Take out all the keys in my house and what do you get?
A home that's full of locks and closed doors that you cannot open
It's a body that won't recompense the movements you've been making
So you stop your trying and start crying, what did you expect?

I won't open up for you, even if you want me to
I'll keep my front door locked and the back one too
This house is not for you

I choke and I panic
Because you can't love me
I claw at the windows of my soul hoping to break one
This stagnant air is suffocating
My prayers are that you aren't the tornado I fear you to be
******* up the remaining parts of me
Spin me around and spit me out
This is what attention is about
No validation
Only violation
Imploding expectations of the girl advertised
She is not the same as the prisoner inside
You can't love me, self
You never will

The message
you carry
is more
valuable
than
your defeats
and
it is
with this
knowledge
in which
I hope
you choose
to keep walking.

a flicker
of recognition

a glance
into a sea of faces

a pair of eyes
that were once familiar

but the feeling is
different

the emotion is
heavy

i look away

I thought I loved the East Coast until I saw your eyes look back at me under the moonlight slipping through the window.
I thought I loved the East Coast until we were pressed together, laughing, trying to fit on your twin mattress.
I thought I loved the East Coast until I felt your breath on my neck at four in the morning.
I long for the Pacific and for you to take me there.

"I love you."
Words can't touch me anymore.
My skin is coated in lies
Nothing penetrates.
My last hope is caught in my throat
And I can't swallow it,
Bumps and bruises are hidden behind
"I'm fine," "I'm just tired."
Words are branded into my skin.
They have left layers of scars
So thick there's no room left to carve -
So imprinted there's nothing left to root.
Nothing more to say to boot.
Prickly like a porcupine, consonants stick off of me,
Petruding like my long buried personality
Used to,
Like my personality used to.
Vowels form a new face of expressions
I was once able to pen for myself
But now
I can't.
I wear words instead of speak them;
I wear words like a coat of armor on top of my numb skin.
I swear words don't even touch me anymore.
There is no need to carry a shield ,
Instead you built for me a castle.
And I'm somewhere inside,
Untouched.