pick your feet up
“I’m okay.”
wash your face off
“I’m okay.”
keep a smile on
“I’m okay.”

words cannot tell you what “tired” means to me
it is fighting and losing and fighting
rinse and repeat, repeat, repeat
wake up, get dressed-

pretend.

hello, it’s still me
are you listening? can you see
beyond my eyes that try to cry and can’t
this voice that tries to explain how it feels
to be trapped in a body
that does not love me back
where there are bars on the doors and I can’t
break out
my brain is a jar filled with grief that I can’t
let out
for a former life, a better life imagined

there is no safe place to go
not a day that allows me to forget
for a fraction of a section
that my own flesh and blood is
failing me