Sicker = “Healthier”

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“No one ever imagined. No one ever knew.

Nobody could tell because you weren’t that blue.”

The more you faded, the more it was praised

And everyone saw your illness but believed –

Your standards were raised.

So you became “healthier” when you got sicker.

“The pulsating veins and blood shot eyes will pass

But you will forever look like a sticker.”

A prize. A gift. The golden medal for someone else

Who never notices how pain rots on the shelves

But sex sells.

You never relied on those ideals, but they lived within you.

Too deep rooted to untangle from your truth

So no one ever knew

How the broken version of you was all fiction,

How you begged for mercy to nights

As they created the most friction

To a troublesome concept of worth in a young mind.

Why be kind? Why resist and leave it all behind?

Truth be told –

Almost no one that pushed this onto me so sincerely

Truly made it out, never saw it clearly.

But you don’t owe a single second of illness

To people who believe your existence is a grimness,

And to those still imposing standards on others I can only tell:

Save your self-hate speeches masked as advise for yourself.

Choke as long as needed. I’ve been doing it since I was twelve.

-JW

Décolletage Cuts

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My promises are as cheap as my perfume

But, love, I paid for it with my pride

So don’t stick it up my nose, let doom be doom.

…I’ll meet you on the other side

Without your backstabbing smile.

My hopes are as low as my décolletage cuts

And don’t try to convince me that it’s too much

Because two-faced boys dance where everything rots.

I’d suggest we never keep in touch.

I wasn’t the joke but you treated me as such.

My past is as vivid as my lipstick stains

So don’t play with the devil to ease your pain,

Don’t suck me dry just to fill up your veins.

Take your ego down the shallowest of drains –

Or keep your distance, stay in your lane.

-JW

The Cage

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You might be infected with your prejudices and I don’t have the cure.

Every day it’s a back and forth between me being aloof and you being insecure.

Holding up the frozen front takes too much effort to manage as a hobby,

And you will never hear this poem, but without me you would still need to lobby.

Being accepted is a necessity for most – for you it’s a desperate need.

The loyalty train missed your station, but we were young, dancing to “Dying Breed”.

We were losing control to chilly evenings, promising what we didn’t understand,

And I still recall the look on your face when I was holding somebody else’s hand.

The moon ran smoky pictures of our better days by my empty stare…

If your prejudices cost a thing, every single soul in your path would be a millionaire.

-JW