I ❤️ PAIN

SMOKING HOT

i don’t come from beginnings.

beginnings hear my name and lock the door.

i was born halfway through the sirens,

wrapped in a hospital sheet

that already smelled like somebody leaving.

i been arriving mid-disaster since breath one,

mouth full of smoke,

heart in a borrowed jacket,

talking fluent almost.

i don’t enter rooms—

i haunt the doorway first.

i don’t heal—

i practice bleeding quieter.

time don’t touch me normal.

it bends.

buckles.

moonwalks.

cuts the deck.

deals me yesterday

with tomorrow’s fingerprints on it.

some days are reruns

wearing fresh bruises.

some laughs ain’t mine—

rented teeth,

borrowed cheeks,

a smile with somebody else’s lease on it.

DMs coming in sinful before my spirit even clocks in,

love talking nasty like a prayer with no church,

temptation typing in all caps,

and me—

cold-blooded, warm-handed,

trying to act like I ain’t read it twice.

for Christ’s sake,

some people pray with folded hands.

i pray by limping forward.

one step, then another,

like God only understands motion.

clean fade.

black heart.

carhartt stitched with quiet wars.

pain tucked in the seams

like receipts i’m scared to total.

stressed like rent due

in a house i own.

worrying over fires

i already put out.

arguing with ghosts

i already evicted.

standing in the kitchen

with my whole life paid for

still feeling like the lights might cut off.

all i got is my words

and my nerve.

my scars learned how to grin.

my grin learned how to lie.

scarface in the mirror—

tony montana if the mansion was a mindset

and the cocaine was coping.

say hello to my little ache.

a deaf sentence.

a life sentence.

heard that.

ain’t that the truth?

i been flexing through self-sabotage

like a goat on thin ice.

damn, fool.

i dripped so hard

i started my own weather.

made waves,

then found out i was leaking.

every drop hit the floor

and became evidence.

now i’m dripping so much

i designed my own damage.

new carhartt stained.

i-heart-pain embroidered crooked.

fashion week for the wounded.

runway built out of bad decisions

and everybody clapping

like collapse got rhythm.

can you help me?

i’m bent.

not broken enough to stop,

not whole enough to stand straight.

songs playing in the background like commands:

bend me.

keep bending me.

break me in

until the hurt fits custom.

red bottoms,

blood prints with every step.

innocence or in a sense—

depends what it cost.

depends who paid.

depends who watched me bleed

and called it style.

i want the smoke.

incense following me like a rumor.

grief burning slow,

thick as confession,

perfumed like a funeral

that dressed too nice.

high-fashion heartbreak.

luxury stitched over loss.

designer regret

with my name misspelled on the tag.

a shadow behind me

trying on my jackets.

skeletons in the closet

getting tailored,

posing in the mirror like,

“this fit go crazy.”

and it do.

that’s the sick part.

pain got taste.

trauma got accessories.

even the ugly in me

know how to match.

laughing and crying

at the same damn thing.

crazy?

a bit.

crayons split in half

still color the empty space.

broken things still make pigment.

ask the child in me

who kept drawing suns

with no yellow left.

i been fueling rides

to my own struggle.

uber cheap.

lyft offered by voices

that never intended to stay.

made a living

out of driving me away

like i’m the cab

and the fare is my peace.

still traveling

with baggage from old versions of me.

still aware

i come with red flags

folded like circus tents.

throwing them high,

clown shit,

laughing while the whole tent catches.

when the days got long,

i lifted iron

so nobody could tell

my spirit was starving.

plate after plate.

rep after rep.

to you, it looked like strength.

to me, it was theater

with dumbbells.

inside,

my heart was at its own wake.

flowers everywhere.

no body in the casket.

just silence dressed formal.

opening my eyes

felt like betrayal,

so i kept them shut.

but now—

now i’m wide awake,

and the light got hands.

smiling saved the day,

but barely.

truth is,

i’m the strongest man alive

if survival counts as reps.

if getting up

after every private funeral

counts as cardio.

if not becoming the worst thing

that happened to me

counts as discipline.

but all this flexing?

it keeps tearing my peace in half

while the world calls it healing.

everybody loves a comeback

until they see the limp.

everybody claps for the muscle

and ignores the wound

that taught it how to grow.

so hold me when i’m here.

really here.

not filtered.

not captioned.

not the highlight reel

with the pain cropped out.

hold the 3 a.m. me,

the ceiling-talking me,

the answering-my-own-prayers me,

the me that laughs too loud

because silence knows my government name.

correct me when i’m wrong,

but do it soft.

i flinch in rooms

where nobody’s swinging.

i bleed behind punchlines.

i say “i’m good”

like a magician says “watch closely”

right before disappearing.

wrap me up

like the last verse of a spoken word poem,

when the poet stops performing

and accidentally tells the truth.

i keep trying to wax poetic

around what i already know:

i’m scared of my own shortcomings.

scared of the things

i still can’t figure out.

scared that if i say it face-to-face,

my voice might become a witness.

so i hide the confession in lyrics.

follow the line breaks

and you’ll find the body.

listen close

and i’ll tell you everything.

but when truth talks back to me,

it goes in one ear

and out the other,

like my skull got an emergency exit.

i’m pulled both ways—

tug-of-war tightrope,

toeing the line

while dragging my storms behind me.

brainstorming

inside an actual storm.

trying to find middle ground

in a room with no floor.

then somehow,

when honesty and hope

stop fighting over the microphone,

the loudest voices

learn inside volume.

chemistry forms.

signed.

sealed.

survived.

and if i give it all up—

the armor,

the edge,

the jokes sharp enough to cut first,

the script i memorized

so nobody could improvise hurting me—

if i bleed it out

just to keep you whole,

will you still call it love

when i’m not performing?

will you love me

when i’m not clever?

when the metaphor breaks?

when the punchline misses?

when my pain

doesn’t dress up nice

for company?

or will i become

a whisper in your chest

that makes you smile

right before you remember

why you’re crying?

love me when i’m gone.

not vanished—

just gone from the act.

gone from the mask.

gone from the man

who made drowning look like dancing.

love me when i’m sitting in light

and still feel like shadows.

when my roots are learning

to grow where no sun volunteered.

no light at all.

heard that.

love me then.

love me mid-loop,

mid-loss,

mid-laugh,

mid-“i swear i’m fine”

with the whole room flooding.

when they ask how i got here,

tell ’em i walked a dead-end road so long

it got embarrassed

and turned into a beginning.

tell ’em the pearly gates were open,

but i liked my new gait—

the limp had rhythm,

the stumble had drums—

so i kept going.

straight facts,

crooked lies.

same thing

when the mouth is tired.

villainous menace

or menacing villain—

either way,

bad dude with a bruised halo,

standing in the wind

like the weather owes him money.

no sound.

just blowin’.

just hunger.

just food memories and family static.

the soup scandal of ’88

still steaming in the corner.

pops tripping,

saying,

“ask him for my bike back.”

and me saying,

“man, you know i wouldn’t trip.”

but i did fall though.

what bike?

out here tripping.

wrong way.

one way.

anyway.

thank God it’s Friday.

what?

i shoulda stayed my ass home—

but home was the first place

that taught me how to run.

so here i am,

gone off love,

high off almost,

low on answers,

dressed like survival got a clothing line,

walking through dead ends

until the road gets tired

and opens.

no beginning behind me.

no ending brave enough

to stand in front.

just me,

my words,

my nerve,

my scars in a smile,

and this impossible heart

still beating

like it got something

to prove.