I close my eyes and I can see you,
standing beside me, lips moving—but those words,
those words I tell myself to forget,
they’re etched into the walls of my head,
that’s why they echo night after night after endless night.

It pains me, dear god it pains me,
with such deafening severity that I wonder,
wonder if perhaps words could ****,
if they could physically manifest
and drive themselves through my chest—
those words certainly did.

Daggers, jagged-edged daggers, that’s what they were,
that’s what they still are: permanently fixed just seconds below my clavicle,
you can hear them as they crash into my ribs with every step,
playing a tune of desperation as if it were a cry for help,
you can watch as they tear new wounds with every stride
into the barely beating ******* I call my heart—

sometime I get called strong and I laugh
because I am not strong nor am I resilient,

I am stubborn. Stubborn and stupid.
If I were strong I would not be dying
if I were strong I would have walked
if I were strong this would not be the end—