tonight is a different kind of empty
its heavy yet
i close my eyes and every sound bounces around inside me
slamming doors ricochet off my ribs to my arms
my own breathing glides through my stomach and flattens in my back
slippers on tile go up and down
and up and down
and up and down
i cannot think when i feel like nothing
i cannot think when i am both weighted and floating

she was the picture of death
before anyone else knew it

if gluttony is the sin
why do i still feel the need to repent

today
i am thinking for myself
i think?
i’m not quite sure
you told me to just be myself
to construct my own thoughts and
demolish the ideas that years of
constant bashing
toxicity
and taught irrational fear instilled in me
so today. i am thinking for myself
you told me to smile more
live a little! you said
i should forget what people think
not care about the constant murmur i seem to always hear

i am me
and that is enough.
right?

but what do you think?
am i smiling enough?
happy enough?
forgetting enough?
thinking enough?
im thinking
im thinking
im thinking
my mind can only paint a lie so big
i can’t think anymore
im not me anymore
i don’t think i’ve ever been me
i don’t think i even know what that means
i don’t think its occurred to me that i’ve only ever been who people want me to be
i don’t
think.

i can’t.

i am not thinking today
i’m not thinking at all

i am a mistake
i am a mistake and now, unwillingly, my thumbprint, my identity, my existence, is smeared on the world
corrupting it
disrupting it
i know i wasn’t meant to be
i know i’ve disturbed all that was and all that will be with every breath i take
i know
i'm sorry

its almost as if my skin wasn't made to fit
engineered by an amateur
a prototype by god himself

i am bits & pieces
scraps from his better inventions
i am a product of his environment
where my heart became prone to breakage
my brain, susceptible to illness

i stopped working
and like the rest
he threw me out

im afraid of recovery
because i’m afraid i’ll actually get better
i’m afraid i’ll actually want to eat
want to live
want to be happy
this hole that i’m in is as much of me as i am of it
it’s all i know
i’m tired being here but i don’t want to leave
im afraid of recovery
because im afraid of who i’ll be
and who i’ll see
when i look to this past
and wonder
why i was so afraid of recovery

he loves me
that should be enough

you don't understand
and that's okay
i’d rather you didn't

of the day i'll remain okay even when i am alone

i am trying so hard to fall in love with life.
with dewdrops and frost on trees. wild little animals living their wild little lives. i want to accept its imperfections. to reach the point where i can accept that world is unimaginably large, and we are all individuals with our own lives, thoughts, and actions. we all breathe. we all sleep. we post on social media, look at others, and wonder how accurate it is to them and their lives. i want to accept that i will never be in someone else's mind, listening in on every fleeting thought. i want to accept that some people are just mean. they exist on this earth full of misery & dissatisfaction with their own lives. reckless. maybe they're just bored. lonely. who knows? who cares? i want to be able to think "who cares?" and truly believe it.
i want to fall in love with the soft light of the evening, spilling lazily across counters and walls. i want to enjoy early mornings and explore abandoned buildings, making up scenarios that could have taken place there years before. i want to find happiness in the tiniest things. old bookstores, pharmacies in the late hours, hints of smiles on the subway from a collectively eavesdropped joke.
we may all be specks compared to the universe, but i want to believe that i can create my own meaning to life. work, bills, politics. they are so minuscule when it comes down to it all. life isn't just some aesthetic, i know. there will be days that make it seem not worth living the rest of mine, but i want to want to push through it. if i decide to grow old, i don't want any regrets. only nostalgia. not what could have been, but what was.

rouge applied to graying lips
chipped polish reveals the blue crescents on her nails
that match the ones beneath her eyes
her empty
empty eyes
match
her empty
empty thoughts
hollow
is what she wants
but it never occurs to her
that maybe she already is