Shades of the heart

~23~

I'm falling apart.
I'm tearing at the seams,
my happiness is stuffing and it's pouring out of my body like water.
Except the water isn't water-
it's thick and it hurts the more I lose.
It clogs my lungs and hurts to breathe,
and all I want to do is breathe normally
but it's a constant pain.

Every little pain on my wrist
or thigh
or stomach
or arm;
it helps a little bit every time.
Breathing through that liquid gets a little easier for however long it lasts.
And so often,
the marks are deeper and deeper,
so the pain stays away for longer and longer.

And then I stopped,
and all of a sudden the liquid fills my lungs.
I can't do anything without pain,
and I don't know how but that liquid slowly turned to lead.
And so today, for the first time in a year,
I breathed without pain.
Over twenty marks,

and somehow I don't mind that I relapsed,
because fuck,
I can breathe.

-Mel🖤