Bright Colors

If I've fallen now, at least I can say that my eyes can only
look upwards. But that isn't right. I constantly look down,
and I can perceive unplumbed depths that call to me in voices
sweetened by my own lack of hesitation. I am numb. No -- less
than that -- deadened to sensation to such an extent that I long
for the things that used to cut and bruise and turn my insides
black with their onslaught. I am perhaps a masochist. Or is it
that I simply long for bright bursts of color, and I do not
care if they are the reds of blood and the purples of
congealing sorrows? For happy things: the yellows, the pinks,
and the greens seem so distant, altogether garish
and brazen, that I fear they would disrupt the collage
I've built within myself.

Burn It Down

The days blend into one another, dissolving like paper on the concrete after so much rain.
The burning echos of your words fade, and the dull bruises in all those dark places barely ache anymore. Who were we back then, that we fought so viciously? We sought purchase on one another's weaknesses like desperate people going to war, trying to gain ground when there was nothing of value to win. Did you see how cramped I felt, inside of my own skin? I was clawing, scratching my way out -- you were only in my way. It wasn't you I wanted to hurt; it was myself and my own foolishness that I was trying to destroy. I wanted to smash the mirror that reflected the sorry soul that avoided my eyes, day after day, but you stood in the way of my fist! You loved the crumpled being that I was, and I perversely, unconsciously, needed to prove to you that I was as despicable and undesirable as I knew myself to be. So I lit a match and I threw it upon us, deliberately destroyed something I knew could save me because I needed to burn a part of myself to the ground before I could begin again.