It started as a joke,
Some harmless fun.
Then the air cleared from its smoke,
I no longer wanted to run.

What’s this new desire called?
I’ve never felt this way before.
My heart now feels loud and stalled;
This is something I can’t ignore.

This must be love,
I see her as a dove.
She lights up my world,
Where shadows curled.

Am I real,
Are you real,
Are we real,
Is it real,

Can I feel?
Do you feel?
Can we feel?
Does it feel?

Is the sky really sunny?
Is the water really running?
Is the wind really whistling?
Is the sun really blistering?

Are we products
Of a conduct
That relinquishers
Are fond of,

Are we subjects
To a subject
Where the solution
Is reject,

Are we fools
To a tool
That doesn’t know
It’s being used,

Are we falling
For a faux
That’s already been
Exposed,

And do we really know

What’s real?

I know it sounds  cliché,
But it feels like
I've lost an important part of myself.
As we're sitting next to each other
But I'm writing about our distance.

It feels like the metaphors have been wiped away,
Nor any simile comes to play,
Maybe it was always supposed to be this way.

It almost seems pointless,
It seems to be in vain,
As i try and fail to find the write words to express this pain.

~ 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.