Don't Try [Poetry]

warm gold and cold stars

**drug and depression trigger warning**

[originally posted on poetry amino]
prompt - poem called Veins by Magus on the poetry amino

warm gold and cold stars

april23twenty19

when I felt 23 karat dripping out of my eyes red hot, the only thoughts were scalding. the tearstains were permanent gold, a tattoo of the melty sadness barely contained within my veins. the stares and pointed fingers would have gold rushing again.

scrubbed my face for hours, trying to remove the evidence of my priceless haemolacria. illegal and also very difficult, people took away the washcloths. searched in the dark for a way out, only making the marks more prominent. the day that the tears dripped onto the rug that scraped up my knee once, I could feel those bars weighting me to the Earth.

a turn to other means produced a lack of golden sadness, and tears that did not burn - they were ice cold, and sparkling. big jumps, smiling falling, because the only sensation that would be painful was the sharp twinge of a needle. big blip, right? so little to sacrifice for the tears brought by lightning's sprawl in my heart.

points were now fraught with concern, for now to match the tawny stain were a pair of dark half moons and hollow cheeks. skin pulled into itself when there was nothing else to hold on to - nights got blurry, but so did lacklustre feelings.

a needle full of stars banished blistering golden streaks, making the battered body that felt so weighed down by those priceless minerals feel lighter than air.

but at what cost?