I’ve worn out my hands
On doors that never open
Every handle burns cold
Every lock swallows my name
They tell me I shine
Then remind me that
Someone else burns brighter
A compliment sharpened to a knife
I bleed quietly every time
Permanent jobs
Impermanent peace
Contracts like paper skin
Splitting under the weight
Of another “unfortunately”
I built years out of scraps
Temporary walls
Temporary wages
Every room I enter collapses and I’m buried
In exit dates stamped deeper than veins
I am a landfill of “maybe”
A graveyard of short-term hopes
Stacked so high it crushes my lungs
I don’t breathe anymore
I pant
I claw
I tape my ribs together
Like they’re about to split
I’m told I am enough
But never chosen
And the difference is the sound of glass
Breaking in my chest
Over and over
Until there’s nothing left to shatter
I'm tired
God, I am so tired
And still I show up
Threadbare and shaking
Begging another stranger
To tell me I matter

The rain dances
on my skin
I pause
and it feels
enough.

You gave me just enough to keep me hoping,
hoping that one day, all the allegations my mind has made about you wouldn't turn out to be true.
And so I waited,
I waited just enough to know that this is something I feel like I can't deal with anymore.
But I still stayed.
I stayed because no matter how many times I felt like my heart was broken into tiny pieces
I knew that you had the glue that would stick them back together.
And so I begged
I begged for the kind of love that should've come standard,
I begged for being someone's first choice
I begged..
just to feel loved.
But you held that glue in your hand high enough to make sure I could see it, but I couldn't reach it.
That hurt..
Because that's when I realized that maybe you didn't want me to have it
Maybe it was supposed to be a bait all along...
How you'd show me the slightest amount of love known to human kind and I would go head over heels for it,
How'd you'd make me believe that this time it's really a change, and this is actually getting better just for it to go back to how it was in less than a second..
I saw it all.. and I still decided it was enough to keep me hoping,
But now..?
Now I feel like I don't know what's morally right to do..
Like I have to choose between forgiving or just walking away
But instead, I'm sitting here questioning my inner self like I never wanted to hear an answer this badly before,
Do I keep hoping or do I choose myself and decide that what you showed me wasn't enough to make me stay..?

It’s not a lot that I can give, not a lot that I have,
It’s just a drop in the bucket toward my goal to be better.
But even so, I wish I could give more than I’ve given myself,
Everything I have and anything I’ve had

So it didn’t go to waste
Rotting in a corner, in a room, in a space
That I can never go to again,
Or rather don’t want to go to once more

But rather reminisce about
Something that isn’t the burden
And weight that’s taken place in my heart
When I can’t look at someone else and say

I’ve done them right for once.
Futile, as my efforts are
‘Cause until now there’s not a lot I can find
That would be worth the effort or time

Others have to wait for something
As big as beating cancer,
as small as a birthday,
And from someone like me
On a day like that, of all days.

But I can give myself
And I can be here,
Forever, however long that is,
If someone would like,
I can be