a way to be yourself

I am no good at solitude, 

It must be poetic otherwise I will ball it up and bury it amongst yesterday’s leavings. 

Being alone makes me feel like I am burning youth, as if it is a dance that only exists under a watchful and appreciative eye. I am only alive when I am adored or making beautiful things. Otherwise I am scrawling in the margins, holding my breath as I step over a crack, somehow a paler, less filled in version of myself, one that doesn’t deserve intrigue or adventure but malaise that sits right underneath the skin like a vein. 

I never learned how to live with myself. Without sound, without asking and answering, without having a different heart to press my fingers over. What am I but what they see. A song is a song only after it’s been heard. I am always acting. Looking in the mirror like it’s the first time, dressing up for myself to mold my own soft, flabby edges into something else. I put on accents, try on phrases. My bedroom is a stage my bed is an altar. Come, listen to me pray.