It's a yell
A shout
A scream
and it's unheard. Believe me, when I
say I am not what I seem to be
when I am smiling
when I am grimacing
and I am wishing that I could do it

"just like normal people do"

But the word "Anxious" is soaked
like a tattoo down to my bone, until
I feel so alone that I wish I could eat myself
Snake scales slowly sliding into place
As, with each new word, I slowly want
to trickle sand
and
erase my
embarrassment
All too aware of
harassment which doesn't exist

I can't even begin to give you a list
of the amount of ways I felt this
hole, this weight, this unmistakeable
slayer of my breath
make me feel bereft again of
society, and friendship,
and love,
My brain is constantly praying for that dove
with an olive branch
Just to take a stance over my head
and let me be led into freedom
But instead

My mentality lies in tatters
and what is left
wholesome is scattered
with fear on the wind,
gradually allowing itself to rescind
until it turns, reforms, and falls
again

I never know when it's going to strike

Usually it's when I start to like somebody new,
that it begins to brew up it's toxic mess
Friend, Other or Lover,
it will find a way to slither and make
less again,
So nuh-uh, no way, not again,
I refuse to look you in the eye,
because I'm scared I'll cry if I see my fear there,
I'm scared I'll see that you're aware, that my fear
is slowly drowning me, and crowning
me the Queen of
Isolation,
lost and uncertain
Wishing I could pull the curtain, but still
blindly hoping that audience will
come to, will see the tattoo
and not be disgusted.
I don't want to be distrusted, because every sorry
is laden with uncertainty and regret, that's it
not over yet, and the monster still holds
me by the throat,
I am bathed in mistrust's yolk

And I wish I could smell of something different.

But, I take a deep breath, and I let
another war begin.
Because every day I stare into another's
pupil, is
another day I kinda, sorta,
win.