I'll go under the knife
Operate on myself
Split my head open with the toothpicks I used to poke at leftover failures that weren't there

I'll take my own brains out of my head with my hands
Ask the doctor for a scalpel
And maybe a friend

Humans weren't always like this, you know
Maybe there was a time when the things we were most afraid of were outside of our heads, maybe there were enclosures besides our own ribcage we never wanted to be trapped in

I feel a mini version of myself
Pounding against the glass of my forehead
Begging to be let out

The key is around here somewhere, maybe
But I can't be too sure because at some point being stuck in my own head was all I ever wanted.

Let me out.

I breathe here and there
The rest of the time I feel lifeless
There is nothing in my body worth salvaging
I could call a suicide hotline and ask them why I would ever want to live

And they wouldn't know what to say
The world would be more or less the same without me

Why do I plunge daggers into my own legs and then sit on the rocks by the trail to mourn my fate
Unsuccessful
Worthless
Wasted
I could have been so much more
More what, you ask
And the truth is I don't know

Maybe I am a paper cup in a cupboard of crystal glasses and beautiful things

Maybe I'm the ashes after the rare and beautiful light of the fire has faded

How am I supposed to know what I am?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
But the beholder is broken because the beholder is me.

Maybe one day I will gather my postcard thoughts and have a thesis on why people hate, and why my face twists into ugly grimaces when I think about the bad in the world

I wish the good had as powerful an effect as the bad, and maybe it does but the good might not occur as often.

I don't really have a way to end this,
Even though I want to.

And the lines above could refer to my life, this poem, these tragedies.