i always associated the colour scarlett with a brightness.
the love of valentines day or the blush filling one's cheeks on a chilly saturday.
scarlett meant life to me,
and i never thought it'd represent opposite.

scarlett was love.

scarlett was a heart shaped box of chocolates,
the sparkle of fireworks,
a can of cranberry sauce on thanksgiving day.

scarlett was optimism.

scarlett was a thank you card,
a bright balloon at a birthday celebration,
or the painted lips of a woman on a first date.

scarlett was never meant to be pain.

scarlett wasn't meant to be a sharp bracelet of numbness,
a sleeve of anger that melted into the floor,
or the cold emptiness that accompanied silver.

scarlett wasn never meant to be anger.

scarlett wasn't meant to be the screaming i hear in my head at night,
the holes in the door,
or the deep stain of aggression falling against my knuckles.

the first syllable seems to fit too well nowadays.

Old thoughts haunting me
I messed up
I did something wrong
I wasn't enough

I should pay
I used to accept my fate
Take the defeat and revel in it
Love the pain

But now I have another voice
In my head, a reason to fight
Usually a landslide victory, easy
But tonight is different

Tonight I'm losing a battle
I didn't realise I was fighting

When will I stop feeling okay and start feeling more?

My past is too much of an influence on my present,
I know it's a problem.

But all I have ever been taught is
To be a joke, because thats all I am
To be silent, because nobody really cares
To never ask for help, because I'd just be judged
To never say no, Because I'd get punished.

And all I've ever been told is
I'm not beautiful
I'm not fitting their standards
I'm not going to be loved

so thank you, step father
Thankyou for destroying everything I was.


© Copyright Tyler Atherton

My relationship with mirrors is strained.
When I look I usually see what's probably
myself. I look better, probably, than before
when I slept no more than
3 hours every night
and spluttered through life
choking on words and stumbling over
misconceptions.
Now all of that is merely a buzz
trampled by a maximum dosage of meds
that let me function in life
but make everything a bit numb.
I much prefer numbness to personal nihilism.
Other times when I look in the mirror I
don't see much of anything.
When I'm in public and
the innocent looming presence of others
threatens my mind's fragile ego,
I see them abstracted in my periphery,
their glinting knives of eyes
sparing me a passing glance
(She's just smiling politely,
but my skewed eyes glimpse
faux teeth and behind them gargled, ****** judgements. I don't judge the digust.)
and I skim over a transparency
of myself in the mirror.
Too bad I can't actually disappear.
(Or maybe I can.
But I try to stray a little farther from those thoughts.)
Sometimes I feel heartbreakingly
ugly in that mirror. Lonely. Unwanted.
Even with all those doting eyes on me.
I feel relied upon for something. To be
the one who makes them laugh. The one
who fills the silence. The one
who works hard even with setbacks.
(Do they even expect that of me? Or do I?)
When
in reality
I'm none of those things.
Not truly. Not really.
Theres always that tug of opposition in me,
that feeling of ingenuity, a touch of facade.
But I don't want them to see an ugly side.
The side that mistrusts violently,
that lies stagnant with thoughts screaming.
Clamming up in the face of oppressing quiet.
The side
that rears its head when
they look a little too close.
Maybe it's my truest self, that broken side.
I wouldn't know. There
are too many walls. I can't even break them
myself.
Or maybe I've broken them all,
but I'm blindfolded,
feeling around an abyss with my eyes
wide open,
vision obscured by skin-tight fabric.
I could just,
untie that knot behind my head,
spiral further and further down--
just to feel something else--
But it's safer in this uneasy emotion.
I dont know if I'll ever find myself in
the mirror again.

im unliving. unloving. unlovely, within.
my skin buzzes under
moonlit nights. my fingers dig in.
i ruin myself, over and over.
i peel away
what makes me imperfect,
only to find
that
my sins
always grow back.
i am barely living.
the night peels back
these layers of tentative
satisfaction.
i find my mind naked
underneath the blackness. i lack
the ability to hide.
my barriers are meaningless,
factless,
as they really are.
where do i go to hide from the truth
while under this moonlight?
will i ever be perfect?
will i ever be great?
will i even be good enough?
i know the answer. i know the answer.
and there's nowhere to burrow away from it,
but my fingers find a way.
into my scalp, into my lips,
into my face,
and blood blooms.
i can still feel that.
i can still love that
sharp, stinging, pain.

If only I could keep it locked outside of me
If only it could cease to exist
If only I didn't have to scratch that
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
itch

If only I could swallow it
Dissolve it in my stomach
If only I could
KNOW for sure if I would or wouldn't

It is like an earwig
Creeping through my brain
I know my actions fuel it
But, oh, it drives me insane

If only I had control
If only I could see
That control is the only thing
That gives it power over me