to love this world

sometimes i feel so far from it all that i can hardly stand it; i’m drifting away from this place and all the parts of me that are known by another are mourning, dying, clutching at their necks, cursing themselves until they foam at the mouth

you’re always happy, i was told by another, who was staring into the abyss of my own shattered mind and seeing nothing but a simple vacant pleasantry staring back, a stiff smile convincing enough to make a city wail for me, heaving me upon their aching shoulders, all as i stare at the sky, the sun, the endless world about and try, try to make sense of those words, trying to fit my experiences around them—you’re always happy, it seems—stretched tight around the corners of my heart like coarse leather, like a desperate hug from a loved one long gone

if you knew me, you wouldn’t love me, i think to myself, all the time

what is it to know me? is it to hear every thought, every foul disgusting thing that crosses the edges of my brain; is it to mourn every loss that i have mourned, or is it to peer inside my heart and see what stares back? but it is nighttime now; the dusk has fallen over my body and this chest holds nothing now, empty darkness and hollow bones, and i am tired, too tired, to reach within and feel anything there anymore

still, i pulse with this ache, this longing for meaning; i chase beautiful moments in the mind until they fade away, leaving me with nothing but the real, jagged edges that dig in instead, replacing the dreams with harsh stares and sharp edged swords, with shackles around the wrists of a girl long gone, and they burn, and they dig in until my flesh is raw and red and warm, and no one knows it

and no one will; i have made myself unknowable, for even when i look upon myself in the mirror i am unsure of what i see, staring back with blank eyes and a gaunt face and a million goals unreached and rotting below the surface of an empty smile—i think i’m fading away, left with nothing but my worries and my constant self-condemnation, for to punish myself for being alive is the only way i know how to love this world when i do

and i do