When was the first time you got scared of meeting someone, seeing someone, hearing someone.
The parties, the hang outs, family gatherings, just being around someone. I have enough parties in my head to know that the ones with living people aren't any more fun. The hundreds of voices all speaking at once. The whispering you can't hear but know is there. The staring you can't see but can feel. The touch of someone that doesn't even know your name.
It's not always like this, the constant stinging of tart tapestries on my tongue. The sweet tooth that clogs my throat, taunting me, ordering me to speak as it tears through the skin on my neck.
There are times when it's quiet. In the showers with the water turned to the hottest setting, burning my skin and me kneeling on the bathtub floor. Letting the sizzling water droplets hit my back like a massage trying to pierce my bones. If pain is an escape then I might as well wait 'till the rain burns through my flesh.
I might as well wait until the pain sears through.
YOU ARE READING
Counting Steps
PoetryThere are a lot of things that try to make there way out but always find a way to stay in. So here, behind a screen, protected in the fortress of sheets surrounding me, I can say anything. Anything at all.
