Or Simply Nothing At All

I never know when to expect this hurricane

Just that it devastates my soul until I recover

Give me a day or two to bottle up this trauma

Just leave me alone and let my mind scatter

You notice the signs, little hints wrapped in melancholia

I’m sure you can piece the puzzle together, can’t you?

My fists clench, my heart thunders and my love wavers

I try to be good, I swear; it’s just I’m not made for fairy tales

My father’s anger becomes mine in an instant

My vision turns blood red in the blink of an eye

This constant yearning turns into an obsession to become more withdrawn

And just like that, I leave footprints of filthy regret everywhere I don’t belong

Everyone expects the best from this body

As if I were nothing but a machine made to please

My good deeds pile up, my straight A’s speak even louder than me

But can you still hear these soft whispers under all that greatness and ease?

A desperate creature stoops far lower than you could fathom

I claw at my chest and try to reach my heart in affirmation

That I am indeed living, that I am in fact beating, that I am surely capable of feeling

That this beginning doesn’t define me, and neither will my tragic end stop me from failing

But then tell me when my fingers curl around this thumping muscle, why I desperately wish to still disappear?

Why I wish—like a little girl—that that they didn’t see my beady tears, or silent sniffles, or paralyzing fear?

For even if I have an achilles heel and I have gone all soft and benevolent inside here,

My pulse lashes out sometimes, and only then does my hostility become prevalent

I’d like to think my love is contagious

But I’m afraid it is rather fleeting

And when my happiness is gone

My sadness turns into careless weeping

I sigh as I say, for what seems like the millionth time:

"I’m sorry for not doing better, my love."

I know I should’ve tried harder, fought rougher or played dirtier

If only I were someone else’s daughter

If only I were someone else altogether

I say I love touch and yet I go so far to avoid it

I flinch and turn my back on those I pretend to care about

I’m touch starved and touch repulsed, I wish to be everything at once

Or simply nothing at all.