A sadistic outlook
I hide my fallacies and avarice in a sock drawer,
neatly placed next to my pill bottles
In the closet closest, I store the prospect of future casualties
Shuffled neatly undernearth media propaganda and the war in Uganda
I suffocate the tragedy of unknown victims in my display of malice
Muffled as they’re whimpering
Sociopathic symphony

Long night
curtains dark the gloom
creak the steps to her sleeping room
solemn woman walks these woods
transforming limb and bone
in feathery flight she delights
to grace a moon swept pond
her whispers weave a song, to call her lover home
entwined they float the woodwind air
until the night is gone
Shapeshifter lights the darkness dawn
to shed the dreaming night
now slips away her lover
and fades the glorious swan

Imagine tugging at a loose thread on a sweater, expecting it to break off, problem solved...
but instead that thread unravels and unravels until the sweater is a sweater no more,
but rather a mess of string in a heap on the floor, a chaotic tangle that
resembles the contents of my brain when someone asks, "how was your weekend?"

My thoughts are replaced with the blare of static on TV and I can't hear myself think, so I say what I imagine a person is supposed to say, a preprogrammed response I construct for situations like these when my brain decides to check out...

Because of course the only time my mind -stops- is when I really need it to go, not when I'm laying in bed at 2 a.m., fixating on that cringey thing I did four years ago.

But anyway, I would tell you about my weekend, except it seems that the wires connecting the language part of my brain to my mouth have been cut. My weekend probably ****** anyway, but I manage to say, "it was good." And even then, those three words struggle to get past my lips, and any words more revealing hit the backs of my teeth like a car colliding into a brick wall.

By now the elmer's glue holding me together is losing its grip, so when you tell me about your weekend, the words wont stick. How your breath is wasted on me, when I can't concentrate on not falling apart and on tales of your tomato garden at the same time.

On the surface I look so cold; my painted on smile is a thin sheet of ice, concealing the puddle that hides underneath, one that the sun can't reach --
People will often say, "if it helps, you don't seem anxious". I want to tell them that anxiety is a tormented ghost that drags its dagger like claws across my skin at night, whose presence I can always feel but never see. A monster that feeds on vulnerability, and knows it will never starve.

But, I don't know what to say, so I stare at my hands. Because making eye contact feels like facing a lion, and facing a lion means facing death. But then there are times that death doesnt sound so bad, because I know that as long as I'm still breathing, anxiety finds a way to make that hard for me too.  

Anxiety is a broken appliance that the store wont take back, the Annabelle doll that returns from the trash, so it made a home of me instead. And in return for the shelter I give, my heart pounds like its full of angry bees when I finally press 'send' on the 8th draft of a text message I've been working on since yesterday and I want to hide, but why bother? when in a game of hide-and-seek, anxiety always wins.

It is my shadow during the day and my blanket at night, one that that drapes suffocatingly around my shoulders while I'm pacing the kitchen in the dim glow of the stovelight, worrying that the next day could be the " someday " that the ones I love finally leave me. On these nights, anxiety comes to my rescue everytime. It slithers up my back where it can softly whisper into my ear : "I promise you, chelsea, I will never leave"

What I'm imagining isn't considered pretty
You don't want to know where you're sitting
What I'm imagining isn't considered pleasant
We're inappropriately using a pheasant
What I'm imagining doesn't go with God
And is laughed at because it's odd

Into my life they peer
Trying to insert fear
My owl head on a swivel
My rabbit ears perked
When people don't act civil
And decency is shirked

I needed answers
For my cancer
I find them in love and pain
They both seem the same
I begin to view the rain
As a type of gain

Everyone knows love's scorn
Which leaves me torn
I can't help but feel my situation differs
Something about the rejection seems stiffer
So I become a shapeshifter
To avoid the hate gifters
To avoid bearing the shame
Of being called names

I know other people have it worse
Sometimes that feels like a curse
I can't gauge the importance of major events
In my life
I don't know whether to think they're intense
Or just right

Maybe I'm just being dramatic
But these instances aren't sporadic
When those that I love
Push and shove
I start to wonder if I'm broken or stained
Until I realize we're all burnt by love's flames
We all have a path to travel
And they're all made of gravel
Our feet become sore
Which affects our core
We find people below us on the totem pole
To know how it feels to treat someone cold
For when our enthusiasm for love has faded
It's easy to become jaded

There are things we're ashamed of
That morph us into something unrecognizable
In which we should be truly ashamed
In the mirror we look the same
But our actions are toxic
We become radioactive
We see where our stock sits
And become merely reactive
And it's hard to find grace
After being punched in the face
But one must remember punches come in all forms
And we must not punch back to survive the storm

i wear your sweaters when you're asleep & i wear them when your not home to remind me of who i am;
your girlfriend, your fantasy, the love of your life;
but suddenly my mind wonders who am i without you?
i've lost myself inside of you, i've buried myself deep beneath your ribcages & made home inside your chest;
but then i remember i never existed to begin with because i've always been a shapeshifter.
twisting & morphing into what everyone else wants me to be, forgetting that i have a body, a mind & a soul all of my own;
feeling guilty for taking a second to breathe through the bars on this jail cell window.
i've been laying on the floor like a carpet,
letting everyone walk on me & pretending that it's completely acceptable;
& i've always hosted the parties to give myself a sense of control when in reality all i'm doing is serving people.
but please, my love, don't misunderstand me;
my love for you is always here inside of me even if it's gone into hiding;
this illness clouding my brain has been growing from a pinprick into a wrecking ball;
turning everything into black & white as if i'm living on a zebras skin.
you always loved the yin & yang symbol, well that's how my mind self-destructs;
for anyone who doesn't know, the yin & yang symbolizes the good & the bad, with a little good in the bad & a little bad in the good;
a small light in the dark & a hint of shadow in the light;
except the way my mind works, there is no flicker of a flame in the darkness & darkness does not exist in the light;
at least that's how my mind perceives things...
when i'm treated with love & adoration, my heart suddenly beats & you are an angelic being i am undeserving of;
but then again i never deserved any form of happiness, according to my thoughts;
when i am treated with abuse & neglect (or what my brain tells me is abuse & neglect), i shut down my emotions & once again become a ghost to my own body;
but then again this hollow numbness is the home i grew up in...
i don't remember much of my childhood & sometimes i wonder if that's a good thing;
was it to protect myself from the horrors that i'm not sure even existed,
or was it really a wonderful childhood that i purposefully forgot so i could give all the blame to my family?
i don't remember much of my childhood but i know i forgot it to relieve myself of some of this pressure;
some of this pressure that pushes down on me every minute of every day;
how do you expect me to feel when every feeling i ever expressed was shoved back down my throat because it was too inconvenient for someone else;
how do you expect me to speak when i was trained to bite my tongue because i was always too intelligent for anyone else's comfort;
how do you expect me to live when all i've lived for was to satisfy the needs of those around me so i could feel worthy of the air in my lungs;
& when i say "you", i don't mean you, just you as one sole being, i mean everyone;
everyone i've ever met has expected something of me;
whether it be my body, my mind, my skills or my words,
my heart, my thoughts, my possessions or me;
& you my love, you are everything to me despite my contradictive actions,
because you're the only one who has ever taken a moment to look at me dead in the eyes & ask me with pure love & selflessness
well what do*  you  want...?
*...i wear your sweaters when you're asleep & i wear them when you're not home to remind me that you love me as much as i love you.
& you may be the only person that could truly know who i am.

You ensnared me like a dog in its cage
Locked me down in your cellar
drove to my estate
told my son it would be okay
Massacred my family with my face
And made sure to replay it for me everyday:
recorded the depravity so I could see it on tv
-Said to me:
"I know your heart is bleeding.
I will set you free when you watch,
Without shedding a single tear."
-I remained locked up for close to a year
I needed to know why you would trap me here
just to let me walk away
when you finally released me at gunpoint;
I learned to keep my tears at bay
Your response when I pressed for a reason:
        
               "...its just a game I play."

You set lives on fire then set us free
How many suicides have you kept as trophies?
Does it tingle like a wet tongue on your neck,
When you rip a life apart?
Presenting to us the imploded pieces
Like a perverted work of art?

You psychotic shapeshifter you sicken me
You serial-stealer of sacred space
You think the human race is a plague
So you became, "The Locust-Eater"
Playing out macabre fantasies
With such swift shifts of physical features
You delight in deriving such clever machinations
To deceive us ...
...but can you deceive yourself?
Underneath the bone and sinew
- you are still just YOU
...even though you masquerade as everybody else

How can I spot a chameleon in a kaleidoscope?
Belay your false colors.
Show me your true shade.

I studied you
Created a secret space- like you
Where I could stash you safe
Poured through claims of being kidnapped
By a being who could change its shape
Corroborated their claims-by the dates
Of misdeeds they were framed for
-And when they took their own life
In my research I found a smoking gun
-In your case your kryptonite
You must regress to your real skin
         once every month
So i set out ...
picked just the right target...
...and started to hunt

To lure out the chameleon...
I captured something...
      
        That I think you might love.

You wore Anessa's life like a glove
Was she to be your masterpiece?
You committed a crime so brazen- as her
it went viral within a week
you stole her child in the darkness of night,
Anessa's husband- that child's father
Must have been filled with such awful fright
He called authorities, you fabricated stories
you turned the victim into a suspect
Over a single fortnight
Not long after he was killed
in a drunken bar fight

As Anessa you were spotted months after
Ignoring a green light of a busy intersection
Parked in the middle of the road
Placed their child on that busy street
Then sped off in the other direction

Anessa was blindsided when you finally
let her go
Oh, i bet you waited with bated breath
For her self-removal from the world?
You ensured she would never again
Get to hold her baby girl
But Anessa never gave in
Did her steadfast resolve
feel like I rash upon your skin?
Where it festered forming feelings foreign
to a fiend such as you?

You scratched that itch
Began by sending her anonymous gifts
Even started shifting into her too
Stalked her waking moments
by engaging her as a stranger:
all the while unaware your sick infatuation:
Had put her in danger

I'm counting down the clock
I kidnapped maybe her or You
I left my address at Anessa's house
A note saying, " this is a game I play now too."
Soon now: a month will have passed
And it all comes crashing to A head:
at last.

So shed your skin
Prepare to fight
This vendetta ends here:

Tonight.

There is a lighter
          
           Just

waiting to ignite.

A knocking at my door
A knot in my stomach
Anessa...( or is it You)
bound beneath my floorboards?
I peer in the peephole then pull You (Or Anessa) out of that hidden hole
I drench us both( for every second You stole)
I  pour it all over
( my life will never be whole)  
I douse everything in here in gasoline
Confess your sins
(before the fire finds them out)
Its time to come CLEAN!!!

And it seems:
I will be dipping my hands in red tonight.
This will all end in the worst way.

I open the door
let Anessa( or You) In
She runs to my captive saying,
"Where do I begin?"

"I made something of my life
after it let me go
At first, it caused the Locust-Eater misery
You see it toys with humans:
ones it knows are weak
I was so meek and feeble before we met...
Yet,I'm the one person it failed to defeat
Its game gave me strength i never knew...
... resolve had always,somehow,eluded me
I do believe its games are vile...but,
They are necessary?
Please,**** me instead
"...but let the Locust-Eater free"

the captive Anessa(or You)
begins thrashing their feet
I yell," which one of you killed my family?!"
They both calmy respond:

" Me."

The lighter flicks in my hand
I'm unable to speak

A month has passed
Which one is the one I seek?
They both insist I let the other go
And you should know:
it slips from my hand
The lighter(like my grip of reality)
falling faster with exposed flame
adhering to the clear rules of gravity

The two Anessa's embrace.
They both begin to burn.

False colors from the chameleon fade out.
Hungry flames swallow me whole.
I am( am I?)...
seeing the Locust-Eater's true shade:

This is how I take control.

-

Don't be
A mole.

I hate moles.

They burrow
And
Scavenge
And
Live in the
Dark.

Thats just
What you did
To my heart.

You burrowed
Deep,
Down to the center.

You set up camp.
And I didn't know
You were a mole.
I thought maybe you were
A
Straw,
To ****
Bad things
Out.
So I kept you warm
And waited calmly for the
Bad stuff to
Dissapear.

But I realized
That
You were a
Magnifying glass,
To emphasise
My flaws

And you were
A
Seam-ripper
To
Pull the patches
From where
I had already healed,
To make the scabs
Bleed
Again.

And I thought you were
A
Jigsaw
And you were broken
So I could fix you
And put you
Together.

Like a
Vase,
Easily
B
r
o
k
e
n.

And
Then
You left me.

Like a
Tooth
Full of
Cav it ies.

That
Space
Next
To
My heart

No longer full.
And you
Didn't depend on me,
No longer a tapeworm.

I miss you.
Like
You
Were
Mine.

But you were
Never
Mine.

Blackbird your wings like ashen skies
iridescent as blue morpho butterflies
the impaling of your sharpened eyes
all knowing, you cackle
shapeshifter Yaqui man
desert bird, a grackle

Stirring, you stare me down
shaking mesquite leaves to the ground
the air is thick grey sage
smudged with prayers of peace
a wish to cease
the wars we wage

a vision pure of heart
this message of love unfurls
breathe peace - peace
in this world.

My body and soul are not synonymous.
When I look at my body,
I still refer to it as she,
I stare into the mirror,
And she looks back at me.
You can regret her but please
Don't forget her.
We'll never be those kids again.
I can't wait to be someone else again.
I'm an anomaly, a shapeshifter.

I often find my heart lies with the lads
And I find I related more than my body should
And other days I find I align with what my mother would be proud of

The confusion sickens me    
I feel like a freak
A shapeshifter in a circus
One who crowds gather to gawk at
It feels like they stare and mock my absurdity
It rips me apart to feel so different

And I have been told that it is for attention
But please know that no one would wish this confusion on themselves only to be looked at with disdain
I am me and that is simple and plain