on this day.

toxic waste.

xix. TOXIC WASTE.

he is the silhouette everyone wants to be, the dream of flying and never coming back to where father's words and mother's abuse drowned you until you were nothing more than water and you wonder why you cry so much but really it's a way for your lungs to clear out what you have swallowed all wrong, but your chest still feels heavy. he is never ending time, perfect curls swept on a glistening forehead while strangers faces turn red, staring up at the sun, hoping - fingers crossed behind hidden backs that the sun will burst, a ticking time bomb that is dangerously nearing zero and they can feel it in the wedges of their spine. he is cities, lights that never burn out while people continue to desire this feeling of light within them, set themselves on fire if they have to, just to burn as bright as him. he is each step over cracks in sidewalks, the happy ever after that hearts yearn for as i am jumping on every knick and cranny of this street, hoping i am hit full force by a drunk driver, one who does not see the stop sign, one who does not see me. he is the beauty of living while i am the rotting corpse in the closet of his bedroom wanting out but not having the energy to seek for it. my empty skeleton doesn't dance but mourns for what she could never have, looking at herself in the mirror wondering when she'll be enough, enough is never enough, okay - she prefers to gauge her eyes out than to sleep away the pain because than she can't see what a mess of a life she has made or what he is turning out to be. mute the world around her by plugging in earbuds, crank it up as loud as they go but still it isn't enough, never enough, she can still hear his flames screaming glory from the other side of the world, if he were to live on the moon, she would still hear him over everything she tries to drown him out. enough is enough, scratch that into the aching bones of the silk bag she carries, cover herself in honey and wait for insects to scratch away at dry calcium, she never wanted this but she wanted him.

she hops in the pool, sinking to the bottom of the deep end, hearing her mother's cursing loudly and her father's belt unbuckling. she twists and turns in fear, fingers crossed in the darkness of where she sits that this is it. she screams, my god, does she let out a roar that no one's ever heard before that shakes the melted rock beneath her, the core of the earth bouncing her echoes off the liquid layer.

she floats to the top, her hair making a dance of victory, her body acting still but her spirit creating waves as if she was an ocean. all she ever wanted to be.

he stands on the shore, his feet tucked under the sand. is she enough now?