Can I tell you a secret?

Sometimes my jaw hurts from
Smiling
So much.

The room is filled with voices, the din
Of a kitchen in the back of an echo chamber
And none of them know the way I ache
Because all I do is
Smile.

They don’t know—
They don’t know that I go home
Exhausted
From this constant, grand performance.

They do not know I am a liar.

I touch the fingers of the girl in the
Glass as I wash off the makeup and
Study the acne scars underneath.

I looked at the "
                         E
                           L
                             I
                              T
                                E
                                  S
                                    "
                                     and then back at
                                                               us,
                                                                    but I could see
                                                                                           N
                                                                                             O
                                                                                                difference.

Built a house to escape to
Found out it's filled with ghosts
Had to break my mind in two
To accommodate the thoughts.

They won't leave, they won't go
Only I can know
What a drag of a show it is to feel,
But to not be, alone.

I dreamed of mastering the dark
And I do, but now it filled my life
With truths and lies and masks in disguise.
Praying for light, as I muffle my cries.

And I don't break, I don't go
Cause only I can know
How to master the thoughts
Of a ghost in disguise.

I'm a liar and a cheat
And I pray to my own heartbeat
For it to stay and let me lay,
Down my sorrow and my tainted name.

Currently listening to Taylor Swift’s
Reputation album & plotting
your death, baby.

{oops}

In another life, my father
must have been a blacksmith.
Essential in his village
Essential to be needed
(otherwise what’s the point?)

Swinging his hammer in heat, in smoke,
content within his St Bruno haze, suspicious
of anything lighter than black leather
anything lighter than brass fittings

- comfortable with sweat stains and scattered ash,
scars and deep bruises marking him
a man’s man and breadwinner,

- relaxed with the air blue, the tribe white
and his iron laughter echoing with every strike,

every blow shaping his son
into his family’s likeness.

my mother is like the queen
she is the queen of everything
but in the sense that all that matters is reputation and
i am merely a means to an end.

i am the pawn on the chessboard
and she likes to play with her pawns carved out hollow,
brittle shells on the edge of breaking.
she likes the power of holding a fragile heart in her hands
to nurture and then destroy as she sees fit
for her own entertainment.

is it still my fault i turned out the way i am?

I set myself ablaze and then I fly about the room
Time and space became for me a lovely little tomb
Apparitions far more friendly than the people's gloom
That is why I live among the stars upon the moon

Gaze upon me, frail and mighty, see me and despair
Powerful and terrifying is the returned stare
Lo am I, high in the sky with my infernal horn
Play the notes and make the world my booming voice adorn