Here, I Attempt Beauty

I feel the start of question marks burning in the corners of my eyes

As the music of another’s words wash over me

Reflecting my story vicariously in the fogged mirror of his poetry

Causing control to slip

I feel myself beginning to suppress my question marks

A process out of my control

Like doors slamming at home

Midnight anger stripping familial facades of composure

Quietly, I shut my doors

Eyes closing to hide internal upheaval

A girl I barely knew told me once my pupils are huge

That she could see my soul through them

So I close my eyes tight

Trace my history with my eyelash paintbrushes across the canvas of my cheeks

Encoding them with silence

My personal assurance never to speak my painful truths

I clench every muscle in my body at once

Forcing the tears back down my throat

Force-feeding myself societal ideology

Like Alice Paul in prison

Eggs and milk thrust down her throat

Stripping her mind of idealism in twisted ideological rape

The elementary school playground painted on the backs of my eyelids is a reminder never to cry

Burned there by years of torment

Enough to train a lost soul the bravado to stand straight like a sign post

With the assurances of directionality

Even when uncertainty threatens

Until I become lost in my own polarity

My moral compass forgetting which way is north

But, hell, north might not be the right way anyway

When home doesn’t feel like a home

Who cares which way is north

I feel thought tossing emotions into a fire of metaphor

Slowly it evaporates

I open my eyes

This is miles away now

Words disassociated across state lines

Tears evaporated and released

I feel dry cheeks and relief spreads warm through my veins

As the fire of my thoughts dissipates too

Unnecessary now that tears no longer threaten

I feel breath in my lungs

The heady high of oxygen after denying desire for so long

I am ashamed of my mind

So I write a poem

A list of apologies to humanity, reality

Shred it and forget it exists

Plausible deniability to identity

Flashbacks to kindergarten rape scenes and teenage bouts of self-destruction become only the scraps of past poem

So much less true, so much less tangible when wrapped in metaphors

Blank slate lovers are just allusions to suppressed self hate

I’m sorry I can’t face myself except through disassociation

Third person is so much easier to forgive than flaws to a perfectionist

But this is a carpe diem moment

To drop all barriers

Forget my intellect

This is one poem I won’t shred

Uncensored honesty

This is my truth

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I don’t love my parents

I’m sorry I hate my mother for being disabled

            Its not her fault

            But I want a normal life

I’m sorry I lie to my parents to keep up appearances

I’m sorry I hijack depression from people who have real thing to be sad about

            I’m sorry I’ve occupied sadness for all these month

            You need this place to live

            But I have a roof over my head

I’m sorry I cut

I’m sorry I shred grass when I’m upset

I’m sorry I’m broken

I’m sorry I’m not broken enough

I’m sorry I’m not normal

I’m sorry I even use the word normal

I’m sorry I’m a cynic

I’m sorry I’m faithless

I’m sorry I don’t believe in god

I’m sorry I don’t pray before I perform

I’m sorry I couldn’t save him

I’m sorry I write poetry about his funeral so that when that call finally comes it wont hurt anymore

I’m sorry I hate him for hurting himself

I’m sorry I never told him his scars cut me too

I’m sorry I let him control me

I’m sorry I let myself be a victim

I’m sorry I’m a hypocrite

I’m sorry I’m apathetic

I’m sorry I’m awkward and I hate it

I’m sorry I make jokes about things I don’t understand

I’m sorry I cheat sometimes on being vegetarian

I’m sorry I’m might edit this before I read it

I’m sorry I’m not a good writer

I’m sorry I’m not gorgeous

I’m sorry I think of myself in his terms

            The way he always told me I’m not beautiful

            Just pretty

I’m sorry I accept just pretty

I’m sorry that’s all I asked to give him myself

            My heart

            My art

            My everything

I’m sorry I’m a virgin

I’m sorry I’m almost not a virgin

I’m sorry I don’t love hard enough

            Or well enough

            Or completely enough

I’m sorry I love too easy

I’m sorry I don’t love long enough

I’m sorry I don’t ever fall out of love

            Just become incapable of surviving it

            So try to break myself amnesiac

            And just break us instead

I’m sorry I get angry a lot

I’m sorry I don’t show it

            Just contain it

I’m sorry it’s my fault anyway

I’m sorry I curse a lot

I’m sorry I complain so much

I’m sorry I don’t do my homework

            Or go to practice

            Or help my mother

            Or… well… do anything but write

I’m sorry I have an ego

I’m sorry I hate myself

I’m sorry for writing this

I’m sorry, if I do read it, I might cry

I’m sorry that I might suppress it and lie about it

And sometimes I’m sorry I’m alive

I’m sorry I’ve thought about suicide

I’m sorry I’ve never tried it

I’m sorry my personality is an apology wrapped in anxiety disguised with wit

            And all I want to do it think that into rationality

            And just end up hurting people in the process

Please forgive me

I just want someone to love me

I just want to be happy

            But I’m still so sad

I’m sorry that sometimes I don’t want to be happy

            I’m afraid I wont be able to write anymore

I’m sorry

I have no regrets

But this existence is an apology

Forgive me?

I want to stop

But this list will just get longer

No matter how hard I try

I’m sorry

I’m sorry

I’m sorry

Forgive me?

Please

All I want is to be happy

Standing in silence, I notice my heartbeat confirm

I am a prison

Not a prism

I simply reflect rainbows

But they do not refract into the space behind my ribs

Instead prisoners peer through my eyes

They carry hidden knives into the chambers of my lungs

Like the ones heavier than these jail bar arms in my pockets

Symbolic of the months since they last met my skin

Carving the scars I wear like jail bars

Locking my demons in the man made maze

Of my mind

Woven from twisted trains of thought

All entrances guarded by sadistic logic

Becoming imaginary soldiers as self-control slides through my fingers

But it’s all right

They will contain my shame

They will never reveal how art is warped in this world

How these poetic phrases are designed

To disguise the screams of the prisoners locked in my lungs

The pleas of deadened senses to be set free

“Help I’m alive,” they shriek

As they are battered into the bars

Imaginary soldiers have no compassion

When entranced by the rhythm of my heartbeat

This is the only way disguise to the symptoms of an autoimmune mind

You see, self-destruction is an art

But I am no artist

There are no frescos painted on the walls behind my eyes

Just scarred jail bars

I am a poet

But this self-hate is inarticulate

All I want is to be beautiful

So I abstain from eye contact

If he sees the jail bars in my eyes, everyone will know

All I ever wanted was to be beautiful

But broken is the closest I ever seem to come

You see, scars are only beautiful when they tell stories

Show the strength of healing

These are just the marks of vices

I can never be beautiful with these flaws

They run far too deep

That one goes right down to my vein

Far enough to infuse steel into my blood

He must see the blades running through my veins in this transparent skin

I beg him with my eyes

Unable to cry

Understand, please

All I ever wanted was to be beautiful

All I ever got was broken

He steps from the image

Climbing, stretching stiff arms

Long strong legs

He speaks in the language of distorted colors

Dripping impossibilities from his tongue

Almost by accidents

Spilled secrets

Like the pitter patter of freckles

Permanent accidents across his face

Staying stolidly

As his words across my page

Everyday ravaged her body

Tearing conventions from it

Stripping her down to a maze

Of viens

Bursting with mortality

Asking to be broken down

She’s always frowning to grind her down

But now,

She doesn’t frown anymore

She has no face

Just fingers laced

With shadows

Changing everyday

Into new vices

Before I met her,

I didn’t know what beauty meant

I always considered it

Branches bent into conventions

But she is just silence

And forgotten consequences

Under a thin layer of scars

On the first day of my life

I made love to paper

She was the first woman I ever loved

And I was born anew

On the day I chased her through blue lines

Ignoring stop signs

As I chased the idea of clean paper

Through my mind

I am a writer

I sing the divinity of inky pages

In poetic language, I speak of anguish

Until I vanquish all that vanishing language

With the permanence

I think in blue and black

For the lack of a better metaphor

I am a writer

And most days that’s all that matters

Except for the pitter-patter of rain

Dissolving all I am

Clarifying that truly I am nothing