Forget Me Wrong

When I'm gone

I don't expect to be remembered

Remembrance doesn't get you reservations in afterlife

I don't expect to be remembered

because

you see words come with biases

Bias by association

Remembering comes with a bias for fondness

And I haven't lived life such

that people would be fond of me

When you've tried your hand at dying at nineteen

An age usually reserved for

infatuations,

asymmetric first loves,

tender breasts,

penises turning cocks,

discovering body hair,

acne, and insecurities

I had been done with people.

You see they say

charity begins at home

but conveniently omit

trauma begins at home

too.

Long before the world becomes home

when the four walls of home

is your world

My world

denounced,

denied,

disowned

me.

Life doesn't come painted in rainbows

I had learnt that early on.

Blood taught me betrayal.

Love taught me politics.

And while the world

kept singing hyms

and reciting ballads

convincing everyone around

of the greatness of people

and the unnecessarily niced out

ideas to belong and own

each other

like

we were commodities

curating more commodities

and call it magic,

I couldn't help but smirk.

The world often mistakes

smirks for smiles

My head wasn't the world

for I had lived in it

and it had lived me

long enough

to know

smirks are middle fingers your hands are too tired to raise

and you don't waste efforts over nothing.

And while you were busy peddling lies

like the disillusioned hopefuls smuggle drugs

to keep their illusion alive

I picked up a metal knife that bled ink

And I bled, and I bled,

and didn't stop bleeding

Until the bared out flesh peeking through the lack of skin

made you shiver and shatter

sorry for your assumptions of my misfortune

while hoping against hope

I didn't see for who you are

that I hadn't seen your hollow

you've taught yourself to hide

beneath your elaborate performances

of pretense and shapeshifting.

I smirked every single time,

at how innocent you were

to think your acts were anything

but nauseating.

You've faked your breath harder than your orgasms

in packed auditoriums and carefully crafted screenplays

But found it rather offensive

Every time I have dared to call it unconvincingly cliched.

I didn't come here to be an artist

because the only palatable form available

was the art of bullshitting

and I was it's worst possible practitioner.

I was here like an inconvenience.

You know the ones that get your heartbeat racing

because amidst the thundering claps and the deafening silences

You knew I could see through the lies you tell yourself in the mirror, every morning.

When I am gone

Call it what it is.

An assuring convenience.

The kind of convenience

when your cheating wife is diagnosed with terminal cancer

because now you know you don't have to walk away

for you could never gather yourself to confront uncomfortable truths

and this is as convenient as a good lie gets.

For once, you get to have your vengeance

For I would be too long gone to care about defense

You could bare your toothless fangs and bare knuckles

And I would smirk

You could wrap me up in glittery lies, like the diamaonds on the wedding ring of your cheating wife

And I would still smirk.

Forgetting doesn't mean it never happened

Forgetting means you're too scared to admit you remember it all.