Gentle is a Foreign Concept.

I have a decision to make. Do I shut myself up again, close myself off like a painted vestal virgin? Or do I open my body, open it so wide it could split in two.

Cloistered in my bedroom, pacing and singing. Locked in, staring out and painting on suitcases. A safe prison of my own design. But a prison nonetheless.

But I've done this before. I know that I can slam the floodgates closed, wrap my heart back up in steel and tin and razorwire. If it jumps, my metal prickly fence will contain it.

But that is cowardice. To smile, to constantly pantomime.

I have no middle ground. My emotions run too hot, too cold. I can never be room temperature, never medium. My heart is beating, so I know I'm alive. And I hate it. I hate feeling my heart beat. It terrifies me. But I need to know I'm alive, and real.

I just want someone to see me.

Rip Us to Shreds...

Humans weren't born with talons. We did not evolve with clawed hands.

How is it then, I wonder that we are so adept at shredding each other? I feel like if we could see through people, most would appear as tatters.

It beats my will down every day. I smile at the woman on the street, and am greeted with a cold face and a vacant stare. I give my heart to a small shy man, and he casts it aside like so much garbage. I see a mother on the bus slap her small beautiful child.

It's a bog, and right now I'm sinking.

And I woke up screaming again...

No more twitches, little mini seizures gripping me. My throat is burned by the name I screamed over and over in my sleep, a name that I don't think humans can make with their mouths.

I dreamed of blood caked sheets, and slitted eyes. Being held. Being held down. I can never hit hard enough, scream loud enough.

Sometimes in my dreams I don't have hands, or a mouth. I wander like a vagrant, weeping for I cannot wail. These things should not spill over into my wakefulness.