Your eyelids flutter,
Your hand slips into mine,
Warm touch on your thigh
Your eyes half-shut-
Bittersweet sips of wine,

We don´t dance around the truth-
We share fantasy with grace
I´m pretending-
A narrative you´re inventing,
I rehearse my lines aloud,
Staring at the shared sky,
As we both lie.

No matter how your head fell on my shoulder,
No matter how your hand searched for mine,
Asking me to hold it in yours-
As the weather grew colder,
You grew colder too.

I swore I wouldn’t get attached.
So what am I doing here, late at night,
Waiting for your call?

Was it just a  convenience?
Had we been running on rented time?

If I weren't me, who would I be?
If the world hadn't shut down, would I still
be lost?
Like blisters on my feet, I carry my doubts,
Mistook burnout for discipline, wore it as
a badge.

Baggage heavy with memories,
I drag it through the mud-
Versions of myself, deeply buried in a suitcase.

If I stop and leave it behind,
Will the old me burn in ashes?

I´ve shed my thoughts
into the silence of nights
nowhere to run,
I´m holding the gun.

I´m the one
trying to outrun,
hosting the hunt,
running at the front.

I´m my own prey,
gasping for the airway,
catching myself at the bay.

I want to be targeted,
not for you to misinterpret
I´d love to witness
my breath quickness,
how you´d hunt me-
then I´d be free.

With every breath I count,
there are few I miscount,
there´s one I´d steal
from you, to heal.

You said
"It's not you,
It's me"
Maybe it was true-
I haven't had a clue
That it was for the better,
Even though it felt like a fetter.

You lifted me up,
Called me pretty-
Was it just your pity?
Then you got bored;
I've felt so ignored.

I know I've always been pretty,
Sometimes I've been too gritty,
To the little old me,
Now I know there's no price on me,
No measure of my worth-
I deserve to walk on this Earth.