"are you contemplating? did you observe enough?
have you surveyed them all?
have you scanned me, inspected my wounds, and scrutinized me whole?
did you see—view the noisy entities that lie around me?
thanks and regards, i hope i helped you with your study."
would you go ahead and just cry, baby?
i told you before—i've been poisoned a lot.
snakes, ghosts, waning moon in the shadows—
breathing slow, i gasp for more.
someone plays on the drums; the night feels alive.
my skin thrums—there's something under it tonight.
i've traced paths, points on a corkboard,
placed tags along as i go,
walking in the direction that leads back to the very center.
traps—traps—oh, so many.
they’ve set me up too many times—
i wonder if even they found it uncanny.
like a spider's web—intricate, yet messy—
it knows what it’s doing,
yet sometimes makes unsolicited errors
in the repeated counting,
as does the world around me.
long in motion, trapped, all of it a lie—
a plot, so humongously tried.
something about the way they speak,
how the smile almost always means the same thing,
how it reaches the eyes that carry a darkness so queer.
truth has always been one breath away—
i took that one—gasped, coughed, choked it out,
watched the mask slip.
they didn’t fall—i did.
viewers from the third eye, melancholic stillness in their sight,
piece by piece, watched me crash.
saw me bury the upturned corpses of all that i’d had,
crestfallen under the weight of secrets—
too many, too layered, too loud to ignore.
never meant to carry, never meant to become
merely the pawn, the bug stuck in the web—
yet desolated, they stained it mad.
there’s blood on me—
not theirs, but my own.
as i rasp out to repeat:
withered flowers still had the same old thorns,
as if sharpened by hand—like a dagger against stone.
you don’t realize how much it *****
when you have to pretend the lie doesn’t hurt.
and when the lie is you—all of you—
it’s like smiling a wisp away from the hug of death.
perchance, if anything’s left,
add it here. leave it be.
the texts, the calls, the hidden clues play on—
you dare cheat?
leering through the red trees,
the sparks of the stars that once whispered memories—
it’s so cold in this place, like being stuck in a maze.
every turn, a version of you exists,
one that i didn’t know how to name.
i’ve met enough to barely remember how to count—
or which number i’d reached.
no escape clauses here, just sounds of glass shattering.
trust is what lies on the ground beneath your feet.
i’ve seen the graveyard where all my hope lies,
sleeping since forever—
it’s been quite a while.
maybe the betrayal isn’t always the worst part—
maybe it’s the quiet.
the silence of watching the lies be watered,
brought up into flowers.
ones with thorns—
the thorns that ***** the same hand which had sown
the seeds—
it always comes back in a loop.
and i promise it’ll come back to hit you.
i’ve been poisoned enough to know
when it’s mere liquor,
or when it’s laced with sweeter wine—
the one that carries all the enzymes
needed to make me curl up,
squeeze the inside of my guts,
choke out my heart,
watch it be torn through
by hands that resemble claws.
you’re like an eagle—
beady-eyed and grinning.
they’ve said love comes with a price,
that bonds need no ice.
this setup, alas, was stitched with rot.
i walked into it willingly.
though i wasn’t the only pawn—
unknowingly so.
check the board again, my love—
who all stand? who made the rules?
i store it in a vessel—
the tragedy i have become.
you didn’t follow all the runes.
all you need to know,
even as you watch my corpse fall:
poison has come to know its own.
and despite all—you were all that i needed as an antidote,
to stop the black that visibly spreads through my veins.
you and i watch it reach up to my eyes—
one last glance.
the board shall remember:
i'll take your name.
you.
oscar winning tears by raye. red *** by vessel.
