Cicatrixed

All the lives I could have led are washing over me, a tidal wave of could-have-beens, and I can’t breathe submerged underneath all of this imaginary joy and invented sorrow that somehow feels more real than my present ache and longing and inability (or maybe it’s refusal) to rejoice for everything I know is real, but I just can’t feel it *** and the air escapes my lungs in the face of all of this emptiness and absence

I opened a door that could not be closed *** inside I found all that I am saw glimpses of what I could yet become and I became unwilling to let go of any smallest part of my in- sight afraid I could lose yet another part of myself however newly found, however toxic (waste) I will hang on to every piece, afraid of who and where I could (or would) be without I am afraid of my past and the ignorance therein but equally so of the coming unknown yet perhaps most of all the uncontrollability of now so

You know, I always did see an odd beauty in the wreckage I could find a certain charm in broken things, like the devastation left by a wildfire or the rubble of a collapsed building, there is a strange aesthetic in the brokenness of both things and people *** I always wondered at the way the life still somehow lingers, like nature takes over abandoned places or grows back from the destruction, the ashes nourish new forms of life, different but just as miraculous, like trees grow out of decaying bodies, or tears cleanse the soul, and broken people have a weird way of still functioning regardless, like heightened empathy and unwanted wisdom grew from all that ugliness, I think maybe my fascination was born out of recognition and the wonder out of hope that maybe something could blossom from the ruins of me too, maybe I could regenerate too and maybe all the wrong that stunted my growth and strangled the life out of every

There was no space for me with you – the shadow you cast was so overpowering I could not have one of my own at all, I could not see myself whenever you were around, there was nowhere for me to grow, I had to make myself small to let you be big, it really wasn’t your fault any more than mine, I know some traits we cannot change it’s just a shame that mine was helping you climb by pulling the rungs from under my own two feet