Stitch Me Up.

This was never meant to be a haven. It should only be an escape for me; as you read it, I don't want you to be relieved. I want you to have rage-filled blood, to have your mind painted in red. My feelings felt and your brain fed. I can't escape myself.

I think of existence. I think of commonality. I think of unity. I am hopeful for the things I can't feel because I am hoping for their creation. All I've ever known is their destruction, shattered into shards of glass that cut me even now.

Then they press it, let it mend the flesh, they say. The glass is buried, but the grief is ever present. Its sharpness strains against our skin. Stitches aren't necessary, they say. Stitches aren't necessary. Tear my skin open, rip it out of my flesh, call me an extreme case.

I must be mindful now of what grace they have shown me. I must be satisfied with my life from now on. This freedom has its limits.

It's hurtful to remain hopeful for something I have seen. I write it. I hope for it. I put it out. I am so full of it, yet I don't see an ounce of it out there. I dream of it. Is it delusional for me to fathom the idea of change?

We never see it until we become it. I believe in change because I must be change.

How can one hate so heavily in their hearts? How do they carry it so? Why do they carry it so? Is the god you are proving it to feed you treats of illness and poverty?

Pity the homeless as you drive the streets, an exhibition for your children. A public zoo. Beat them with the book of beliefs.

I am not the phoenix; I can't rise again, so I must die in this lifetime. It feels too little to change everything I want to feel a little safer. Will my blood walk the streets safer in centuries or never?

Will the devil traverse in heaven like they do in cities made of love and dreams? Do you think the devil will pay him off to keep him there? Is there a world where evil doesn't exist? Is utopia so far away if dystopia can be this real to us?

Why must suffering be a norm? Why can't change be a necessity?

Be sensitized. Be kind. Tough love to get you prepared for the real world, they say. You are the real world; be the real world.

Have they bled like we have? Will the gods thirst for their blood?

Why must I not feel rage when my existence, or lack of it, is an opinion? Discussion and empathy. Digestible and palatable. Spoon-feed you into letting me enter the room, take up a little space at a table that will never serve me. Let me feel, for a little while, or it must be crazy.

Don't call him a monster. He is a man.  

Don't call him a god. He is a man.

Don't call her a monster. She is a woman.  

Don't call her a goddess. She is a woman.

Don't forget. Don't create categories to exact your empathy upon. Section off the parts you don't like. Love is for all. It's hard, but I must love you too. It's been centuries, but I must love you.

I must love you or else.

If I don't love, who will? The people you sit beside at the dinner table will eat you too.

The glass strains at my skin. I am bleeding now. Be a man, he said, as I bled down my legs. I wasn't violated. I was only bleeding. It's normal. Will you only feel for me if it was brutal? If I was perfect?

Stitch me up. Stitch me up before I die. Please change my hypocritical heart. Please love me so I know it's real enough that I can hope.

How can I reciprocate something I have never felt? I am a monster. No, I am a human.

You can be an evil human. Don't make a separate section so you can delude yourself into believing that your friends or you won't ever turn into such people. The wolf was in sheep's clothing. He is a sheep. He is among you.

Even these analogies, I hate myself for. Why must I turn to beautifying words so it's palatable?

I am a woman.