i did a foolish thing.

i opened my heart when i shouldn't have and now i'm stuck trying to find the right way to close it. the right diversion to occupy a mind that keeps straying to places it shouldn't. the right hands to distract me from those i want around me.

diversions are easy enough to find. i guess i've never really had that problem too much. but knowing that i am living a life of diversions and distractions... that's the part i have a problem with.

there's usually at least one quiet moment that passes during the day when the sudden shock of lifelessness hits me, jars me and thrust me out of the mindlessness i've cultivated. it lifts me out of time and space and it's all i can to do brace myself against empty black pit i'm threatened with.

so i cling to hours of sleep, refusing to open my eyes to light and life.

so i cling to another body, refusing to stay too long in my own.

and i wonder now, if this night passes, with sleep out of reach and alone in my bed... i wonder, if this night passes and finds the blood still in my viens...

a friend told me, "I wish you could see inside yourself. see the strength and beauty. See this sort of churning vortex of colors and glows... I wish you were loud enough to tell the people that hurt you that they did. I wish you were louder for yourself. I wish you would scream for yourself now and then."

my screams tickle out of me in fine liquid lines. my screams are angry red and pulsing. but my screams don't matter when no one cares to hear me. when no one pauses long enough to see what i want to hide from them and want desperately for them to see.

and then i'm alone in that empty night. and then i'm crying soundlessly. and then i'm breaking into smaller pieces that broke so long ago.

i wonder if you heard me.

i wonder if you saw me.

i wonder if it means anything.