the lack of stay

You say Be You.

That’s how we glow. 

Until the Me discomforts though.

And the veiny tendrils of denial,

Trickle down a spiny spiral,

To the place no one belongs.

You say Be Free.

But go where we go.

Fit inside this box like so.

Be the contortionist we all know

Will bleed and blur your light, 

Be more alike. 

The real is too real,

For a raw that’s too plain. 

You want to feel sane,

But with ice in your veins, 

It remains, reframes,

To keep you stuck in Same.  

Somehow you weren’t prepared,

For the free that’s not fake.

The Luck you keep insisting 

Colors my own fate.

My apparent successes,

Which dismisses the misses, the blunders. 

It silences my stutters and hovers, 

Over a cracked surface, imperfect.

In pain, on fire with insane.

Like a pin prick, nagging.

At every needle point, stabbing

My skin till it’s as raw as my brain. 

You wonder why your words,

And your breath on my neck make me squirm 

Make this thing burn. 

Crackling like the slow death of a wood wick.

Snuff it out, quick.

Before I like how this tastes too much to walk away. 

It’s fine for me to stay inside my own head,

As long as I don’t stay in my own bed.

But your appetite’s disturbing,

For the word and the words, 

And the world that keeps churning 

On a reel of revealing chaos.

You say I’m one of a kind.

Of a kind that scares you if you get too close.

You say I’m out of my mind,

Of a mind that’s more crash and burn than coast.

Be proud but don’t boast,

Be more but not most. 

But you see, I’ve lost.

Most of the time it takes to host 

The crowd of my wounded personalities. 

Each with their own modalities. 

To please, to put you at ease.

Or bring you to your knees.

Or to your feet, to walk away.

It’s fine, I'm built for the lack of Stay.