If you could only unsee the things you wish you never saw.
If you could only unhear the things you wish they’d never said.
If you could only unsing the song you knew you didn’t mean.
If you could only unlove the ones who hurt you like there never was.
If you could only untouch the souls of the people you moved.
If you could only unsmell the scents you’d otherwise never forget.
If you could only untaste those lips upon your own.
If I could only pretend not to be..

Razor-sharp fingernails scrape layers of flesh from eyelids
Splaying them eternally open
Can't unsee what's been seen
Can't unhear the sounds
Or unsmell the odor that rots in nostrils, infecting every rose
There's no stopping when they all stink the same
Can't undo, can't undo
Safety in bile where nightmares are birthed in reality,
In places that fester like the remnants of the lids that blinded
Bleach doesn't clean untruths
Fire doesn't  burn hot enough to mask pain
Blisters seem like hope
Hope to heal
Hope to resemble something familiar
Peeling skin back with teeth
Wishing for them to bleed
When scalding tubfulls try to cleanse
the grime that sludges through a broken mind
Attached to a heart mindlessly lashed in the shame of

Love

look at my back
watch me as i try to walk
notice how i hardly move

how i have to painfully drag my feet
share the ground the blisters as a secret


look at my back
how i carry my bones
how i silent the creaks

the breaking sounds, the irony smells
now i let them out


look at my back
watch me as i leave the room
listen as i slam the door

unhear the voices
unsmell the scents


look at my back
for the first, the last time
watch me as i hope for the best

my back soon glued inside
an open casket