Pictures of my present— but none of them smile back.
Just me, talking to the man in the mirror,
his eyes tired,
his silence loud.
He stands in the frame, wrapped in skins made of fear—
To stand tall beneath the titles they gave him;
layered, worn,
worn down.
To call it strength when you pretend to be more than you are.
But no one asks what it costs to keep holding up the
image they’ve
painted of you.
I want to stop performing, but giving up feels like giving in
to everything they already believe about me, there's never an
account for the fallen man—
only fingers pointed,
as they count him out like a statistic.
I think about a demise so often it no longer shocks me.
It just waits—patiently— like something I’ve already
shaken hands with,
gripped by time pressing on me.
Sometimes I feel like I’m boiling alive, my chest
cracking open with a salty crunch, like a crab
in a sealed ***—
no escape, just steam and pressure.
A slow, bitter truth: no one’s turning the heat down.
And all I can say is—
“Crap.”
Not funny. Not light.
Just the word that stumbles out when your soul folds
in on itself and even pain doesn’t know
how to explain itself anymore.
