Do you know yourself?
How would you know if you didn’t know yourself?
Are you yourself right now?
How often are you not yourself?
When you’re not yourself, does yourself feel sorrow?
Is yourself ashamed of yourself for forgetting to be yourself?
Do you put yourself on before or after your socks?
It’s inevitable.
You’re going to lose yourself now and again,
Just make sure you tell yourself you love yourself
Stay awake.
You shouldn’t know how to be anyone but yourself.
She thinks that she’s glass.
Something breaks inside of her every time she sees her reflection
She thinks she’s a mirror
Or perhaps schizophrenic
Half glass, half stone
That she is breaking herself with herself
As most teenage girls do
She finds herself coal
Struggling to become diamond
She finds it unfair that she has to deal with the pressure
But will never become shiny
Never become loved.
She said I wish I was dead outside
Then people would stop
Questioning my innards
“They’re a bit too gray for all the pink
In your white face”
They’d say
I said I wish I was alive outside
Then people would start
Questioning my innards
“They’re a bit too gray for all the brown
In your black face”
They’d say
And I’d just be glad
They noticed me.
She was beautiful once
She’d glow brighter than every star
Her words no longer than a standard blink
Would resonate for hours
She was flawless.
She was sharp
But no sharper than those
needles
And after them
She found herself
dull
So she used them to make herself sharp again
Cyclical madness.
She was always my hero.
I wanted to be like her for so long
Tried to be her
heroine
But I was duller than I thought
And she got too
high to reach.
She couldn’t remember my name on cloud 9.
One time
I told her I was Jesus
She told me she was already in hell
So it didn’t matter if I had wings
I didn’t have the grip to pull her up.
She was beautiful once
But the needles got the best of my love.
And I watched her fall
Because I was never sharp enough
Because I never had the grip to pull her up.
She said I can’t see your soul anymore
It’s like your dead behind the eyes.
I can’t feel your heart anymore
Are you dead, my love?
I said I haven’t breathed in days
I may be dead behind your smile.
And oxygen tastes like poison to me now
So perhaps, love,
I am dead.
She said I haven’t smiled in days
So how could that have killed you?
I said your smile has been my life for years
Without it, I am empty.
Emptyness is relative
But I am empty
Dead behind a purpose.
You smell like peaches
On warm summer days. It’s too
bad you’re allergic.
I used to comb my ex’s hair
She’d purr sometimes
And when she did
I called her Kitten
I got a cat a while after
And he was young.
I called him Tigger.
Tigger was a kitten.
My Kitten didn’t like my kitten
Or the idea of any kitten but her.
When my Kitten died,
My kitten purred in my lap for hours
For fear I may drown in my tears otherwise
Cats hate water and kitten was no exception
He purred for hours, kitten did
And I called him Kitten
And almost instantly felt no further need for his purring.
He waits a bit
Hesitant
He tries to stand, to leave
But the body on the bed beckons him forward
He flashes back to youth
He remembers his mother changing his diapers, dressing him before school every morning
He flashes to prom night
To his date removing his garments with the utmost urgency and dominance
He’s become used to women commanding the coming and going of his clothing
And tonight would be no different.
“I think what would be best for the world . Is if females go on a 3 year break from social interaction to truly find themselves . Discover their flaws and their good qualities . Honestly just learn to love themselves before they go looking for love . Cuz yall getting annoying and bugging the fuck out ….. Cuz i dont know how you could love a nigga and not be in love with yallselves” -Ishmael
My boyfriend used to beat me.
Strike me while he stroked me.
Destroy me with an utterance
“Beautiful.”
He said I reminded him of oak trees
He loved the word “timber.”
My boyfriend said he loved me.
I’d never heard it before
It made me warm.
Warmth must be love
He makes me warm
So I must love him.
I’m cold alone.
My boyfriend used to play baseball.
He’d practice his swing with my jawline.
He said the crack sounds the same
Fracture and kiss
I never understood how love could be pain
I never understood love.
My boyfriend used to call me weak. And ugly. And useless.
Never my name.
He’d say “no one’s ever gonna love you like I do”
And I believed him
Cuz who loves a girl who don’t love herself?
My boyfriend used to be here.
Until I became okay
He said “if it doesn’t hurt you, I don’t want it.”
I told him to go fuck himself
Cuz no one loves a sorry soul
No one loves a girl who don’t love herself.
And I can take pain
I can take hurt
I can take sorrow
But I can’t take life without love.
So I’ll do what you never let me.
I’ll make myself warm.