everything everyone says
is a lie.

it’s sweet nothing to
my aching, selfish
ears.

words alone are not
enough to please me,
it’s not enough to say you
care, to say
you love me.

the solid anchor of
physical connection
is gone; how do I know
you really do care,
when you seldom show it,
afraid to touch me
or hug me?

I cannot believe
your words,
as much as I
may want to, whatever
words they may be,
however sweet they
may sound; they are
hollow echoes.

I don’t want your
romance.

I want happiness.

maybe you’d be happy,
and maybe that’s okay with me,
but there’s a gnawing in my chest
that is so real when
I see everyone around me
breathing and
not I.

I am stifled
with a plastic bag
or stuck underwater in
a cold, frozen lake
with the numbness ebbing in
on the soft of my flesh and the
glow of my mind, which darkens
with the threads that weave fatigue
and sorrow into my very conscious.

air does not pass my lips.

if I had to cry out among the genuine smiles
and the laughter, cry out for help

would they hear me?