spent a birthday,
and a new year too,
in a cold and unexciting psych ward.
(I'd been there so many times
it was really nothing new.)

I had so much free time.
I had nothing much to do.
I opened up a game on their computer
and laughed:
I was still save game slot number 2.

kisses with air blown out like toxic gas from poisonous plants set aflame;
he burns me slowly.
and I take it in,
feeling it like rays of sunshine
beaming softly on my skin.

my mouth tasted of rust,
of blood,
from the acid that washed over my tongue.
kiss me more.
it doesn't hurt, my love, I swear.
(but truth be told, everything hurts,
so with what do I compare?)

I can't stop the hurting by hurting.
at least,
not with cuts nor burns these days.
because I will pay if there are scars that stay.
but at least no one notices
just how much I weigh.

born to a reality full of scared sheep in wolf skin and fur,
it bred in me cowardice like I had not known.
I bared my teeth to seem brave
but it did not look menacing,
no.

what are they so afraid of?
what am I?
they are so enslaved by their fears that it seems almost like devotion.
like gods venerated by their disciples, so too were the evils that that who surround me run from.

this was not me.
I was not afraid.
this was by nurture and not by nature.
it was a seed thrown at my feet that bore so much fruit,
that the ground covered in rot.
and now it has spread,
corrupting me from the outside in.
I am made in fear.
I am made of fear.

tread lightly on the frigid ground,
or crack the ice and quickly drown.
I died a long long time ago
in hell-sent, burning, freezing snow.
it felt like heat, the cold that blew.
and why it did I never knew.

please pick one
love me
or break my heart completely
drive me out of my own head
or hold me tightly in your bed
my only love
the truth I kept
as I lay in my bed
and wept and wept
I feel the cracks in my heart
as they open and shut
please
I can't even rhyme anymore
please stop hurting me
I love you
I love you
I love you