but mostly
what makes my mind
veer off track at night
is the fear of you changing
leaving me
dried up mud
crumbling in the cracks
of your sneakers.
i’m so very frightened
of the day
i am no longer enough.


and that’s what f-cking ***** right now.


because I’ve always tried
to push fear back down my throat
like sour bile
in a mini puke.
i’ve always wanted
to desensitize myself
because EMOTION
IS A SYMPTOM
OF WEAKNESS.
And so i’ve aspired
to be quartz
with cracks that don’t break open.


but i’m just here.

i'm watercolor floral patterns
on chipped porcelain.
and there is nothing i can do
to exist more unflinchingly

a product of human error
just like all the rest
tugged along by oxytocin handcuffs
a slave to serotonin
a slave to that which makes me feel.

and it frustrates me that I can be so pathetically human.
and I am grinding my teeth  
with each word of this
cliché.
idiotic.
diluted.
love poem.
i am trembling with the injustice
i am shaking with the question:
why can’t i be the exception?
why can't i be charcoal?
In the herd of sheep
too caught up
in being loved
to save themselves
from being left.