Revered sounds of silence mark the sky and its stars,

Which as a child, I would wish, upon those stars so far away.

I’d close my eyes and mutter imprints of breath through my looking glass,

Curling a stringed wish around the tip of my finger, and tying it to a helium dream,

Floating into the dark void pinpricked with soft white diamonds,

Flying into the eternal depths where my eyes tightened the farther I ventured,

Breathing in wispy hopes at the bend of every painted planet,

Razing a path through the darkness with sheer innocence.

Within this lucid world of mine I found solace, especially so, in one special place,

Where I could lay on clouds of diaphanous atmosphere and just smile,

Seeing a land of ivory fireflies, held taut in time like perfect statuettes,

Still and perfect, outlined by a palette of galaxies,

Spilling deep rainbows of infinite color across the landscape,

Fluttering to instant life, a field of butterflies rising into the sky,

Trails of cosmic light filing behind in unpredictable lines.   

It was all so beautiful, and easy to believe.

But then again, I was a child.

A child lost in the daydreams of a world beyond this one,

Where I could fly and turn invisible.

Where I could run away to Neverland,

Where I could cross blades with notorious villains.

Where I could be happy.

But then again, I was a child.

Now I’ve found that there’s no truth in these dreams

That once were my only existence.

Stooped in a trench of my own sorrows and defeats,

I spilled instead of rainbows, my tears,

Eroding deep into the earth’s core, polluting myself and the world.

Lost and confused among the coalescing words of a robotic society,

Where I am one of their statistics.

One of their conformities.

One of their deformities.

But then again, I’m not a child now.

Society may have labeled me,

Pinning names to my clothes and stamping insults to my skin,

But here I am, continuous and undeterred,

After many hesitant nights having a staring contest with a bottle of pills,

Wondering who will win between the two of us.

I always made bets on the other guy, but he seemed to always blink before I did,

Maybe that’s just because I hate to lose.

But then again, nowadays I want to give up.

Whatever hope once held me to the ground is gone,

Destroyed along with that dream world that I used to hold so dear,

Irreparable, drowned in the backwash of reminiscence,

Finding my staring opponent, blinking with less and less time,

Closing the gap between when I would give up and when he does.

I can’t help but think about how weak I am,

The one weakness that is forever stained in my brain,

That can’t be fixed with a good toss of the weights or a nice run around the track,

No…it’s irreparable, seemingly like me, after I lost everything.

Every dream that once made me smile.

Every dream that kept me from crying myself to sleep.

Every dream that loosened my pull on the trigger.

But then again, I’m not a child now.

Fear haunts my dreams now,

Fear of oblivion.

Fear of life twisting away into an endless void,

Where I don’t exist anymore.

I just end.

Although…in comparison, it doesn’t sound much different than now.

Maybe it would stitch me back together, after all,

I am broken, porcelain cracks shattering across my body, letting in the electric rain,

Suffocating me, yet everyone else seems to be breathing.

I write in blood, because it’s the truth.

In my blood are all the emotions that make me…me.

I told you what society thought of me, and what I thought of me.

Yet…I haven’t told you everything.

I am the writer of many things, shingling together a story,

But not just this story…My story.

The most important story for me…and I am,

Just that.

I am a deformity, the worst one, but I’m proud of it.

I am broken, a porcelain sea of cracks, but I heal.

I am the pen that stitches across the paper,

Losing words constantly when I need them,

Smiling at every challenge that it poses me.

I am better, finding the one outlet,

That electrified me. That freed me.

That gave me hope. The hope I needed to say…that

I am me.

Not the same me as yesterday.

Nor the same me as tomorrow.

But…

I am me.

And I close my eyes,

To dream like I did, when stars were wishes, and planets were freedoms, and hopes…were just hopes.

But that was all I needed.

That was all I ever needed.