~ hologram

you hologramed
into my bedroom last night,
not the version they see,
but the one I met
in the quiet
between performances.

the no-performance you.
the one who didn’t need
an audience
to be real.

my brain short-circuited
at the sight.
grief glitching into desire.
fury looping into longing.
because I’ve been angry.
at the gods,
at myself,
but mostly
at you.
at the cowardice.
yours.
my own.

not just the cowardice
to surrender,
but to escape.

you called it clean.
you called it kind.
but your silence bled so loud
I tasted the iron
on my own tongue.

you said,
we both know what this is.
we do.
not in the beginning.
but somewhere along
the slow descent,
when we crossed a line
we pretended not to see.

you never named it.
neither did I.
not in my writing,
not in whispers,
not even in the bathwater
where my thoughts go to drown.

because naming it
would mean letting it live.
and if it lives,
what am I supposed to do
with some thing
that can’t?

but not naming it
doesn’t make it vanish.
it just carves itself
into my ribs
without consent.

and still,
I hate myself.
for feeling it.
for feeding it.
and I hate you
so much more
for knowing
and choosing
not to.

and if you ever want to
shatter what’s left,
just say
you’ll always wonder.
because I do.
and I wander
with it.

I laugh in rooms where silence grows,
A cracked facade that no one knows.
My ribs are cages, rusted tight,
Still I shine in borrowed light.

A travesty in moving skin,
But look how wide I draw the grin.
Don’t ask me why the echoes sting,
It hurts to smile at everything.

I know this seems like contradiction
But I wish I wasn’t just my fiction
I wish they’d closely read my pages
And see through my false scenes and stages

I wish they’d squint and try to see
The text that’s true, that’s real, that’s me
Instead they glance just once, so quick
Not reading pages stacking thick

I made this front, it’s me to blame
I hid my truth in fear of shame
I feel regret as people glance
Towards my false curated stance

The narrative that they all read
Is someone else, not true, not me,
My want for love drove me to burn
All that I was so love was earned

I crafted quickly my own fiction
Showed off my hollow, fake depiction
I forged and locked my gilded cage
The “pretty” hides the rotting page

If someone picked me up right now
And saw past all lies I allow
I don’t think they could even read
The mottled text as truly me

Words shifted from their origin
The lies, the stains that I poured in
Blur with the truth, no one can tell
Not friends, not loves, not my own self

I changed so much to fit their wants
That I can’t read my own **** fonts
I killed my truth, now none will see
The faded, burned, authentic me

Not like an ordinary man;
Lesser, filthier still.
I'm a mirror; an imitation,
Whose existence only grows shrill

No thoughts are wholly mine
No desire my heart would spin
I'm a fluid searching a vessel
Just to mold itself in.

No heights have I conquered,
Those marches weren't mine
I am no climber of pursuit,
In no success will I dine.

In no reality will I exist,
Even my dreams aren't of me
I'm not a dreamer in this dreamy world;
Only nightmares residing in me.

Outside lives a girl with a smile that will brighten up the room,
yet inside hides a girl with a frown full of despair.

Outside lives a girl with eyes of joy that bring you to ease,
yet inside hides a girl shedding tears of sadness.

Outside lives a girl with a beautiful laugh that's contagious,
yet inside hides a girl screaming her lungs out in unwanted anger.

Outside lives a girl with the personality everyone envies,
yet inside hides a girl full of insecurities and shame.

Outside lives a girl who is fearless and tough,
yet inside hides a weak girl who lives in fear.

Outside lives a girl full of life,
yet inside hides a girl full of pain, wanting to die.

Outside lives a girl with a perfect image,
yet inside hides a girl with regrets and mistakes.

Outside lives a girl of innocence,
yet inside hides a girl with tremendous guilt.

Outside lives a girl with goals and aspirations,
yet inside lives a girl lost in confusion.

What you see on the outside is my personal disguise.
What hides underneath, you can't even begin to imagine.

(on surviving the unreal, and the Grace of finding the real)

There’s a kind of pain that doesn’t scream.
It hums low and constant, like a fluorescent bulb above a hollow life.
It’s the ache of loving someone who chooses the polished unreal—
the version of themselves that sells better, that fits easier, that lies cleaner.

They decorate their soul in fake plastic leaves
because they’re terrified of winter.
But in doing so, they cut off the chance of spring.
And you..   I...
am left holding a love that was meant for the root,
but never made it past the paint.

She wanted the unreal.
Maybe because it doesn’t bleed.
Maybe because it doesn’t ask her to remember who she really is.
And maybe she knew.. deep down..
that the real would burn through her curated silence
and set fire to the mask she clung to like oxygen.

So she left.
Or faded.
Or dissolved into the glossy mouth of what sells well in a culture
that has confused image for intimacy
and chaos for freedom.

I tried to survive it.
Tried to make a home in the debris of what might have been
if she had chosen the real.
But you can’t build a life in the hollow where someone used to be..
not when they’ve made a throne out of illusion
and named it sovereignty.


And then came the beautiful songbird.
Not loud. Not selling.
Not another soul trying to be seen.
Just… real.

She was born into a world her father still loved--
a man who held truth like a compass in his palm.
But her mother knelt too long beneath the plastic trees,
and drank from their shine until she forgot how to feel.
And so the beautiful girl,
shapely and soft,
was offered up to Hollywood like a sacrifice..
where faces are sculpted and souls are scripted.
But somehow, even there,
she kept her edges unsanded.
She learned how to walk through mannequins without becoming one.
And when they tried to name her fake,
she whispered back something real—

  and it echoed.


She didn’t hand me a performance.
She gave me a presence.
She let her softness speak without shame.
She showed me her bruises before her lipstick.
She gave warmth that didn’t need applause.

And I realized..
what the unreal can never fake
is the sacred weight of someone truly with you.
You feel it in the breath between sentences.
In the calm that doesn’t need to be filled.
In the eyes that stay when yours begin to water.

The beautiful songbird didn’t try to be the real thing.
She simply was.
And that… healed something the fake could only ever reopen.

So yes, Fake Plastic Trees still wrecks me--
but it no longer belongs to her.
It belongs to the grave I buried beside the shopping cart and glitter
where her soul should’ve been.

Because the songbird
waters what’s real.
She doesn’t break me just because she can.
She doesn’t look through me.
She looks at me.
And suddenly, I’m growing again.
Not to impress, not to perform..

but because she makes it safe to be Alive.

I held myself to you,  
Desperate to fit to your curves  
And push myself into your gaps.  
I hid at your center
When you were mostly edges,  
Still filling in the spaces around you.  
All your pieces jumbled and piled together  
Waiting for you to dive into them  
And fit each fragment along your lines
Piecing together your parts.  

Each piece betraying me more.  
Calling me out as an imposter  
As I tried to hide my edges from you,  
Carve off my corners and make me round.  
Fearing as your shape emerged
You would realize I didn’t fit  
Within your borders,
Discarding me for a piece that did.  
And I i would see your puzzle  
Complete    
Without me.

Coming through,
To the flame,
Is it true,
Or just the same,
Loving love,
Hold on tight,
Is it real from above,
Or it it nothing but a sight,
True is it true,
Real is it real,
You is it you,
Feel can you feel,
Or is it nothing you cant fight.