I used to think I was an anxious child.

Now, I realize my parents
Could never accept my love.

I was torn from my slumber
Like moss from a stump
By little kid fingers.

Forcibly ****** back into a reality
I did not want to live.

Because in that reality
My family becomes
Monsters.

And I become a slot machine.

those shadows under your weary eyes
that change with every passing night;
line them like dreary curtains, hiding your many plights.
your head still plays that one tune;
and your shadows are like the dark side of the moon.

never the same, as if it were night in a field of rye --
accompanied by the pearly lights of the midnight sky.
the inky blackness of your conscious hemorrhage,
drenched in freezing waters, against the depths of your memory begin to effleurage.

which at once creates a hazy fog in your great ocean,
too still and opaque to make a single motion;
and those dark, glimmering eyes open with the golden sunrise;
warm and blooming, syrupy and glaze

swirling with auburn and chocolate haze.
i can never forget, and i will never regret.
you speak, you ramble; you and your cares;
and you breathe, breathing a mist into the cold air.

you wake, from your slumber in that freezing past,
stuck behind that window pane of shattered glass.
i love both of you; you and your other half --
the reason i break out in a severe laugh.
the dark side of your moon --

the sliver of light that breaking through.
your heavy-lidded awkwardness, a
shy smile, as you grip your coffee -
this winter chill in your bones, your meek and quiet authority.

the rose blooms in your face, when you quicken your pace.
the other is teeming with vigor. he is filled with a profound rigor;
eventually he will intrude,

forced to pay for his life through servitude.
he wakes in the dead of night to do what he believes is right;
he wraps himself in white armor, becoming the knight.
with crimson on his hands and
plum bruises on his knuckles, he retreats,

and so the hectic process repeats.
his trauma heals and dawn arrives,
and the other wakes up, believing the muddled disguise.
you lose track of your sleep, the days, the time;
your pain, the month, your mind.

your insomnia grows at your windowpane,
like a flowering *** of healthy nightshade.
and your crinkled, dusty flat,
along with your wrinkled kitchen mat;
is perfect for a lazy evening chat.

and though you may undergo many changes,
i will still love you and your many phases.

The walls are caving in,
but I can’t remember if I built them or if they’re just the ghosts of where I’ve been.
Your name is the ember in my chest—
I’m always burning,
but I can’t figure out why yet.

I wear your touch like a tattoo
etched into my skin
but it’s fading,
and I wonder if I can really feel it anymore
or if I’ve just learned to forget the ache.

My hands tremble like an abandoned house in a storm,
looking for something to hold,
but everything I touch slips between my fingers
like time,
Like memories,
Like all the parts of me I forgot and can't remember,
And like all the people who promised to stay but never did.

I was naive to think love was the key
to unlock this bottomless abyss inside my ribs and inside my chest,
but now I'm just fading away,
like the echoes of voices I never wanted to hear but make me feel so much less lonely.
I fill the silence with smoke
and stories that don’t belong to me—
Or perhaps stories that were lived through my eyes but I can't actually see.

I’m running from the ghosts of myself,
but they don’t let me go.
They pull me back to that place,
In that house
where I learned that pain is the only thing that ever feels real.
The higher I go,
The more I feel,
The greater the risk
the harder I crash.

But I can't stop.
I only let the blood mix with the rain.
I beg the sky for answers,
but the clouds never speak,
Forcing my to gather my own perception of peace.

I wanted to be saved.
By anyone other than myself
I wasn't ever taught to fly
But I learned to jump
And I jumped so high I found a cloud
One far away, one that's a lot less loud.
It's safer up here

it neither killed me,
nor made me stronger,
it did a third thing

~

got angels and devils sitting on my shoulders, in my ears
these different parts of me— you’ve seen them through the years

i live in fragments
i'm never whole
it's not the life i thought i'd lead
at least it's never ******* dull

i lost my head
found these instead
and never felt quite like 'me' again

even when i’m alone
i’m never lonely

~

i hear the voices
from the inside out
oh stop; i recognize that look you're giving me:
"why keep it hidden from us until now?"

i don't recall much from after ten years old
let’s call that 'brain rot'
lost memories of repeat awful happenings
that i still don't know if i deserved or not (you didn’t)(x2)


the only one who ever truly knows what's going on is you

there’s somethin funny going on up in this house
check the front, now the windows, see? the lights are out
no one’s home, just us voices, extra extroverted noises
just the other people in your head making you regret your choices
it’s just us bonus mouths to feed and sometimes hands to hold
we hope you hear us when we say this covert thing is getting kinda old

One becomes
two. becomes
three, becomes
Us.