Icy Hot

Your silence cuts into me, flaking off my sanity. I hear the cracking of my shell as it crumbles bit by bit.

“Put on a brave face,” I whisper to myself. “It’s all easier when you don’t feel anything.”

There’s a mask on my flesh,

These aren’t my hands,

I’m not a real thing.

And really, who’s to say?

I reach for you,

But you always slip away.

It’s okay.

I’m not real and it doesn’t hurt

If I just wish myself cold.

Icy hot.

How could you wish me to disappear?

Those words uttered from the lips I kissed a thousand times.

They seemed so soft once, before.

Now all my eyes can see are the way the centers crack and the edges collect spit as you laugh, distantly, yet right in my face.