This is Not Art

Anxiety-ridden pen tapping

Disguised as alluring, melancholic beats

Stress-biting nails bare

Until blackened self-hate

Pours out of the tips of your fingers

Used as paint

To create a semblance of identity

To create an everlasting mark

To create art--

But this is not art.

Self-loathing embedded in each cell of your body

With deterrent seeping out of every pore,

You begin lose count of the sleepless, caffeine-saturated nights

Only to begin keeping track of your demeaning demons

Who whisper lavender lies

Beating into the echoes of your skull

They paralyze you

With the vomit-inducing fear of mediocrity,

With the burning temptation to purge all of who you are,

With the sugarcoated deceptions of beauty--

The only thing they allow you to stomach--

They paralyzed you.

Having your lungs filled with ash

And your stomach empty with deception

Making your head’s hellions joyously dance

You matriculate them.

Creating generous gashes along your inner thigh,

Wiping away the devilish fiend’s victory from your bottom lip,

And biting lips till blood trickles down your chin,

Hoping it will eradicate you from yourself.

This is not beauty--

This is death.

Starting from the mangled, bloody pit of self love

To the thin, brittle hairs,

To deteriorating teeth and smiles,

To deadened eyes--

And it is not alluring.

It is not beauty.

It is not art.