When did I become so numb that I don't care about this?
You, with your arm around a girl that isn't me,
lipstick on your cheek,
me, seeing it the next day, wishing I hadn't
but telling myself I'm not sad and

I'm not yours anyway.

I always noticed the details, never missed,
like how you don't speak the same these days,
sentences rearranged in harsh beats like they've been set out all fast and neat in your brain,
like how you don't think of me in the mornings anymore
and it feels like I have to claw for the attention that a fortnight ago I couldn't have asked for more of,
like how talking to you had me leaving clothes in crumpled piles across my room, which I don't usually do
and now I feel like a shirt you've folded up and put away,
still stale sweat on me like you'd used me for a day
and then decided your style had changed

or maybe I was never your style in the first place.

But it's okay, because you never promised me ****,
and I'm so numb I just don't care about this.

Our disagreements weren't part of this agreement
that unspoken, poked at the little ropes looping tight my self esteem sheets,
that I use as sails to wail and bellow into
so that my pain might be just for me and not reach you.
Our disagreements weren't part of this agreement
not to let anything get too serious,
they were never epic swelling storms set on swallowing us whole
but listless clips of me checking my phone
to see that you still hadn't made an appearance,
a punishment, I assume, for my flagrant disobedience
for stepping outside of casual too soon
boundaries so fragile even I could break them
and I can do just about one press-up

Yeah, apparently that isn't gradual enough.

But I'm grown, right? So I'm not going to dwell on it.
I'm told it's dumb to care about this.

Just chill, you said,
don't get too intense,
so I don't -- I close my mouth, my message is bottled up until it drowns
and I paint my smile on like a clown
because hope comes hand in hand with fear
and hands down,
head up,
I'm as chill as the atmosphere
that's crept in
chill as the bed
you never slept in
chill as the threshold
you never stepped in

See I'm cool as the ice-caps
because I too, am having a meltdown
so don't call someone a flood,
when you broke the dam,
don't call someone a tsunami,
when you caused the earth quake,
and don't call somebody crazy
when you made them ******* crazy.

There's a disconnect here, between the real
and the face you must pull when you lie
maybe it's like mine--
but you swore --
--not that I'd know what to look for,
I see only what you want me to see,
on a screen,
disconnected from reality,
like a dream

I'm not a girl, I'm a dream

I'm not a human, I'm a dream.

We've created an art of not caring, of casual heartbreak
and never daring to talk
about the feelings or the fallout
because it's not cool to care, is it?
**** feelings, am I right?
those flames that shoot right through your veins and cause
unnecessary pain,
but hey,
let's reload the page and hope
that our burning hearts don't set alight our freeze-frame brains.

**** that.

It's not good enough.
I want the impossible: no ******* games,
I want to feel the flames
feel all the passion and all the rage that we have the ability to retain,
I want the embers in your heart to be the fire in your voice
and I want the feelings I express to be an easy choice,
that I get to make,
I want nothing to be faked
I want feelings so hot they burn at the stake
I want you to feel safe, but heightened, when you feel the light and
I want a love that shines so bright I have to shield my eyes
I want you to have the love you've long denied,
and if it hurts, I want you to cry
but not the single salty tear that nobody sees,
the tear that's allowed,
the tear that dies with the slightest breeze,
cry hot, fast, angry tears that your cheeks must make way for
you have to hurt like you love, you see,
and love defiantly
before we all freeze each other out silently.

Because people are burning up from within, smoke pouring from their skin and steam from their eyes,
time flies under dark skies
under the guise of 'it's alright',
a snapshot romance becomes a wretched glance back at you
knowing you still don't know the things I want you to

we treat people like they're disposable,
forgetting that tinder isn't frozen, it's flammable
we're human beings, we run hot, that's the way that it is,
when did we become so numb that we don't care about this?