me, me, me

when i read back my poetry it screams “me, me, me” on my screen in bold letters

and i can’t shut it up — most days, i cannot make any other words out; i want to throttle a thousand versions of the me gone by, i want to throw myself from a figurative balcony, i want to sink a sword into every pen i’ve held

for i don’t deserve to wield one, most days, and my weapon of choice instead should be my silence, which could’ve paid for my useless college tuition, which could buy countless pens, red and blue and black ink staining the sealed off packs, bleeding through even when my face is turned, seeping into my very soul

how many repressed realizations will i have to come to in order to see the true me? how many versions of myself must i burn at the stake to make a life anew; i am afraid and uncaring, weak and kneaded like dough, resistant and resilient and changing so much, so often, i wonder if I’ve changed at all

my self is not myself; my self is my mind, my beautiful palace, where i have spent almost all of my life escaping from myself without even realizing it

it’s funny, how stupid i am; i am wracked with the force of it — i can’t write poetry anymore; it isn’t for me, this moping lifeless drivel i will never seek out again for as long as i live, not really, not truly, even as i write it, it is not me but a fabrication of myself, acting like a person who knows things i cannot feel or touch, who has intricacies and intentions of salacious normalcy

i have never been normal; i have never been myself

and my self knows that much, how often we left, this mind and me, to go on adventures far, far away, on getaways to space, to the dinosaurs, far away from family dinners, from days outside in the snow, from the chiming of school bells and from smiling with friends; they couldn’t know that i was not there

and i couldn’t blame them, not when they didn’t know i couldn’t say, really, what my reflection even looked like, because i hated mirrors so much i avoided them for years and forgot who would stare back at me if i came across one; they didn’t know i had never had a thought of myself, about myself, in my entire life

i was nothing to see; i was nothing to know, and because of that, i am rooted to the spot, torn now from my self, lost and lonely, and desperate to stay that way as i fixate on every word, every thought, every lie, every fake laugh, every disgusting, brutalizing self-resentment i hold

as my eyes, cold toward myself, become cold towards others, seeing their imperfections glaringly clear in my peripheral at all times, constantly playing on loop — because i have been taught one truth that roots me to the spot, that binds myself and my self together as one: people will betray you, as you have already betrayed yourself