souls
feed the day

sometimes I spend too much time
online
it feels so strange
to go outside
and be myself
in front of everyone else
it's hard to forget
that the world has eyes

online I can be anyone
but outside I am one person
exactly one
no avatar and no veneer
not everywhere or nowhere
exactly here

and when I am here
really here
I feel my feelings
hope and fear
love and desire
when I am not numbed by a screen
I am on fire

sometimes it is
too much to feel
too visceral
too bright
too real

and so I spend my time online
afraid to be a human
afraid to be alive

Collections of my disorderly thoughts
gathered together with knots
of my ample desire
to make sense of my everyday life.

Stars begin to doubt their shine

When surrounded by the blind.

if I had a child
I would be afraid
of leaving them alone
with anyone
even me

something could go wrong
there are a thousand ways how

I can see it now

I would always be
afraid