I wonder if anyone knows what it's like to stop breathing...
To lose yourself to the wind and autumn leaves.
To bleed from paper cuts you got from your favorite books.
To be familiar with the echo of shattering hearts.
I wonder if anyone is as good as I am at sewing.
Knowing threads and needles as if the skill were etched into my personality by the universe's hand.
I wonder if anyone is as bad as I am when it comes to cradling a person's soul-
nurturing it with unwanted love and angry bruises.
The only love I could imagine is from fantasy-
The perfect date with a stranger who is willing to take a chance on a walking cookie cutter.
Slicing through skin and bone until nothing is left.
The only thing that will keep us apart is a clothed table set to match perfect persons,
But we will know our hands won't fit.
He'll know that behind my soft laughs and sparkling eyes,
I'm a balancing act waiting to fall into blackness.
He'll laugh at all my lame jokes and feel his heart race for The Girl With The Plastic Smile.
While he laughs- my mind will be elsewhere.
Deep in forests and trampled dirt.
I'll question his every move.
Inside, I'll know he will never understand.
Because I know bruises and scars, battle wounds.
I know unwanted touches, fingers pressed against my thighs like knives piercing my skin.
Once he knows me, he'll think I'm an exaggeration,
But do not tell me my life isn't hard.
Do not compare me to a stranger, because in my world, I exist.
In my world, I have to memorize the unsteady suffocation that is produced by intoxication.
I have to play and replay bad dreams and memories to remind myself that I am more than a stranger.
I am the pitter patter of the rain and the cracks in a broken heart.
My parents tell me I'm wrong-
That these things were fabricated into a blanket to keep me comfort as I slept.
But I already had anxiety as my teddy bear.
I spend my 2 am thoughts on nightmares I'm not sure even happened.
Because maybe they're right.
Maybe I am a compulsive liar seeking the attention of someone who will love me despite my constant spiral into Wonderland.
Because I have fallen in love with the Mad Hatter.
Can you see me?
I've painted white roses red, there goes my head.
I've lost sight of the white rabbit, lost against the Queen to a game of poker.
No one believes me.
They say it's all a bad dream, but I've gone completely bonkers.
The world in my head is turned upside down,
The ground painted indigo with laces of white smoke.
I'm walking on damaged clouds, a drizzle before the hurricane.
You'd think I was insane if I let you into my brain.
I've played this game before.
I know how to win.
Smile and wave. Nod when necessary.
Don't give yourself away.
Let them think you are perfectly normal before you push them away.
Because rejection would only make it worse.
It would only hurt me more,
so I know not to take a chance unless I want to be locked in an asylum for too many shattered pieces.
Pieces that have failed to disguise the maddness I try so hard to hide.
That would be the perfect date night.
YOU ARE READING
Shut Up and Listen
PoetryVolume no. 2 Another tightrope walk through my mind. Older and Smarter. I've got a better understanding of the world. PS It's not traditional poetry. So don't say that it isn't, because I know that. Thank you.
