You’ve made your way to the party.
Your heavy limbs were sending you signals of something else—
every step towards the door sounded like two velcro strips detaching.
You persist anyway.
The welcome shots of ***** tasted more like a welcome to leave,
and the kisses you receive by your friends on the cheek felt almost strange—
but it also reeked of nothingness.

Home was a recurring thought
but home was also four walls that make you feel disposable,
claustrophobic, and home shouldn’t even be called home
when your demons take up most of the residence
only to kick you out;
and if you are lucky they don’t follow you out
when you should be happy and with company
but today was not that day.

Home was lonely.
But people for peers
and peers for bulldozers were too much for you.

So you tiptoe your way out;
slithering out of your second skin — dead and unwanted —
flipped switch, getaway car, calculated answers to future interrogations.
But every car is a getaway car
when you’re always trying to get away.
And every getaway is useless when you end up in the same place—
where the quiet is too deafening
and the noise is loud enough
to turn glasses into shards and smithereens
you sometimes daydream about
behind bathroom cubicle doors
where you could’ve sworn you would’ve had your final getaway.

And when you get there,
they’ll tell everyone they should’ve been there.
They’ll tell everyone they should’ve believed you.
They’ll tell everyone they shouldn’t have made that joke about you.
They’ll tell everyone they should’ve done something.
They’ll tell everyone they should’ve,
when they could’ve,
but they didn’t.

And maybe that was why it reeked of nothingness.

- mgv