Against life, we grew together
Rooftop dancing at golden hour,
Theorising on human behaviour.

The music made us tougher,
The **** supposedly smarter.

Yet nothing cut greater than trusting her.
Has it turned me weak- or stronger?

Risking safety to feel jolly, thriving in co-dependency -
She made me lonely.

But our jaws and belly both hurtful - I was thankful
To laugh so freely, hide carelessly empty
We built a nest of sufficiency for what felt like a century.

Still lonely, though
Shamefully hoping one day she’d hate me so.

Inhibited - they told us so.

We developed an addiction,
A passion for repression.

High on the narrative to stay cohesive.

A decade later, I fluster -
To the sound of his home keys,
At his messages I freeze:

He puts a nose on his smileys,
He calls me things I don’t believe.

The vinyl keeps on playing as I shower,
I agitate with blue liqueur,
“Those jeans could’ve been bluer.”

Now time gets tighter and norms heavier,
We wish we'd grow younger.

He still calls me beauty,
Willingly joins my company.

But as tasteful as painted blue,
That room gave him flu.

Fear teaches me, sort of aimlessly.

Blaming a resilience I wish I'd seen,
The punch I’d wish I’ve been -
a prey I wished I hit.

Overshadowing the dopamine I’d like to feel.

Via guilt-induced tears, effortfully shield-building.
Via timeless dampening -
I’m nervously standing, brainlessly erasing.

But never has anger crossed that brain,
Never have I ever played this game.

Engouffrée sous mes draps
Je ne rêve même pas.

Les faits sont ils; bien présents
Il en aura fallu du temps.

Et le coeur battant,
Je médite le néant.

C’est parce que, dès lors que je touche une note,
J’ai l’impression qu’elle sonne faux.

Parce que je me déteste au moment où je rate un panier,
Un saut d’obstacle,
Un verbe irrégulier.

Against my will, I’ve acquired this skill.
I’ve mastered the art of fault-picking,
I excel at depreciating.

Still, urgently seeking something diminishing,
Secretly yearning -
To combat flaws I’m dissecting.

For some sort of force to pull me?
Up to standards I don’t fulfil,
Down from aching self-worth, still.

And just like my dad,
I mask my sad.

Mutually we intellectualise our wounds,
Seemingly, we’re bound.

I’ve internalised invisibility,
Learned to distrust my own adequacy.

Sometime after shedding acquired skin,
I started to scream;
Craving to feel seen eventually gets boring.

Designing for someone else - I still felt;
Then I fell.

Into a shroud of contradiction,
I refused to flatten expectations -
All the while muting conformation.