Undressing

Eyes flicker as anxiety
climbs the walls
of a heart that struggles to beat

Every. Single. Second.

Voices stain my mind,
obsessive lists of aches and
memories that can no longer be
romanticized -
numbness lives here now.

Peel back my flesh
and it'll reveal words
chiseled on my bones,
gallons of tears I've stored
for the days I allow myself to rain.
(Today is not that day.)

I've battled ideations
of plucking veins and
looping them into a familiar knot
but I rope myself back in
off the ledge

Every. Single. Time.

I'll never be a transplant candidate,
depression is seared onto my organs,
a plague I'll never find a cure for.

(Anger is the only fuel
my lungs agree to absorb,
the only time I can truly breathe.)

I am nothing more
than an empty home
that cradles mental illness
and undresses a diagnosis
titled Poetry.

-

Please forgive me,
One. More. Time.

© Hannah H. 2018