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harini Jul 2018
when I write
i don’t give my characters full form
they’re nothing more then sketches
silhouettes of potential
like the shabti warriors
of ancient egypt
incomplete
lest they run away
with a piece of me
harini Jul 2018
Kids, like glass, aren't indestructible.

    As much as the boy who smokes stolen cigarettes on empty train tracks,
going through them like cheap candy,
says that he's not broken, he's cracked a long time ago.

    The drug addict who plays with fire as if it's his pet, running fingers along soft orange and reds, burns littering his arm, knows that he's shattered beyond recognition, but he doesn't care.

    The abused boy, curling up into a ball under his bed to avoid the beatings, his face covered in blood, glass from a broken bottle thrown at him studded in his arms. Glass from a broken soul studded in every aspect of himself

     The bad boy, who gets into fights and does graffiti on the walls, says that he isn't glass. That someone who has gone through as much as he did shouldn't be something so fragile. He shatters too one day, when he finds himself corned by 5 men in an alley. He doesn't come back out.

     The insomniac who's plagued by nightmares when he's awake, find that they only get worse when he sleeps. So he takes pills, pils, pills, until the glass gives out, and crumbles into powder.

     The depressed boy, who thinks his existence is a burden, holds an empty wine glass in his shaking hand. As he sinks lower into the bathtub, he lets go of the fragile glass, and it
breaks into a million pieces
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     The schizophrenic who sees his dead friends in the train tracks, the fireplace, the bed, the empty alleys, the pills he takes, and the glasses of water he washed them down with. He sees his friends in the oceans of their home, in the lights that lit up streets they roamed. He sees them in the 24/7 convenience store they’d hang out at, until the owner kicked them out. He know that they aren't real, that it's just a way he deals with his grief. That his mind has created these ghosts because he refuses to accept his friends are gone, the doctors tell him so anyway. But if his ghosts leave then he's got nothing left. So he holds on to his broken pieces of glass, long after they've left him, the memories cutting into his skin. Because he can't have nothing.
harini Jul 2018
“not all that glitters is gold”
they say
he smiles
gold or not, he wanted to have it
needed to have it

his mind splits in two
limbs too heavy to move
thoughts rushing and falling
but they don’t
translate

he determines his worth by his work
the best
being on top means
there’s so far
to fall

his body begging him to stop
he can’t
he lost control long ago
the bottle draws him in
with the bitter taste of oblivion

the red haze of anger
residing in his blood
if you play with fire
they say
you will get burned

always second best
never wanted never chosen
over the ones who could do better
the air is acrid
his face twisted

bodies tangled
skin against skin
neon lights
dopamine and oxytocin and
want

— The End —