He didn't love me
but he ****** me,
tried to leave his mark on my neck
and now every time I smoke
I can smell it on his breath.
I can feel his fingernails scraping
down
my
back
when he turns around, says I'm nothing more
than a pretty *****,
and laughs.

Her head disintegrates
Like the end of a cigarette
Falling into the wrinkles
And folds
Of my skin

Am I losing hold?
In a hurricane thought storm
Little deaths on the television
Remind me of my inactions

Said I’d even myself
Out, after giving into self
Doubt. Unstable, leaning toward self
Harm, while the world tumbles itself
Round

Bitter at my own lack
Feel the fire dying in my breath
While the world
Burns and breaks and blisters in a growing wreck

Did my stutter break another heart?
Did my whisper **** that child?
Too quiet for him to hear the reason
I searched for myself, at sixteen

Is every stilted thought, wasted potential / opportunity
To better myself, better the world,
And every person I'll ever meet?

I will not let
Hesitation
Separate
Soul from body
Ever again

I am not lifeless
I am not cruel
I will not be a bystander
I swear

I am not lifeless
I am not cruel
I will not be a bystander
I swear
Ever again

Can you taste the disappointment
When you linger on my lips
Cold scents long languished
Sparking dead neuronic wisps

A frantic reformation
For an addict to the bliss
In the dust realms of a blanket life
Where fiction can exist

I’m the broken bones you found alone
And kissed into a whole
I know
That everybody dreams of the soul they had, the soul they let go

But I’ll find a way, hold high this ache
Breathe life into every mistake
And grow
Into the man you never had, but mourn to this day

I’m grateful
For everything

It creeps upon you like a dark, twisted fog
You can’t see through it, others don’t recognize you
You’re suffocating but you tell yourself:
It’s for the best, when all this smoke is cleared,
Everything will be better
So you sit there and wait for the firemen to rescue you
But they never come
The emptiness inside you is pretty
Everything you’ve always wanted to be is pretty
Beauty is on the inside, that’s what you’ve heard
So that’s where you start to destroy yourself
You think you’re making a difference for the onlookers
But really you’re just killing yourself
Hurting the people around you
They don’t think what you’re doing is pretty
Because all they see is the ugly disease
The black smoke starts to fill your lungs
Making it harder to breathe
You try to reach through the haze, but it’s too late
You see blurred outlines of people, muffled sounds of crys
Why don’t you move? Why don’t you tear yourself from the flames?
Because when you’re not good enough, and you’re looking into the mirror
All you want to be is pretty.