Your skin is thick for every stored box


    The titles engraved hold promises of a better life


    And yet, you could not find one wooden hope calling your name.


    Your skin has always been thick


    Against the changing tones, against the winding roads, and you seldom feel anything but the aches of it.


    The cheap material of happiness digs into your flesh, body tucked in close and bones clinking in the tight embrace


    Voices of confusion swim over your head, sticking out and unsightly, your cramping hands can''t hide you away


    The voices become louder, uglier, and your body spasms, hitting the shiny wood, yet there is no possible escape.


    Thick fingers push harshly onto your floating head, and a gasp is stuck in your throat while a flurry of words gets thrown at your uncovered ears


    You wonder, distantly, unmoving despite their building frustration


    Why you differ even in the thickness of flesh.


    The jagged edges of happiness are cradled in your palm


    Head swimming in something slow, phantom touches pulsing and squeezing around your throat


    The wood is dull against your shaking palm


    Tiny, insignificant, and forever lost.


    The price of a broken box was surely paid


    With a beautiful title, it held a light for those delicate and frail


    The price of happiness was surely paid


    In return, you get to hold the remains.


    Your laugh is dazzling as you move your hands in a bashful declination


    Such fine wood with such a lovely color should be kept for those who can take it


    The returning smiles are blinding in front of your bruised deformity


    The admiring whispers are loud in your ears


    Hunching your back and pushing your ribs together


    You return every smile with a brighter one.


    You hold the tender flesh of a hand with a practiced grin


    Heart thudding and back hurting, you press your trembling lips to the unblemished softness


    Letting it be mistaken for the rumble of a laugh


    You have not yet fit into any title


    You have not yet found a home


    Spinning the stories into a choice is but a second nature, old.


    You turn the broken shards of faded brown into a vibrant rose


    If you wished to succumb to the constraints of a home


    You would settle into one with hardly a wait


    You simply don''t.


    Smiling, winking, placating the twirling delicacy of intrigue


    You simply don''t.


    Your knees ache


    Kneeling on the soft dirt, caressing a faded name


    Larger than most things you are, in front of the wisps of memory, you turn into a bumbling child


    Curious, loud, and lost in the confusion of their doubt.


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    Your lips are stuck with the residue of tears


    Breaking the calm is akin to a sin


    You press them to the cold stone


    Whispering an apology


    Waiting for an answer that doesn''t come.


    The dread pooling in your spine strains your smile


    A scent of repressed nature tugging at your muscles


    The wheels can''t stay forever spinning


    Once, or twice a year, you need to face your fragile deception.


    The title is pretty in front of your empty gaze


    Slowly blinking until the letters become something unnamed


    The shade is lighter than the one before, darker than the one after


    The well-worn scene plays, and you milk their rapidly fading grins


    Embodying pickiness in front of their dwindling patience


    Searching for a color that isn''t faceable


    Darker center, lighter edges, smoother surface, calmer scent


    Bigger space, bigger floor, bigger lid.


    The pushing hands mark the ending of their grace


    And you bend your bones until the pain is searing, gasps hidden in faltering sighs


    A drop of despair ricochets off the surface of an ocean of some years


    And the pushing and pulling at your limbs barely register as you watch the horror reflected on those passing by


    Your smile wavers as your eyes shake, dropping to the quickly reddening wood


    You shouldn''t be able to see their stricken selves


    Dainty hands covering open mouths.


    The white sheets are coarse under your bare skin


    Arms and legs strapped, light shining into heavy lids


    Soft fingers dig into the crooks of your slack limbs, tracing the bumps of carved flesh


    The scratching sound of a pen writing reaches your muffled ears, and you stare at the ceiling, mouthing the words you buried in your skin


    Flashes of muted screams and sticky floors flutter and splatter on the clean white


    You continue mouthing the words, slipping into a numb haze


    Wishing the prodding hands would stop


    There isn’t much to find out


    Your skin has always been thick.


    Streams of a burning fire run through the dips of your laid body


    The ceiling turns blurry as you slur out apologies


    The fire only rises until a hand covers your wide eyes


    Water trickling through gaps of trembling fingers, salt pooling in your mouth


    You hear the faint whispers of returned apologies


    And you slowly blink through dry eyes


    Feeling a morsel of relief as the burning stops.


    You prefer the sleek glint of stone over any tenderness of wood


    It''s ingrained into you, as most abnormalities, and yet


    There is one shade you never could let go of


    A young child, holding onto the soft fabric of safety later buried in cold


    A child, looking at the white sky through gaps in tender hands.


    The morning peaks through the blinds


    Your room, not yours


    Familiar and calls the bile.


    The sound of scratching had stopped, replaced by an unsteady beating


    It breaks the silence of the room in erratic intervals, each worsening the pounding in your head


    The fabric sticking to you is painful


    Something throbbing in your body, from your head, and down to your curled toes


    A hand is clutching onto you, cloud-soft against dry blisters, and you close your eyes, following the gentle breathing


    Hand tense in skin cherished by wood.


    A human has nature in them


    It''s present in their faintest trail


    You have the wrong one


    Thick skin, harsh hands, big head, and malfunctioning masks.


    You slip your convulsing hand away from the gentle grasp


    Staring at the ceiling, letting your body ache


    There is salt in your eyes, salt on your tongue, and you wish for an end


    A fitting one.


    That is kinder to your sore limbs; away from this.


    The steady breaths falter, giving way to a soft murmur


    And you clench your eyes closed


    Away from this.