buckling beneath a moment of self pity

.

sometimes i feel like i'm just picking up scar after scar after brand new bright and shiny scar.

.


waking from an unsatisfying nap at 7pm, i think: i am not the only sad person in the world.

i am not the only sad person in this city.

i am not the only sad person in this house.


i can remember the fantasies i had as a child. so often, hours and afternoons spent in the haze of a trance, wishing for blindness. i wanted so badly for beauty not to matter. not the way in which it seemed to. i chose to trust my nighttime logic. the one used against bedroom demons: eyes slammed shut, covers pulled up, no loose toe left to dangle, to taunt and tempt their eager, dripping teeth; the promise of a simpler physics: that if you couldn't see them, they couldn't see you.


years later,

with eyes closed

i lay in the large, warm square of sunlight

yawning through the sliding glass door.

the world behind my eyelids becomes a deep and welcoming red.

i lay back

wanting not to know

who might be looking at me

.