i read and reread telling myself i'm checking for grammatical errors
but really i'm just trying to get a glimpse into myself

i never quite meet my own eyes between the lines
and i wonder if it's even me behind the words
or just a keyboard trying to make sense of itself

i paint things gold quite often,
does that mean i hide my problems behind shiny coats of denile?

i overuse the word rot,
does that mean i'm just waiting to decompose, eaten by the mold of my own terrible decisions?

i used to say bones more than i said love,
does that mean i feel like a skeleton without a heart or soul? or maybe love is what wore me down till i was bare;

i used to say love more

it's like flicking through my old playlists

why do i only write when i feel like hiding? or rot? or bones?
i wish i could write when i felt like flying. or music. or even just

human

i graze the comments with a loving hand
thinking of all the people that broke in the same places
thinking of everyone feeling like rotten bones, hiding from their demons
and clinging to the hope that it was sympathy and not empathy
that brought them close to my wilting garden of poems

i hope

and every tear stained poem blends into the next
the ink bleeding

i look at the scars on my fingers and i see myself
i listen to my voice singing songs from an old playlist and i see myself
i feel the flesh covering my bones and i see myself

and i don't write it down