Branded (POETRY)

Every word said

Every action

Every breath

Is branded with iron into my skin

Implanted into my blood

Carved into my bones

As reminders that I am not worthy

I am lacking and lacking and lacking

My head is filled with buzzing bees that drown out the kindness in your honeyed words

I only hear the daggers you place against my heart

Small but sweet daggers, ones that draw little blood but feel like mortal wounds to someone so fragile I hate and I hate and I hate myself

My love for you is infinite only to feel the finite definitions of your shape for me- I feel I am trapped in a shell of an image you conjured to love

The tenderness feels like violence

A terror awaiting beyond the lazy calm of this moment

I don’t rest, not for a moment, not while knowing that you will brand new with your distaste only hours later without intending it, and it will be the only marks on my body that I will remember vividly

Kisses don’t appear on skin

Scars outlast lovedrawn bruises

I yearn at arms length waiting for a blade to knick my skin but beg for you to hold me close to you even if I bleed out on your chest

I am scared

There is a holy home in my chest that aches with dread

For i hollowed myself out for you to crawl in I made myself infinite at the cost of my madness

My distance is but a kindness to you, a saving grace to protect you from the loss of myself

I am far from eternal, darling

I am unwaveringly mortal