you've always believed in two things religiously:
1) if you want something, you have to pull your hair back, grit your teeth, and work for it.
2) stopping from improving is regressing.

tonight, i realise that it was never about winning.
never about getting that medal or that spot on the stage.
it was silly of me to think that you just wanted my blood on your hands.
starving for recognition from your blood family, you were in a completely different competition than i was.

we carried corpses on our bruised shoulders.
they pushed against our broken backs; our swollen knees trying to keep our bodies upright.
you once told me i had a face that was good for punching,
and, oh god, i'd have had let you if it meant your hands on my skin.

in the end, what's left was this:
a single note in a cacophony of screams.

you are dead.
you are dead.
you are dead.

maybe if i keep repeating it to myself, i'd start believing it.

and yet it's far too late for impulsive declarations of love.
too late for so many things.

(but some days, i like thinking of you, thinking of me.)