We inherit it,
the pain—handed down like a family curse,
wrapped in silence,
placed in our laps without instruction.
You sit at the table,
mouth full of bitterness,
and they call it strength,
the way you chew and swallow.
But what if it’s not?
What if it’s a trick—
the wizard behind the curtain,
the demon in the machine,
smiling as we feed
it something we never agreed to give?

I don’t want to live this way,
a specimen pinned beneath glass,
but maybe we are experiments—
flesh and bone trials of endurance,
while the saints walk among us
with their straight spines
and sparkling teeth,
their hair soft as untouched sin.

They hide their hunger well.
The lust stays pressed beneath their skin,
simmering in the quiet places.
But us—
we wear it raw,
this separation between grace and grit,
our hands calloused from holding too much.

If I could save you,
I would.
I’d press my lips to your wounds,
turn salt tears into something sweet,
lick the pain away like sugar,
dig a hole in the sky
for us to hide in—a pocket of forever.

I could love you like that:
diamond-bright,
shattered and whole all at once,
each edge catching the light,
each facet its own language of care.

But this story—this terrible, beautiful story—
it keeps pulling us forward,
through the mud and the starlight.
Some days we’re saints.
Some days we’re demons.
Most days, we’re just trying to hold
what lies in between.

We could wear disguises,
play pinball with our choices,
watch them ricochet off the walls of who we are,
ringing out in bursts of chaos,
neon lights illuminating the mess,
until the machine tilts—
or we do.
Maybe that’s the trick:
to laugh as we play,
to let the disguise slip now and then,
and call it living.