You ask me what’s on my mind. So, I fill my heart with ink and pour it into words hoping someone will read it and feel the agony carved into every stroke of every letter of every word.
I laugh at the world hoping the world has learned to see beyond the laughter and would ask me where it hurts. But I trace the edges of my heart, feel it crumble into the emptiness within and I know that I have no answer.
I sit with you and I wish you would look into my eyes because the body is just a shape that can be molded into a lie. But the eyes, the eyes can show you the castles of sand and salt and the fireflies and butterflies and the golden wings that wish to sail beneath the silver moon. But I wrap a chain around my heart and let its end float away into the sunset so that the world can grab onto it and pull it and rip my heart out into the spaces between worlds.
In the cold dead of night, you send me birds with words written on them and you tell me that I must read them and that the words are just words but every word crash into my soul and rips a hole in something that has no space for more holes. I write a story and stitch it with flaws and good intentions and warm wishes, but you take away the books and burn the pages and spread the ashes across the world.
You tell me that some words have no honor and leave no legacy behind. But every word doesn’t need letters and every song doesn’t need a voice. Sometimes the best songs are the ones you never sing, and the best words are the ones you never write.
You wrap your hands around my shoulders and tell me to look with my eyes, but my eyes are blind, and I watch you with my heart. With every beat and every silent thud, my heart wants you to tell me that all that is dark was once bright and all that is bright was once dark. It wants you to remind me that I have to stay here because here is where I’m needed.
To tell me that the chains keep the world safe from me. To tell me that I am running towards something good. To tell me that there is meaning in all of this. To tell me that the world needs me, more than I need it. To tell me that the next life will be better than this one and the thousand lives I’ve left behind. It wants you to tell me that when tomorrow comes, those who feel, will still honor our words and the sacrifices we have made and every whisper of joy we’ve left behind.