wooden eyes
june 8th
(wooden eyes, paper skin)
you've often wondered what it'd be like to die.
what death would taste like on your blood stained skin, what silence would feel like in your beating heart.
you've often wondered what it'd be like to die, but you've never had the guts to try.
so you wake up every morning, and peel open your matted grainy eyes. you stare at the ceiling for a few minutes and listen.
you're still breathing and you wish you weren't. you're still moving and you wish you weren't. you're not as quiet as you wish you were.
everything's still so noisy.
and you cover yourself in clothes so thick so can barely tell where your limbs hide. and you do hide, behind your fingers and your books and your little dirty lies. you stay as still as you can and small as you can and you stare at the gum stuck on your ratty old shoes with wide panicky eyes.
you walk lightly but you're still so heavy and noisy and large. you take up so much space. you can't breathe in these clothes.
you take a breath, and it feels like you're alive again. you hate it.
and you crawl into yourself and you sit in your own head, and watch like maybe if your life falls apart you can blame it on the gods.
you mutter apoligies and stutter around. and everybody tells you that's not how you should be. but you know you're not worth it. so you nod and smile and straighten your back a little, mutter another apology before you can lock yourself away in the dark and tear it apart.
when you eat, your hands shake and skip like your damned chest. and you think of all that's buried under the layers of cotton and wool and lace. the food doesn't taste right and you hate your skin.
so you draw, and you scratch, and write on yourself like you're covered in paper. she watches across the table and smiles like she doesn't read the hateful things scrawled across your forearms when you look away.
at night, you still lay on that same bed you woke on this morning. the world is still noisy, and you're still breathing, and you're still beating. you hate it.
you cover yourself and drown and shrink until your wooden blank eyes are screwed shut.
the world keeps turning.
but you don't sleep.
you've often wondered what i'd be like to die.
you wish you could sleep.
you're so tired.
but you won't be quiet.
you're sick.
you hate it.
but you're still alive because you're afraid.
you let yourself wonder.
i'm so sorry.
