why do I have a skin?

why do I have a skin

when I'm hated

for the shade I own?

I am what I wear,

half if not full.

look at me.

do you see my burning eyes?

do you feel my grief

through my skin?

maybe I have this skin

to hide my fears.

maybe it is there

so I don't ruin my flesh,

or poke my fingers in.

but why do I own a skin

which burns

if a man touches me,

while he doesn't get hurt?

why am I so weak

that owning my own skin

feels like every breath

makes me lose an ounce of it?

I love by tearing apart

a piece of skin to show,

to show that I am worthy

of living in this shade.

I burn my skin

so they can smell it.

so they know

I am not a lesser human

than them.

I am a hungry animal for you

if you come running

after my skin.

I will bite

because I am tired

of defending something

I never chose.

I was born with it.

I did not ask

for this colour.

I did not ask

for your eyes to measure me.

I did not ask

for my skin to become

the first thing you see

and the last thing

you let me be.

and still,

I keep protecting it.

I keep carrying it

like it belongs to me.

but why do I run

to protect my skin

when in the end

I will have to give it

to the maggots?

what will colour mean then?

what will your hatred mean?

what will my shame mean?

when my skin is gone

and there is nothing left

for you to judge,

will I finally

be human enough

for you?

[poetria]

i'm losing my life every minute, every second,
and i still hear silence.

i feel it slip away.
i cry every day.
i break every day,
piece by piece,
i feel it in my chest.

i was six years old when i first tried to take my own life.
i reached for the blade in the kitchen
because the voices in the bedroom
were louder than the blood streaming down my hand.

but my fingers weren't big enough to reach the blade.

by the age of ten,
i realised i was stuck inside this body
that i wanted to get rid of.

i've tried stabbing myself.
i've tried jumping from the terrace.
i've tried drowning myself.
i've tried making it look like an accident.

but i survived.

every single time,
i survived.

because my hands were not big enough
to make the blade reach my throat.

i've been bullied,
slammed,
torn apart—
physically and mentally.

i don't remember a single good memory
from my childhood.

but people called me
an attention seeker.

i've always tried to please them,
to make friends,
but somehow i always stand at the last
when it's about someone talking to me,
or someone wanting to play with me.

by the age of thirteen,
my fingers were reaching for the blade,
my hands were holding it,

but i was scared of my blood.

because i knew if i survived,
my mom would be upset
that i had made a mess
with the blood and my torn-apart skin.

every time i tried to do it,
i was fed my own skin.

every time my blood wanted to breathe,
they made me lick my blood
and kill it in my mouth.

by the age of fifteen,
i was no longer afraid of the blood.

i carried it with me.

but as soon as the blade shined on my face,
my dad died.

i was filled with screams and agony in my heart,
sobbing and rubbing my skin against his dead body,
which was wrapped in plastic.

i didn't want him to go.
i didn't want to see this.
i didn't want to hear this.

since then,
i've always said,

“it should've been me.”

but now i am twenty.

my hands and fingers are big enough
to kill the person i see
in the reflection of my eyes,

but my hands lack courage now.

i don't know how to talk about it.
i don't know how to be alive.
i don't fit in with people.
i don't consider myself anything.

i slap myself when i randomly break down
because i'll have to hear my disgusting voice sob.

i'll have to touch my disgusting face
with my fingers
without the blade in my hand.

i never looked for a solution.
i never hoped for anything good for me.

but since now my hands are big enough
to carry a blade,
i want courage to fit inside my hands.

and when i finally get it,
i wish it feels like having
tonic espresso
with a lot of ice.

but even so,

i hope my fingers
never reach the blade.

[poetria]

I was in love with the sea.

I once asked her,

“Do you know the difference between the sea and the ocean?”

And she said,

“Sea is smaller than the ocean?”

Almost like a question back to me.

I was in love with the sea without knowing the shore, but I did know the difference between the sea and the ocean.

The sea was how her heart looked without a thought of me—her emotions hidden beneath the water, not floating an inch above the surface.

The ocean was how my heart looked without her.

Without the thought of seeing her eyes. The way she blinked.

The way her glasses stopped her eyes from becoming smaller when she smiled.

She laughed in wonder. She always used to say,

“You'd be a great writer.”

“Always have been,” I used to say.

But I was in love with the sea, not knowing where the shore was.

I had forgotten that the ocean has a much deeper faith in itself.

The ocean knew where its shore collided with the sea. The ocean knew that the sea was wiping out every grain of sand while it was still holding it in its hands.

I always used to ask her,

“Be sea to my ocean?”

She always used to say,

“I can't.”

Perhaps I was asking the wrong question.

Because I was in love with the sea without knowing that the shore had dead grass. The shore was without sand. All it held was lifeless grass.

I even saw a few of them burn.

But the ocean still had faith in it.

The Sailor Song by Gigi Perez

always used to play in our ears.

I held her flaws between my lips.

I held her scars within my love.

I held her in my arms like an octopus because, out of the six senses I had, three belonged to her.

Maybe love makes you surrender parts of yourself so quietly that you don't notice you're becoming less of a person and more of a memory.

Because I was in love with the sea, forgetting I was the ocean.

Sometimes I do think—what if I could merge into her?

What if I could become the particle inside her breath?

What if I could stay near her ear and kiss the mole behind it?

I do think about what would happen if we could love unconditionally, fearlessly, while still having mercy for ourselves.

But who am I if I have mercy?

Who am I if I hold back when I love?

Perhaps I was never afraid of losing her.

Perhaps I was afraid of finding out that I could survive it.

My sea was never salty.

It was my tears all along.

I knew I could merge into her. I knew I could crawl into her. I knew I could disappear somewhere between her skin and her breath.

But I would never reach the shore.

And still, I was in love with the sea.

Maybe that's what loving someone really is—knowing there is a distance between you and still believing you can drown in each other.

After all,

the sea is a part of the ocean.

Be sea to my ocean?

[poetria]