No

Eighteen years,

Drawn out fears,

Shed the dying light

Like a coat of shadows 

Come, child, into the light.

They tell me I’m resilient

They tell me I’m brave

They tell me I’m strong

But do they see the things they tell me

Are all completely wrong?

My footsteps skim the pavement

Too afraid to leave a mark

Yet too stubborn to leave without a slight imprint.

Maybe leaving a thread of evidence will convince me I’m still here. 

I'm still me.

Tear streaks leave rivers down my face

Filling a deep void, a blank space.

Where bruise like shadows lurk

With sleepless nights, and unshed thoughts

Where I alone walk the line 

Between belief and giving up. 

Words, words, words

Leave me 

Thinking, praying, reading, believing, bleeding

Over a comatose existence in which the heroine falls prey

To herself.

How can shoulders hold

Against gravity,

Even existence alone? 

I crumble, singular, as a ruin falls to dust

I wish I were allotted that same dirt encrusted must.

Push, Tell, Alert, Carry

All I hear

All I do

All I say

Is like rain washing away humanity

Which I’m not sure I feel deserving

A place in a heavy heart

A spot in a burden of a body

A petal in a drowning ocean

A pairs of eyes bent on closing.

No

I demand.

No

I shout.

No

Is the antonym of defeat.

No

Is the anthem I wear.

The song I trust.

The only companion 

That I must defeat.