
Thoughts of my younger self haunt me like fury and bloodlust.
Back then my pale neck ached from carrying sapphire crowns.
These days every sentence feels like a trap that will snap me,
And words slide in between my ribs until I bleed nouns.
My smile is drawn on every morning, not that it matters.
There are holes in my story but no one checks alibis twice.
There is a rope wrapped around my waist leading ambitions nowhere,
I wish this sadness was not a knife, wasting me slice by slice.
Those hot tears I once cried now give me frostbites each morning,
The bed rot consumes my heavy bones each night.
I used to think that sunrise could cleanse my chest of this sickness,
But it takes more than time to get to the gleaming light.
-Jackie