lamepoetandiknowit

I don’t want you to tell me I’m pretty, as if it’s some consolation prize. I’ve learned to love myself for far more than that, Why can’t you? Do you ever even see me When you look my way? Or do you see the girl, You had always hoped I’d be? The girl who dreams of having a family The girl who pines for well off men The girl in an office signing papers, The girl who smiles, even when suffocating. I was never her Not in the slightest Not for a moment, Yet somehow you are shocked, Hurt, disappointed as if I had suddenly changed. How do you think I feel every time you call me your pretty girl?

This world is full of monsters. They accost me with promises. Promises of comfort, promises of love, promises of freedom, promises of power. I drink them all until my heart explodes into a melody of malady and pain. To want something, to truly yearn and strive for something, with all your heart, is to break it.

We wake this day with a sense of purpose, a clear mission to fulfill. With this in mind we take up shopping carts, riding them, as if they are chariots headed to Eden. Plastics of pink and plastics of red, slouch in their spots upon half emptied shelves, silhouettes of a time that has passed, half priced and hideous. We stop here, and take all there is to take, loading our carts with fervor. The crinkles and chirps of the checkout counter rise through the air like a symphony, singing tales of our victory to all who pass, and all who stare, at our treasures of pink and red. We take that which we have harvested and hold it close to our sides, content in the fruits of our labor, which are no less sweeter, than the day before.

I meet the eyes of my sister; she says nothing, hands me a smoke. The silence continues, I inhale, let it soak. Between us, there are words that needn't be spoke. We are one in the silence, in the smoke.

I wanted you to be proud. You're the first one I told, but you just stared straight ahead and everything went cold. On the surface I just smiled, what else could I do? So much of my time was spent pleasing you, but underneath I felt such pain from the words you never said, from the smile you never gave me, from the work for which I bled. I needed you to be proud.

The rain falls cold and sharp, a baptismal kiss, cleaning wounds as they bleed, leaving bare the contents underneath, flesh, that will regrow pain, that will pass sunken eyes, that will again shine and clarity, that all is temporary.

To anyone who will listen, there, across the distance, hello.