The bright white filaments
Burning behind my eyes
When I close them and lay down with
An arm over my face to block out real lights
Burned out brightness
Setting fire to pain receptors
Send bolts skittering through my pan like lightning
Or raindrops
A heartbeat multiplied tenfold
And reversed
Fluttering like butterfly wings
And mazapan
And fire in the wind.
Sleep becomes a fever dream from a nightmare
So I stay awake another night
And burn out my filaments.

This time of year is so tiring.
Acting all the time.
I get tired thinking about it.
Talking about work and school,
Dreams I shouldn't be following,
Ambitions I can't achieve.
"Have you started dating yet?"
"When are you going to college?"
No, but soon, I swear.
I don't know what I want to study.
Merry Christmas!
Christ was born in August and this celebration is a Hallmark rendition
Of a Pagan sun festival
(But I don't want to go to any ****** where my parents might be present, anyway).
Maybe I'll figure out a major I won't feel is wasted on me
Next year.
But what four years won't be wasted on an untimely suicide?

Fire licks at my heels
Blood, thick, black and brackish
Spills over my lips
The eyes of one thousand lost souls crown my head
My wings
Black eyes from an inhuman face
Watching
My sword, drawn, drags
I am monstrous
I am deadly
I am immense
I am celestial
I am godly.

Hazy half-light mornings interspersed with giddy sleep
Silent showers and quick grooming
Breakfast maybe, chores and work and walking in my slippers.
Afternoons tense with labor and stress
Broken up by slow-falling meditative mind rain
And usually Fall Out Boy in my ears.
Quickdark evenings.
No light.
Demons aren't occupied with being scared of being burned.
Staying up until god only knows and then some
Laying in the dark and feeling panic
Ice bones, fire veins, a noose around my throat
And not even in a **** way.
Shaking, teeth chatter, eyes roll, spin, turn, off the bed.
Sit on the floor. Lay down. Room's spinning.
Stumble to the dresser.
Grab the cure.
Illegal cure, no one knows anymore.
Dulled by use, old when taken, press harder.
Crimson bubbles, drips, rolls and stains.
Demons lap it up, whisper thanks, leave.
Sun comes up, lay in the half light.
Fall asleep giddy with pain.

We all own other people.
In parts.
We cut out the things we want with words and wear the pieces as badges
Medals.
Blood dripping sashes.
Words are knives and we ask for the cuts people may deign to give us
We want to be owned in those parts so we can own them in turn.
I wonder what pieces
I've let people take from me?

I grew up ignored.
Not neglected, never abused.
Ignored.
Blithely alone with people unawares of my existence besides them.
They spoke about me as though I were not there, so I learned not to be.
I spoke myself through days that stretched into years.
"Don't draw attention.
Don't speak unless spoken to.
Don't be the interesting one.
They aren't interested in you, anyway."
Siblings stole the spotlight and I let them.
'Being ignored is like being abused, kind of. '
No, not really.
Being ignored is being silent and knowing what happens even though no one else does.
Being the ignored one means that you don't have pressure to achieve; you don't exist.
You are no better
No worse
Nothing at all.
You are nothing at all.
And eventually,
You learn to appreciate that nothing-at-all feeling.
It's freeing.
You don't have to worry about things like looks because you don't get seen.
Scars are ignored because they exist on you.
Making friends, though, is hard.
"How do you share like interests when you've never been important to have any at all?"
I'd ask.
"Figure it out."
I would tell myself.
"You have before."
Take on the skins of people around you.
Be who they want you to be.
Be replaceable in that way that makes you needed.
Simpler than it sounds, really.
Being nothing is so freeing
So calming
So boring
So cold.
And empty.
Like the nothing-at-all you are.

I wander when I'm alone.
I walk for as long as I can.
I've gone miles before
Gotten lost, even.
I get lost a lot.
I feel better when I'm lost.
Losing myself physically helps me feel less bad
About losing myself mentally.
You know?
I like storms for that reason.
I can walk out in a thunderstorm and be lost to the world for a while.
And drown in the rain.
And it's wonderful.
People never suited me, not really.
I love my friends.
My family is important to me.
I'm sure I could become dependent of one person's fancy if I chose to.
But wind
And water
And ice
And loss
And the smell of the sea beating the rocks into sand.
Those are the things I need more.
So I wander.
I wander for miles sometimes.
I get lost a lot.
It makes me feel better.
You know?

I woke to darkness, and I ran.
And the sky didn't fall.
I looked to the sun, to the lights.
And the sun screamed that I was the dark.
And the sky didn't fall.
And I looked around myself, at the darkness.
And the darkness welcomed me home.
And the sky didn't fall.
And the sky didn't fall.

I want to let your fingers walk over my skin
See if they bleed on the broken pieces of my body
I want you to open old scars and snap bones unbroken before.
It turns me on to think you'll break my body like you broke my mind
It makes me hate you
It makes me want to ******* too.
I'd never let another person over me
But I want your hands under my skin.

Little lost lambs,
Come to me.
Bring salvation.
Sing to me your hymns,
Songs of pain and loss and death and ***,
Gathered through your sacrilegious lives.
Tell me the stories of your life,
All the wrongs you feel you've caused
The lies you've told
The lies you've kept.
Bring me your light,
The souls of wandering beasts inside you,
Burn my tired eyes.
Come to me.
Bring me your scars and fears and tell me your stories.
And then wander on.
I'll not tie you down.