"the romantic"

a poem about my psyche

Creative, individual, identity.

I am familiar with my shadow self. I invite her for tea daily.

Pin a red thread to my chest so it connects to yours. I don’t want to be alone.

Significance, empathy, sanity.

I carry shards of the mirror I saw myself in, letting the fragments cut my skin.

What identity should I wear today? Roll the dice. It’s a one-in-twenty chance.

I try on your qualities, see how they fit in the sleeves, how tight they are against my stomach.

Wear them for a day, shed them the next.

I envy your love. I envy your goodness.

Let me stitch them to my skin so they become part of my body.

Honesty.

I can be unstable. Combustable. Will you lend a steady hand?

Risk the burn for me.

My fists white knuckle the pain in an unrelenting clutch, and I nurse my wounds.

I’m so attached to the bone I found, I’ll starve to death gnawing on the calcium.

“Believe a new tale,” let the old fable fall like scales from my eyes.

Serpentine. Jealousy.

Morbid thoughts crawl into my psyche, but I can face myself thorns and all.

Fangs retract and grow. Shame builds, expands, explodes.

Poison thrums with the blood in my veins. Mithridatism is my practice, but you are not immune. Could my toxins be made into a panacea?

Comfort and chaos. Selah.

I am a storm of love and ache. You never know when I’ll strike or what my lightning holds.

Melancholy.

There is more inside my chest than withered agony.

I pull the ribcage open for you to see.

Notice the bird residing there, the song it sings against my flesh.

Her notes are woven with sincerity. Hear the symphony.

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There’s a chronic need in my brain which throbs constantly, asking to understand who I am. It cramps and thrashes against my skull. Who am I? I don’t know. But, if I’m not being myself, am I truly living? I’ll excite you, share my universe with you in all its galaxies, and then after a while you’ll escape my arms and wonder why I’m so much. Don’t mistake my care for manipulation. I am contradiction made manifest. A people pleaser, an eldest daughter, and a middle child, someone who has always correlated my worth with how much others accept me. Handwritten letters are points. Love notes are a scorecard. I take on too much. I have only two hands, but I try to hold everyone’s. Because, affection is currency and I long to be rich with its tender. And there, in the mental swirl, yearning takes a form of its own, opens its maw, and swallows me whole.

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{cover art credits: Pinterest | If you know who the artist is, let me know. I couldn’t find them in any searches, but I love their painting style.}

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