Professional pretender

I wish I could rip myself to shreds

Mince her up and start again

I thought if I tucked all the bad bits away

They wouldn’t burrow in my gums 

Bleeding rivers

But they were barb wire-wrapped

Cutting me to the bone

On every choked out laugh

I was born wilting

Stretching the stitching

Ignoring the pops

Because maybe if I’m just right

Tidily tailored

Terminally together

I’ll finally be liked

Saccharine smiles rot my teeth 

Scream at frequencies unheard

Underneath stirs

An atrophied anger

Prescribed for the only one I know can take it

Pathetic bitch

Push-over

Professional pretender

“So do I!” 

“Same here :)”

“Me too!!”

Pre-sweetened words written just for you

You’ll never know how much I wish you’d

Pry past the script and find the subtext

Smell the desperation reeking in every syllable

And stay

Ask me what I really think

Tell me you won’t judge like I know you will

Defy my doubt

Parse through my performative perfection

Cancerous in every corner

Ease the infection in me

When will someone come and save me?

I plead

Or worse

What if the savior must be me?

But brittle, bendable bones 

Do not a hardened hero make 

Who molded me this way?

A formless figure 

So easily bent? 

Whose shoes stamped out the sparks in me?

When did my feet fill those soles? 

If I only I could just 

E x p l o d e

But the carbonation bubbling in my bones

Burns too much and not enough

So when I snap I do it quietly

A change of topic

A quivering lip

Smiles snipped at the corners

Little sacrifices no one sees

Until one day

I am all embers

And I wake up 

Choking

On

Ash