Then again, neither was I. 

We’ve been down this creek before. You left me here without a paddle. Don’t you ever get tired of it? Of leaving each other in increasingly forlorn places? The endless hamster wheel of stab after stab after stab. You owe me one. Now I’ll do yours. One knife, one back, one foot dangling off the bridge. Your laces are coming untied, and neither of us can reach them. Your laces are coming untied, and the only thing we don’t know how to use them for is keeping your feet in your shoes.

Anything but that. Anything but this. There are words coming out of my mouth but you don’t hear them, words that don’t mean anything but spell out PLEASE LOVE ME in cigarette smoke. If I say it enough maybe you’ll choke on it. I never could get you to notice me but maybe if I set myself on fire you’ll see the smoke and wonder where it’s from. 

This is what it feels like to scrape yourself clean. There is a man in a hazmat suit inside me, holding a clipboard and a knife. Maybe when I am hollow I will finally be worth looking at, a taxidermy mouth set in a grimace or a smile. Beauty is terror and I could never be beautiful but terrible is close enough.

So that’s where we are. A life of close enough, of please won’t you look at me, of self-destruction in the name of being loved. They say a pound of flesh can pay for anything but I’ve given you pound after pound and you still want more. 

If I give it all, will you finally see me? When do I get to stop spilling blood and lighting matches for you? Is the spectacle enough? Does that do it for you, or do you need even more?

I think you know how this story ends, but I can’t see it yet. You know how the story ends, and I’m left here squinting through the dawn.