I have that feeling again, that one I keep writing about. The one where my mind empties and fills with dread and my lungs stop working cause they're filled with lead and my hands start shaking cause so much of me is dead that even that small, obscure part of my head that sends the message to my muscles and bones to stay in control and steady can't do it's simple job because my tendons and joints are much too shattered to piece together. But it's still trying. It's still ticking and tocking like a clock that won't stop even when there's no gears and springs and fragile hands to make it work. But just because it's making the sounds doesn't mean it's doing what it's made to do, works to do, learned to do. Just because my smile tilts in the places and dips in the right spaces doesn't mean that it isn't the veil that places itself between emotions and what reaches my brain, because I think some things might be getting lost along the way. Because what I feel is as empty as the eyes sunk in my head, just the shells and skins of what happiness and excitement and hope should be. Would be. Could be, if only there was enough left of my brain to process them. But all I feel is this weight in my chest that signifies that there isn't anything left and this bitter self-loathing that whispers in my ear: you don't even deserve to be here.

You don't

               Even deserve

                                   To be

                                            Here.