losing game

 i am going to start reading a thousand books, and never turn the page

i am going to give myself this one thing, 

to take a peak into what i can't have 

and shut the tome forever

i am going to bathe in my infidelity and disloyalty

my trauma and dishonesty

and i am at last human in the same way

others say they are

if only i accept that some works are never finished and i am one of them. 

that some songs end with one final chord, loud and shocking, 

and this is surprisingly not about death at all but rather

giving up before anything begins

it's the plants i put in my weed-filled garden 

and don't water and leave to die, 

it's a paragraph written a day 

in a shameful novel that won't bring me joy

it's a dozen saved job applications for 

places i don't want to work anyway

it's never finishing a thing and it's 

a half-done doodle on some ancient schoolpaper, 

it's my personality that keeps me 

in this constant limbo, in this constant

observation

and it's a half-written message I won't send

reaching out is terrifying and i'm a coward

floating ahead of it all, i raise my flag, i see the dreams i had laid to waste

what dreams? what idle playthings

danced in this garden of the damned, 

there's only a ghost here and it doesn't know how to sing. 

it writes, in a trance, because it must, 

because the words are overflowing and yet not enough, 

and pages of yellowing paper overflow, 

stains from old coffee and tears, 

a fly drifting its way into one of 

many cups on the nightstand, 

the owner of this room is out of town 

and in her eyes are stars and her body won't be found 

for a week, 

the ants come to eat her eyes and she speaks 

from the desk where she is dying, staring at 

words that don't cooperate and words that choke the air, 

knowing full well if she opened her mouth to talk there would be nothing there 

it is beautiful, and it is ugly, and written in blood and in red lipstick 

all over my wall, and all over my body, 

freak freak freak freak freak 

and when i say i loved her just know 

i've never known the difference between love and hate, they are the same to me, 

the same burning sensation, same nauseous stomach, 

same fiery blaze in my abdomen and chest, 

same person beating me bloody in the street. 

and maybe you shouldn't want me to love you. 

and when i say, 'same person,' 

know that i know my meaning, 

because my other half reflects me truly, 

because after a while I become her

and it's only me, in the rain, watching my own 

battered self crawl from the gutter, 

knowing there was never 

anyone else here at all 

to play this losing game.