stop
turn off your phone
close your eyes, stop crying
stop ripping yourself to shreds
‘cause you don’t know what else to do
stop
and remember
trace the lines of scars
against the patterns of your fingertips
guitar-string calluses
and ink on your palms
do you remember what it felt like
when everything went wrong?
do you remember
how the night air felt
against your tiny lungs
do you remember thrift store dresses
and curly brown hair on the floor
remember when it started
on your bedroom floor
when you wrote until you couldn’t
keep bleeding anymore
do you remember free-falling off the breaking point
and crashing down into the shore
where the butterflies with fifty eyes
stitched you back together
do you remember
when you didn’t know
remember when you didn’t care?
about collateral damage
before you looked in the mirror and felt like a sculpture
before your world was set ablaze
do you remember when you were little
and crawled into the driver’s seat
pretending you could steer
when city lights were beautiful
all the way down here?
do you remember when it started?
on a beat-up green couch
think it was 2pm, give or take
i thought i could leave the whole world behind
quiet in my wake