pretty package

 pretty package 

Today the world slipped through my fingers

An ache in my chest to be hurt lingered

When I was younger, I bruised my skin

From pale, to purple, red, and blue

Blackened and throbbing

I wanted a symphony of guilt and pain

To have my soul sobbing

As I drown in acidic, intoxicating rain

I chase every drop; I cry to be drained

The taste of sorrow is sweet and addicting

I learned from an early age

Violence is a beautiful cage

To ensnare like vines, and weeds,

Such a comfortable thing to plant; this seed

So I grew to like every cut and I bleed

For every stone I cast and place on my back

I enjoyed the chill of an empty lonesome shack

For violence is a comfortable thing

I’m critical, I’m mean

I wear the scars on my skin

Some girls only wish to be thin

I wish I was not born a sin

There’s a devil to grin

For every lash I slash

I tear apart my own back

For it is forgiveness I lack

Of myself to ever see

I am allowed to simply be

This makes me free

Yet I liked bruises and cuts a little too much

So, when I encountered my criticism

In such a pretty package

How could I not allow him to be my crutch?

Such misery can feel like you are safe

When this boy tells me I’m a pretty waif

Of course, in him I find home

When I spent so long both alone

And certain for my existence I must atone

I let him make a home in my bones

It was comfortable in a face so pretty

When he told me I was flawed

Yet graced me like any god

His existence had me awed

Because he was all of me

Everything ugly, everything hurt

I let him make me whole

Then turn me to dirt

He was truly only a boy

Who gave back a similar joy

To everything I subjected myself to

For years and years

For all my tears

I had myself here!

A pretty mirror

For he was all I hated about myself

So of course, I let him sculpt away

All my identity— a price to pay

For the love of someone just like me

I thought only in similar suffering

Could I ever be free

Familiarity is a funny thing

It has you gifting a broken boy a ring

It takes away your purpose

And makes him for what you sing

Because he was a pretty package

Of all my hate

Every cut I made

Every bruise

All the times I beat myself

Here he was,

Offering all the criticisms I gave to me

His sweetness and then vulgarity

Acted as the ultimate familiarity

How could I not have recognized

him and I as one?

When it was a sickly thing

Built before I ever met him and found the sun

He was but a boy

In a pretty package

He was but my hate

Holding onto me

Kissing me

Says I am nothing

I am weak

As he strokes my cheek

And promises to me:

He is the familiarity I seek