like cracked shells

my insides feel gutted even though  
binge smoking and binge eating    
usually offers the contrary.  
   
i have been staring at a wall  
that stares back at me.  
these walls shut me in, unable to escape  
even the most sinister of my thoughts  
as i lie awake at night listening to others fall in love,  
ignoring the window that overlooks where all this began.  
   
the flashing oven clock is blinding in the darkness  
the time is all wrong, but then again,  
everything is wrong  
like how my boots rubbed my skin raw all night  
and every cigarette i rolled was unsatisfying,  
and there aren’t enough distractions to dry these eyes.  
   
this heart will never break  
but it definitely pushes the boundaries  
as i sit and begin to piece together the answers  
to questions i have no response for.  
   
how does it feel to let go of  
everything you have created with the entirety of  
heart    
mind  
soul?  
   
how does it feel to loosen the grip when  
your knuckles are white and hardened    
from clenching protectively this long?  
   
how does it feel to know you are no longer a shelter?  
   
i knew it was going to rain before i saw the clouds  
and felt the frail shiver of a first drop. my greatest  
and worst intuition; to predict when the universe is    
about to wane and shed its  
merciless tears.  
my shoulders buckle under the weight,  
i am the tiny insects that drown in the downpour.  
   
but my pain grows like a firm tree,  
withered, bent but undying. it grew from    
immense beauty but it disgusts me nonetheless  
because this tree will not ever bring me life.  
   
i despise all that i feel.  
i despise the person i was, is & will be,  
because letting go of all of this  
leaves nothing but a cracked and homeless shell,  
tampered by an angry world.  
   
i leave this to definition,  
not karma, because karma can be forgiving,  
and this will never budge,  
unmoving like the night’s overpowering glare.  
   
ruins are beautiful,  
but beautiful things ruined are    
hard to comprehend,  
and that is why i am lost.  
ruin defines all i touch,  
all i love, all  
i become.  
the lover, the daughter, the friend, the sister,  
the fucking mental case.  
   
the best way to let go is  
to realise i created a disaster.  
   
one day i will find it in myself to disappear,  
the leaves will stop at golden brown,  
the cold air will hold still,  
and i will retreat, steadily and silently,  
   
these clocks are ticking  
time breathing down my neck;  
the world takes pleasure in feeding this monster    
inside me, listening to it screech and tug as it grows.  
   
it is hungry for agony, digging deeper within;  
unleashing this psychological beast  
will make my physical lack of  
disillusioned psychosis and broken mugs  
completely redundant.  
   
but perhaps i don’t understand;  
done being depressed all wrong  
since it took close to a decade for someone closest to me  
to ask if i thought i was depressed.  
   
this is when i realise  
i have lived in the world’s peripherals for the past twenty-two years.  
   
i have shunned and been shunned by all I believe in,  
i’ve kidded myself in thinking i have to be strong for them  
and i spent a long time  
giving a shit enough to live by that.  
   
but how can i learn the art  
of selfishness when i have so much to lose for it after?  
   
unless “after” never comes.  
and i will become the sorry case    
everyone else will try to understand.  
   
people choose to stay close to tragedy,    
grasping to be understood for it  
with nothing to show;  
it is the strong ones who gulp down pain like bleach  
and broken shards  
who are forgotten.  
   
i never thought i would see the end  
of this story mid-chapter,  
but there is no story without ink,  
and without ink,  
nothing is written.  
   
my book closes,  
curtains fall.  
   
this is my last.
 
 
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alternate title:
in short, the end.