Held by cold and rusted bars

And within it

Not all the time

But sometimes

I wonder if everything I do

Every step I take

Every breath I draw

Every experience I devour

Is only an attempt

At running away from you

An attempt

At drowning out the silence

That deafens me

An attempt

At scratching away the feeling

Of your hands as they tear through my soul

An attempt

At leaving behind a person

That took what they needed

And never looked back

To see if I was still there

Sometimes

Not all the time

But sometimes

I wonder

If enough distance might save

Whatever is left of me

it feels like running a spear through my own chest

and choosing to do so

to know I had been seen was not cause for relief

I was longing for a mask I’d fought to pack away

for the lights to shine once more on the stage of a performance I had closed the curtains on

suddenly, I realized

once they see you, in all of your vulnerability

My acceptance is loud and follows fire fights, shattered plates and mascara stained cheeks, disappearances for days on end in search of something i cannot name, it is the hoarseness in my cries after hours spent screaming and begging for a way to understand.

My healing looks like the blood that decorates the floor after removing daggers that have come to call my chest home. The wallpaper ripped off and scattered in an attempt to see something different paint these four walls. Notebooks I trusted to hold this poison I live with, stripped and strewn from door to door like a dismembered map of my own mind.

My acceptance is explosive and angry, the storm itself, not the calm after.