Soft in the Middle

by Shelby Eileen

she looks up at the night sky and often finds that what she sees is what she feels inside when the stars float brightly, she thinks breathing is like swimming the water holds me so gently the weight of everything is easy to hold

everything is always happening; trying and doing and falling and failing life is never still

God, I feel free because I don’t feel empty without you all the time -anymore

how do you tell a stranger you think you could love them forever? similarly how do you tell the one you love you think you’d be better off without them?

I watch people change while I painstakingly stay the same

some subjects are best put to rest when your words reach for scalpels more often than sutures

I’ll never lose enough and if I lose enough I’ll have lost everything

Just because the risk is important and difficult, it doesn’t convince the stars to align.

writing wrongs is about putting bandaids on your own wounds the ones that are there because someone else forgot that words are sharp and they cut and it stings even when the intention behind the words was never to harm

I ruin everything I touch and boy do I know the shape of my own body well

I’m worthy of being a witness to beauty the stars shine for me too

making my own misery is what I do best

I don’t feel warm in your words anymore

I feel myself becoming a cave; curving around my centre hardening to protect what sometimes makes me feel hollow

you don’t stare too long into a window when there’s only darkness on the other side

just because I write about you doesn’t mean I write for you

I’m just trying to figure out how to remain soft in a world that only knows how to be hard

my mother used to tell me that it hurts to be beautiful I was sold the belief that beauty came packaged in thorns and don’t be surprised if your hands come away bloody smear it on your lips and smile

I don’t know what it is to feel wanted only what it is to want

words have created me and they let me create and isn’t it terrifying and beautiful how much power they have

the stardust on my fingertips is proof that I’ve been reaching for something better it means, one day, I’ll hold the stars whole

the positive things are what we will regret holding back the most

I’ve always seen what I can see now my deliberately turning away was not the equivalent of unknowing

the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do? I haven’t done it yet I haven’t quit you