I am what I am.

I am a blazing star until my doubts extinguish me. I am a lover of angels and myths and fiction until it becomes too real. I am a pessimistic, realistic believer moving at my own pace. I am the worst sibling in the world—even my mother would agree. I am a caretaker with a scalding whip. Excuses are not welcome.

My life is mine and no one else’s--until I allow their gazes to burrow underneath my skin and their words poison my spirit. Until I let the darkness chain me to the ocean floor, never to feel the sun’s warmth again. Until I stop jumping for that golden key that is still just out of reach.

Until then, my life is mine.

I never bring an umbrella, even when I know it will rain. I need to stand still and let the water soak into my bones. I crave the sensation of my skin crawling and my teeth chattering, while my body shakes so violently I’ll splinter in half. My tongue grows heavy and my blood congeals, but my fingers cannot cease their itching. I need to taste it and envelope me whole; smothered by the feeling that I’m part of something—that I am alive.

Sometimes my fire burns so brightly, so fiercely, that my fingernails cut into my palms to keep me grounded; rooted in reality. The red milk fills a coffee cup while a salamander crawls through the broken china. My cracks already show as I poorly reconstruct a pyramid with marshmallows and toothpicks, insulated with the duct-tape of denial. This little light of mine might be dulled, but I am desperately trying to rekindle it. Other days I smother it with anything in sight--I am constantly searching for a balance. One day I will succeed, however, not with these nails in my hands.

I am not meant to be understood, merely taken as I am--a contradiction and a mystery, tied together with worn elastic bands.

I am what I am, and nothing can break me--

Not even myself.