To Be Safe
Penned above my mirror, “you are safe within your body.” This longing to feel safe within myself eats me alive, no matter how hard I push it away with doctrines of discipline, or shun a softer way of speaking to myself, that is to say, I am numbed to the high of hatred. It no longer incenses me to battle, barrel between my brown eyes and jaw clenched under the oath of self-improvement - not self destruction - because to be better is to never believe you are good enough. Instead I stagger back, weapons lowered, palms skyward, imploring her forgiveness. I plead “I swear i’m innoce-” but everytime she interrupts, swallowing back my words. Echoing against my esophagus, bleating inside my body, until my throat is want for water and I cannot escape the shame of their meaning.
Relief; for you are unspoiled by self-indulgence, for you almost bled for kindness.
Arising in a barren room, so hostile to life, surely not the one I arrived in? I could’ve sworn there was a baby grand in the alcove of a bay window, with an unforgiving sun spilling upon a little girl, squinting with stubby neon fingers grasping a box of crayons. And a door cracked open, through which they’d peer every now and then and find her coloring, undisturbed.
Hands undulating in the pattern of clouds she was tracing.
Things I tell myself as I back out now, cautious. The war did not spare any corner of this decaying place. Still jealous of the others in combat, morbidly curious if more misery renders one stronger the moment I let light in. Solace in shame and fear is seductive when it is all you know. I worry I did not know it well enough before I let it go. All the while, cruel fascinations thieve my time, my mind, my right to take a shaky breath. Yet here I am, idealizing it. Aren’t I already too furious to be fearful? This isn’t the hill I want to die on. It seems I’d sooner erase everything particular about me than risk a single second just to see what if.
In daylight building a case against myself, at night indicted with a weakening will. Summoning regret in any moment of peace, it's rather hard to get a word in edgewise. This broken machine, caring not what damage it decrees, hums along in spite of my potential.
