I was never born.
I just emerged —
like regret after climax,
a stain on sheets no one claims.
Raised by mirrors
that spat back
versions of me I never authored,
I wore humility like disguise,
called it grace —
but it was just
cowardice in couture.
I don’t self-deprecate.
I self-obliterate —
in cascading tercets,
with enough enjambment
to make therapists flinch.
I’ve mastered the syntax
of slow suicide —
elegant punctuation
between a childhood missed
and a purpose misplaced.
Each semicolon: hesitation.
Each stanza: held breath.
This poem? A slow leak.
They say,
“You’re so self-aware.”
No.
I’m paranoid with a thesaurus.
I sandpaper my ego
with your praise.
Applause is a trigger.
Silence — home.
I bleed in similes:
like a man
who mistook mirrors for manuscripts
and edits his face
when the prose doesn’t land.
I dress despair in metaphors
so you won’t call it begging.
I don’t need validation.
I crave it —
like addicts crave overdose.
Not the high,
just the end.
My humility is weaponized —
a publicity stunt
to distract from the fact
that I peaked
in an unread draft.
They ask,
“If you hate yourself so much,
why write?”
Because grief doesn’t need
permission to perform.
Because this pain
has better stage presence
than I do.
I’m freelancing
for the voice in my head —
she’s eloquent, persistent,
and wants me dead —
but only in lowercase.
I post poems
like missing person flyers.
If you find me,
don’t return me.
I know I’m a nobody.
I made peace with it.
Then made art from it.
Then burned the art
for warmth —
and clapped along
with the flames.
No,
I wasn’t forgotten.
I was written —
but someone ran out of ink
mid-sentence.
And no one noticed,
because I kept reciting the ellipsis
like it was scripture.
I’m not lost.
I was never catalogued.
And still —
some days,
even the void
misspells my name.
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