Yourself

a poem

Image Credit: Depositphotos

they don’t like you

and

when has that ever mattered before?

two cyclones, bearing down,
eclipsing my perfect row
of something like
security

i want so much to be brave,
to be alive in my skin,
but every day i ask myself —
why?

why do i persist
when i matter
so little?

why do i persist
when i strive
so little?

no one has any answers
because my world is small —
suffocatingly small —
until i can’t breathe

the knife bears down —
all on my own, all on my own —
and i don’t know what i'm doing
with this happenstance of being

i call my own

the breath rattles through me,
so much so that i can feel myself
become numb to the world
until i can’t sing myself