A hidden crack posted behind the bars of a crooked smile

you tell me it’s beautiful.

A photo from 2 years, 1 year,

6 months

all hide the cracks and crevices God designed

on a ‘perfect’ picture frame.

A whole complicated world bursting through the gaps in the fault.

A fault line in a desert, if an earthquake occurs, would anyone realize what’s happened?

Would anyone see the teeth of sanity grind against one another in a haste of hassle?

A tree falls in a forest, but no one is around to see it.

Does it make a sound?

 

It sounds like an animal, trapped in a cage.

It sounds like my nails scraping against the wall of self-worth.

The blood soaked brick, not budging though I’m clawing away my fingertips until there’s nothing but bone.

A bag of bones, that’s all anyone is.

A bag of cracked, dented, unholy bones.

If self-loath is a sin, hell has a packed room full of people like us.

Those who hold that weak skeleton behind a locked door.

Who hide the crack behind the bars of a crooked smile.

 

Maybe if you listen hard enough, you could hear the sorrow in my heart beat.

It races at the sight of you.

My pupils grow 20 meters each time I lay them on you.

You heard the rattling of the prisoners chains in my voice,

I saw them crawling over your warm, tan skin.

They don’t belong on you,

but I suppose my breath pushed them onto you.

I want to yank them back into their cell and lock them away, if it would keep you from meeting them.

As if the crime they already committed on my memory wasn’t a torture enough, they want to break free on your soft cheeks.