visionary

I’ve been faking all of my visions.
A false fucking prophet;
I am selling cynical snake oil and promises in exchange for progress.

You make beautiful things

The world is distilled in your veins as a drug

And your blood turns to watercolor

Saturating the canvas

When sickness takes root in your lungs

You cough poetry between gasps of air

Spitting truth into tissue

The ground’s pull is meaningless

But lifelines circle around you

Invisible

The captive temporality

Of your painted mind
Rests against reverence

synonym

Is the word frantic? It’s whatever keeps me hungry, quick to intoxication and slow to reason. It’s whatever keeps me holding to plans without realizing the damage they cause. My skin is fraying with the threads that hold my stitches.

Jump

I'm lost,

trapped on a ledge I didn't know I climbed,
waiting for your voice to tell me:
it's just a few feet off the ground. 

The fall won't hurt.
I don't trust you,

but I love you,

so I jump. 

Little steps

I am standing in front of a mirror, in a hotel room in Tennessee. I called my little brother to tell him that I wanted to hurt myself. He talked me off the roof; now I'm somewhere in the middle, at a height where the rocks would paralyze, but not quite kill me. The view isn't quite as good here. 

I spend my night nitpicking, memorizing every piece of me that I hate. The smell of my skin wanders into my nose and makes my stomach turn, reminds me of every warm mistake it's pressed against. I self-medicate with sleeplessness and stimulants. I am the healthiest strung-out alcoholic you know, always looking for a drug to pass the time. 

I thoughtfully chew the last of these little pills, waiting for my stomach to turn down the volume. My skull is a bitter echo chamber, but I don't even scowl when the chemicals hit my tongue. I'm proud of myself; it's the little steps toward self-control that count.