things are simultaneously falling apart and coming together, and i’m not sure how that can be but this paradox has become my constant and keeps me balanced between forward and back, keeps me grounded between then and when, and keeps me breathing between grow and die. 

Close your crystal eyes to this world of charcoal dust
The filth of reality pulses through our veins, radiates from the skies and flows through our streams
Contaminated, we thrive, existing yet codependent upon the energy of each other, for we are each dead inside ourselves.
I envy your youth, your innocence.
Your core self shines and exists, untethered to our world and its broken ways.
Your heart is still whole, and beats as an army of one drum.
But it’s rhythm is enchanting, and many of us other draw near to witness. I remain silent as they fawn over your novelty, your newness and your good. They want to claim you, clawing blindly to grab you and calling your name, but the swarm of dirty people and their voices meld together, forming a lull of ugly truths. It is easy to ignore, to tune them out.
I condemn them for attempting to take you, and expose you to their world. But it’s our world, I suppose as I find myself tiptoeing closer and closer to get a good look at you.
I desperately want you, to hold you and to protect you. But something prevents me from contact. Some force of nature or otherwise keeps my filthy hands from connecting with your shiny pure self.
The closer I come, the further away I feel. I’m growing colder, and older, and uglier. You would never want me. I finally approach you, and take one final breath before I open my eyes to the worlds latest marvel.
Gasping, I find myself unable to breathe. Your face startles me with recognition. I know those crystal eyes.
Having avoided mirrors for so long now, I nearly forgot what my features were. But you, an innocent, vulnerable, scared child, reflected what I used to be, what I used to stand for.
Frightened, I sprint away with any strength I could find in my body. But I realize, while running, that the faster I flee the clearer it becomes: I need you. I need to be with you, to embody you. I realize that you are here for me, not for them. They and their world can’t hurt you if I claim you first. I have to swallow my pride, or stubbornness, or fear, whatever is jeopardizing my progress, and reach out to hold you.
I can perhaps survive in this tainted world, if only I remember who I was, who I am, and who I am to be.

Just because the monster changed its shell, doesn’t make it benign. This disease, this entity, this being that has crept slowly but surely through my skin and nestled beneath my bones and my tissue. It screams out and rattles my tattered cage for attention. When I lash out to shut it up, it is calm and quiet. But only for a moment. This..thing.. Comes back each time with a new vengeance and a new strength. A kind of strength I am not equipped to match. I am torn between letting its wave of evil wash over me and drown amidst the misery, or fooling myself into believing I have some other sort of choice. I have shouted out in vain for a saviour but none has come.. I am truly and deeply alone. I am running out of reasons to tread when beneath the surface all is so still and sparkling..

i don’t normally pay attention to body image. but lately, i am so disgusted with myself. from the inside, my grotesque ugly self is being unveiled to the world. i see a monster looking back at me in the mirror. an ugly, pathetic freak. i grab the parts of my body that are too much and feel overwhelming shame. who am i to take limited space of the world? who am i to breathe and exist and live every day among beautiful, happy, loveable people? i’ll never be like them. i’ll never be anything. this is all there is, and all there ever will be. i can’t escape. i want to run, flee. But no matter where I go, there I am. I can never get far enough away from myself.