Wasteful breaths,
a hyperventilating accordion of pressure,
my heart compressed
like extra pixels in an image, a squeezed lemon,
but unfortunately no lemonade,
only hazy vision.

I can’t move.
Moving only makes me
step closer to death,
or so I imagine,
as my heart spikes thorns inward,
every dagger ever stuck in my back
shoots down my throat
and returns to the heart it aimed for
originally.

I’m so broken.

Clammy palms, cracked nails,
dilated eyes all a mess,
and the shakes,
oh, the shakes,
an earthquake from within
brings much devastation again,
and just like every weak building does,
I collapse to my knees,
barely gripping onto the counter,
praying that if God pities me enough,
he’d let me go.

I saw your name
again
in an old file
and I was told to dispose of it.

I couldn't help but feel so empowered
and yet oh so very vulnerable;
I'm a soft clam inside a hard shell,
but every time I think of this past you,
you've already pried me open and prodded
at my fleshy underbelly,
my most private spaces.

I was given the control
to take away another memory of you
from a place, we used to inhabit
together
and as much as I should've enjoyed that,
it only made me sad.

I cut my heels with a shell,
her concave, smooth white surface
slicing open my body to the world.

I thought I'd see the ocean,
with all of the water in my body flooding out,
hearing every salty breath,
and smelling the frothy turquoise, foamy mess;
I thought I'd finally become one with her,
and it'd fill in the rest of my thirty percent frame.

I wanted to be like water,
but I had forgotten all the pollution,
and so through my wounds came bottles of nothing, plastic rash strings, shattered glass,
an allergic, asthmatic shutdown,
my body flopping and deflating
like a dying fish.

I didn't realize how much
comes with being like the water.

A bitter boy you are,
with twisted words and twisted fangs,
sour lips and ****** knuckles;
boy, you sure do love a good fight.

That's an awful lot of snickering
for a guy who's surely bluffing,
and I'm quite certain you know
as well as I, you're full of ****,
but your tangy hands and acid fingers seem so daunting
when you cast out all your hateful "truths".

I'm torn between all the love and all the hate,
it's inevitable that they'd congeal
into a sordid mixture
and so it was a bitter boy
spoiled.

When it was all over
I bought more pillows for my bed.

I needed to fill that space again.

I feel my energy sifting
out of my limbs and torso
like a broken hourglass
draining onto the floor,
and the grainy sections
and the grit sits in between my toes,
void of structure
as it collapses.

I don't want to patch up my cracks,
pick up the sand and glass,
or even take the time
to figure out what happened;
I've given up
and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

The troubled serpent seeks me
in the dimness of the night,
in the luminescence of stars,
in the hallowed shadows;
it asks me to relive
and I beg of him,
saying,
was eve eating the apple
not enough?

I don’t know of what sins
you think I may have
or will commit,
but must I, too,
suffer for the ones others did?
Why do I have to constantly
be in a headspace that allows
for these things to happen
over and over,
when I was not the one
to keep taking bites of forbidden fruits?

I want the blistering hot, caked asphalt
to fry my heels as I run,
I want my skin to peel back
and for my bare feet
to form calluses in its place,
I want to run and to keep running
until my knees rust
and my lungs burst.

I want to collapse in the streets alone,
just so I know I can make it
that far.

Have you ever seen a tap dancer
sit on a stage
with their legs crossed,
their metal plated shoes
facing away,
and their sound stolen?

No?
Well, have you ever seen a girl
sit on her bed
with her legs crossed,
her feet tucked, hiding,
buried away,
and her voice silenced?