During one of my recent internet travels,
I came across a picture of a “minor”,
posing with tinted lips
and exposed *******.
What got my eyes
pinned were the thousand number of likes
by virtually hooting “boys”
and comments by other group of “gentlemen”
telling her how to dress.

HUMILITY: I have been asked to repeat the word
too many times to recall what it means:
the man on the subway cat-called
and accused me of showing too much skin
but instead of fighting back, I smiled
because girls ought to be nice.
I have been taught to survive
by using my body as a swiss army knife,
and I convince myself that
there is protection in being polite.

H-U-M-I-I am forgetting the rest.

The smoke curled up from between his fingers
and he blew out toxic, blurring my vision.
I gasped and wheezed
but I held my sneeze,
I cannot slap him across his face. HUMILITY.
So, I just pretended to cough, hoping he’ll feel ashamed.

I have been trained to flutter my eyelash,
clench my jaw at a whiplash
and business school boys,
who manifest success by refusing to take “NO” for an answer.
And for every time his prying eyes
scan down by body,
as if rating my inexperienced assets on a scale of one to five,
and every time his touch trails a chill down my spine,
I wonder:
Male kindness is so alien to us; we confuse it with seduction every time.

HUMILITY: the quality of having a low view of one’s importance
but, I fail to understand
when did it become synonymous to diffidence;
there is a subtle difference between
papercuts and shattered integrity,
holding hands and chaining souls,
building houses and creating homes,
humiliation rotting down to bones and humility.
HUMILITY, have you spelled it too many times to know what it looks like?

For some,
Life hits like a truck.
For others:
A thousand papercuts.

My nerves feel like
they are going to bunch up
and crawl out
of my body

Panic settles in
doesn’t come out
thankfully

The possibility of papercuts
fills my head
then my brain starts rushing thoughts of
them all over my body on overload

It feels like there are ten million
needles piercing my skin

Feels like the world is going to end
for one second
and I keep holding on
because I have to

I don’t want to

I don’t want to

But I have to

It is necessary for life
how can you live without it

So I keep grabbing on
and holding on
no matter the torture I feel
because I have to
I tell myself

I have to

You left me with open ended letters
and hand written promises.
Your words were always too fine,
too far and few between.
You were a genre of your own kind.
An enigma of words, always
tattered and smeared.
Coffee rings and cigarette ash
seem to ruin every last page of a chapter.
Things got ****** and I could no longer
read you, my eyes unable to pick up what
was left to discover between the lines.
Hard cover, when I was always paperback,
bending in any way you wanted me to.
I tried so hard to keep you with me,
crumpled up in my front pocket,
but the jaggedness of your ripped out edges
did nothing but draw blood.
I’m so tired of getting papercuts.
I’m running out of bandaids.

That night, I stared at the night sky,
Soaked up the stars
Enough to form constellations of my own
And named them after you.

That is the thing about stars,
The more you look
The more you find.
Scars, alike.

Though, I am a novice
In the realm of
Pain and suffering,
I have already understood
The difference between
Papercuts and broken hearts
Chaining souls and holding hands
Flying paper airplanes and shooting darts
Abandonment and negligence.

And for once,
I want to believe in afterlives,
Wishing on shooting stars that are
Confused with fireflies,
If only it was as simple as
The art behind tracing your lips,
Falling asleep to the rhythm of your breath,
Your glinting eyes floating in pools of bliss.

But, we are more than music.
A noise
That beats in our ears;
A scream
That burns our throats.
Of Shattered vintage vases,
Wrecked ships
And sinking boats.

I didn't believe in paper cuts
much like I didn't believe in love
until one day as I turned the pages
of a rather flimsy paperback
bound together
more so by the story it held
between its yellowing pages
than by its tattered spine
In my hurry to rush forward
with the other lives
I found myself so invested in
I felt a stinging burn pierce
the flimsiest part of my index finger
that seemed separated from the blood
(that was with such impertinence
bursting forth from my veins)
by the smallest stretch of skin
I watched the crimson pool
and drip reluctantly onto
the unsuspecting paper
and realised in that moment
you don't fall in love
you stumble into it, face-first
and feel the singeing burn afterward

it's a white dream
you ever loving me

your empty body
scares me

I don't understand the feeling

I've studied your eyes for so long
never did I find an ounce of love

I'll forever be your doll
I break and fall
when you throw me to the floor

I listen to whatever you have to say
and you brag to all your friends

I read your eyes
to try and find
I swim through your lies
deep dark nights

/ //
when I realized you didn't love me

a weight from my heart was lifted

They may remember my breakup because it kept coming up. Kept coming back. Some may think that my breakup was the thing that hurt the most last year. It wasn’t.

It hurt more to get my heart broken by somebody else.
It hurt more that I had to see her around every time I was around my friends.
It hurt that her name came up everywhere I went, as obscure as it was.
It hurt more that my fondest memories of last year weren’t with my former love, but with her.
It hurt more that I considered my masterpiece of a song to be one about her, and not about my former love.
It hurt more that gazing into her eyes I saw a myriad of puzzles to be solved and a seemingly endless, impossible maze that I wanted to travel in, but never got to.
It hurt more that I bottled these feelings in because I was in a relationship.
It hurt more, the nights I kept up, thinking about what if I gave it just a little more time.
It hurt more to think that maybe I made the wrong decision about who I loved.
It hurt more to rush into love like I did, and miss out on the one thing that may have been better.
It hurt more never to see her again.
It hurt more to forget her smile than my former love.
It hurt more that her laugh was one of the most beautiful sounds that I’ve forgotten.
It hurt more that I stayed up all night thinking more about her than my former love.
It hurt more to know maybe I fell in love with her more than I did my former love.
It hurt more to think about how much it must have hurt my former love to find out.
It hurt more to think how much I took from my former love, and how I threw her away in the end.
It hurt more to use the word threw away instead of broke up in that last sentence.
It hurt more that maybe a part of me still wishes things went differently
It hurt more to feel that wave of anguish to know she didn’t love me back
It hurt more to feel that feeling of defeat to think I tried so hard
It hurt more to feel nothing for my former love, and how guilty I should have felt but didn’t.
It hurt more to realize though, that through all of it, I wasn’t blameless. I had fault.
It hurt more than a thousand papercuts, cutting away, slowly at me. Taking bit by bit of myself.
It hurts most that my break up didn’t hurt me at all. It was her breaking my heart that hurt the most.

It stings now to know
That there’s a part of me that may still love her, wondering if she loved me back.
But now I’ll never know.

Throat burns
From nothing but screams
Headaches
When working like a machine
Fingers curling for a barrel
Unknown if it be for *** or roulette
But I ain't no alcoholic
Not yet
For I just let my skin **** it in
Makin ****** Marie's look like papercuts

i seem to have this wound
this cut that never seems to heal
it reminds me of you
the life that was never meant to be

you see everytime i try to heal
to seal the wound and let it be
you seem to come back to wreak havoc
and reopen it fresh and new

i hide it from view
keep it from everyone, including you
yet you just seem to know always where it is
and when to peel it back and let it ooze
let it be raw
you seem to know how to inflict pain
even with the slightest touch

i just wait for the day
that i can, and will close that door
can, and will seal you out
and finally, finally, seal that paper cut

shut.