you’ve told me before,
self-loathing is just
a common cliché,
now everybody’s doing it.

that’s not to say
i haven’t seen how
your eyes roam over
your body like you’d been
stitched together with all
the wrong fabrics
i don’t think
i’ve ever seen you
look as dissatisfied as
when you look
at yourself.

you’ve told me before,
self-loathing is just like
an std, everybody’s had it
at some point.

it’s just that some people
were smart enough to
use protection or are abstinent
and they’re the ones
who sleep easy at night
while you’ve always got an itch
to scratch it was never clear
how they toed the line
between their self love
and hate better
than others and you
were their other,
caught them staring
and couldn’t tell the line
between love and hate

(thought you saw it
split the ground open
wanted to dip your toes
into the nothing between
you were scared
you’d fall in).

but you won’t tell
me what it’s like
when you look at yourself,
and your reflection
is rag-doll ragged
the perfect pincushion
and you pinpoint
all the split seams
moth holes your
smile is just a
loose thread you stop
to unravel

and you won’t say
what it’s like
when your reflection is
all pins and points
and you’re not sure
if the rag-doll face
underneath is still
there, at one point
she smiles
like only girls with pins
in their lips can,
her lips unravel

(you don’t smile).

you’ve told me before,
self-loathing is just
a common cliché,
there’s no way you’d
be caught dead
doing it.

i’ve seen the red-capped pins
you keep with your make-up.

they look so much
like my own.



hey.
are you still there?
i can't see you beneath
all those pins.

in the timbre of my voice after six ounces of bacardi and red bull,
in the gnawing of my stomach's hunger when my mind is empty,
in the curve of my abdomen as your hand rests upon it,
in the salt of my tears on nights when your rejection is too much, too much.

There are just too many things that were supposed to have happened.
Arguements lurked behind every door.
Playing hide and seek with sarcasm and distrust.
A recipe to end the book titled Forever.
And even though love was still begging for attention.
The path has ended.
Most have already left the theatre.
Except for those wandering.
Wondering if there will be a tiny clip after the credits.
But the budget has long since dried up.
And the explosives took a lot of the show.
Sadly they are what hilight its runtime.
It's dark now.
The reel just looping black and white.
Waiting for the next show to replace the old.
But there will not be another.
The building has been deemed condemned..
Due to lack of upkeep.
It will remain a historic land mark.
Untouchable.
For there is little else one can do.

i feel better
when my bones threaten my skin,
stretching it,
pushing against it
like they're about to burst through

i love myself better
and like myself more
when i stop taking care of myself,
just like i did before

and you can call this a relapse
but i'm tired,
tired and tired of being tired,
tired of hating myself

so when i skip a meal,
don't coax food into my mouth:
all i'll want to do
is spit it back out

i won't drop as far this time,
just enough that
my shirts hang
away from my chest again,
away from my stomach

i'll be high
on self-love
when i treat my body
with the resentment i feel towards it

oh i'll be healthier
when i'm unhealthy

i'll be happier
when i'm skin and bones

sky as grey as my dreams
it's spring but winter clings
my hands are always cold,
my arms goose pimpled
and I sit in a t-shirt
doing nothing about it,
this chill that lingers
on my skin, in my bones

don't touch me with your
warm hands
I don't deserve the heat,
let me freeze over into ice
and push me under sea,
sky as grey as my dreams
it's spring but winter clings
I'll soak up the salt water
drown myself to peace

the best of men,
I know he is not.
the worst of men?
not that, either
somewhere in between
a little closer to
good
than bad
no matter how many times
he might
toe the line

you've met me.
you know me.
you've seen firsthand
how wrong
I can be.
not in sense,
not in academics,
nor even in instinct
but in morality.
you know that
he is just
a darker shade
of me.

I know that he
self-destructs and
everyone around him
is the collateral damage.
I don't think that you know this.
I know him
better than you do.
your world is
more black and white
than mine;
I see in shades of grey
and colours
a childhood of red and
purple, and
he did too.

what you see as
malice
I know to be
self-hatred.
I understand him
in a way that you cannot.
our hand grenades
are glued
to our palms;
it doesn't take much
to set them off.
do you know what it's like
to be a ticking time bomb?
I do, he does.

I don't excuse him.
please don't think me
blind,
I see perfectly well
when it comes to
matters of the
heart
and the mind.
but for now,
just for now,
when I'm with him
I am living.
he makes me feel alive.
so for now
just for now
I'd like to live one last time.