if you have never found yourself
picking splinters from your veins
because you tried so hard to reconstruct
you forgot that not everything is fixable
then maybe you should stop reading

if you have never found yourself
scraping the earth into your own grave
wanting nothing but nothingness
and the silence that comes with departure
then maybe you should give up on me

because I have spent too many days
hoping my mind would suffocate my being
and trying to bind myself to the air around me
because I hate it when things change
for me to explain this only to be dismissed

there comes a time when the nights seem longer than the years
and the sky stops being black velvet
if you stare then you will see
ink spilled across a page

there comes a time of realisation: you are a stranger to yourself
you only notice you are dead
when you're coughing up soil like blood
only to swallow it again