dead dead dead                        

don’t look at me like that
don’t pierce me with your cruel eyes            
i don’t need you to see me like this            

cornered                                                       ­     
guts clenching with the cold hard guilt      
hiding behind a plastic smile      

dead inside                  

i say to myself
over and over                      

“Everything will be alright”                                

“Everything will be fine”                                    

but i’m hurtling through the dark murk
with the blinders on          
can’t see

dead dead                                                

i see my hands
cold                          
gray                          
skeletal                      

my thin wrists
pale                          
scarred                      
though not so much as my legs
(i try to hide my pain)      

i’m jumping from dream to shining dream            
i can’t stoop to smell the roses,
though they are quite pretty                        
i can’t make myself                    

can’t take my half closed eyes off the haze
for even a second          

i know you see me like this (as much as you can tell)
and i don’t like it                                                
look elsewhere

it’s none of your business anyway        

let me keep my own company
of plastic smiles                                        
and dead eyes          

and the cold hard twist
of the dagger of guilt in my stomach