Your skin is thick for every stored box

  The titles engraved hold promises of a better life

  And yet, you could not find one wooden hope calling your name.

  Your skin has always been thick

  Against the changing tones, against the winding roads, and you seldom feel anything but the aches of it.

  The cheap material of happiness digs into your flesh, body tucked in close and bones clinking in the tight embrace

  Voices of confusion swim over your head, sticking out and unsightly, your cramping hands can't hide you away

  The voices become louder, uglier, and your body spasms, hitting the shiny wood, yet there is no possible escape.

  Thick fingers push harshly onto your floating head, and a gasp is stuck in your throat while a flurry of words gets thrown at your uncovered ears

  You wonder, distantly, unmoving despite their building frustration

  Why you differ even in the thickness of flesh.

  The jagged edges of happiness are cradled in your palm

  Head swimming in something slow, phantom touches pulsing and squeezing around your throat

  The wood is dull against your shaking palm

  Tiny, insignificant, and forever lost.

  The price of a broken box was surely paid

  With a beautiful title, it held a light for those delicate and frail

  The price of happiness was surely paid

  In return, you get to hold the remains.

  Your laugh is dazzling as you move your hands in a bashful declination

  Such fine wood with such a lovely color should be kept for those who can take it

  The returning smiles are blinding in front of your bruised deformity

  The admiring whispers are loud in your ears

  Hunching your back and pushing your ribs together

  You return every smile with a brighter one.

  You hold the tender flesh of a hand with a practiced grin

  Heart thudding and back hurting, you press your trembling lips to the unblemished softness

  Letting it be mistaken for the rumble of a laugh

  You have not yet fit into any title

  You have not yet found a home

  Spinning the stories into a choice is but a second nature, old.

  You turn the broken shards of faded brown into a vibrant rose

  If you wished to succumb to the constraints of a home

  You would settle into one with hardly a wait

  You simply don't.

  Smiling, winking, placating the twirling delicacy of intrigue

  You simply don't.

  Your knees ache

  Kneeling on the soft dirt, caressing a faded name

  Larger than most things you are, in front of the wisps of memory, you turn into a bumbling child

  Curious, loud, and lost in the confusion of their doubt.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Your lips are stuck with the residue of tears

  Breaking the calm is akin to a sin

  You press them to the cold stone

  Whispering an apology

  Waiting for an answer that doesn't come.

  The dread pooling in your spine strains your smile

  A scent of repressed nature tugging at your muscles

  The wheels can't stay forever spinning

  Once, or twice a year, you need to face your fragile deception.

  The title is pretty in front of your empty gaze

  Slowly blinking until the letters become something unnamed

  The shade is lighter than the one before, darker than the one after

  The well-worn scene plays, and you milk their rapidly fading grins

  Embodying pickiness in front of their dwindling patience

  Searching for a color that isn't faceable

  Darker center, lighter edges, smoother surface, calmer scent

  Bigger space, bigger floor, bigger lid.

  The pushing hands mark the ending of their grace

  And you bend your bones until the pain is searing, gasps hidden in faltering sighs

  A drop of despair ricochets off the surface of an ocean of some years

  And the pushing and pulling at your limbs barely register as you watch the horror reflected on those passing by

  Your smile wavers as your eyes shake, dropping to the quickly reddening wood

  You shouldn't be able to see their stricken selves

  Dainty hands covering open mouths.

  The white sheets are coarse under your bare skin

  Arms and legs strapped, light shining into heavy lids

  Soft fingers dig into the crooks of your slack limbs, tracing the bumps of carved flesh

  The scratching sound of a pen writing reaches your muffled ears, and you stare at the ceiling, mouthing the words you buried in your skin

  Flashes of muted screams and sticky floors flutter and splatter on the clean white

  You continue mouthing the words, slipping into a numb haze

  Wishing the prodding hands would stop

  There isn’t much to find out

  Your skin has always been thick.

  Streams of a burning fire run through the dips of your laid body

  The ceiling turns blurry as you slur out apologies

  The fire only rises until a hand covers your wide eyes

  Water trickling through gaps of trembling fingers, salt pooling in your mouth

  You hear the faint whispers of returned apologies

  And you slowly blink through dry eyes

  Feeling a morsel of relief as the burning stops.

  You prefer the sleek glint of stone over any tenderness of wood

  It's ingrained into you, as most abnormalities, and yet

  There is one shade you never could let go of

  A young child, holding onto the soft fabric of safety later buried in cold

  A child, looking at the white sky through gaps in tender hands.

  The morning peaks through the blinds

  Your room, not yours

  Familiar and calls the bile.

  The sound of scratching had stopped, replaced by an unsteady beating

  It breaks the silence of the room in erratic intervals, each worsening the pounding in your head

  The fabric sticking to you is painful

  Something throbbing in your body, from your head, and down to your curled toes

  A hand is clutching onto you, cloud-soft against dry blisters, and you close your eyes, following the gentle breathing

  Hand tense in skin cherished by wood.

  A human has nature in them

  It's present in their faintest trail

  You have the wrong one

  Thick skin, harsh hands, big head, and malfunctioning masks.

  You slip your convulsing hand away from the gentle grasp

  Staring at the ceiling, letting your body ache

  There is salt in your eyes, salt on your tongue, and you wish for an end

  A fitting one.

  That is kinder to your sore limbs; away from this.

  The steady breaths falter, giving way to a soft murmur

  And you clench your eyes closed

  Away from this.