How much longer do I have to bleed?
How much longer do I have to break myself open,
to prove I am worthy of being seen?
tired of bleeding in silence,
tired of standing in the storm alone,
tired of stitching my own skin shut
while the world walks by.
I give until my giving becomes invisible.
I give until my voice is nothing but echoes,
until my kindness becomes currency,
until my body is bankrupt of breath.
How much longer do I have to hollow myself out,
until the marrow in my bones
until the clock eats the last of my breath?
I am running out of time.
I feel the seconds slicing me open,
How much longer do I have to bleed
before the blood becomes proof?
Before the pain becomes undeniable?
Before my suffering is more than scenery
and screaming in ways you’ll never hear—
because I’ve learned that pain,
And I can only scream into the void for so long.
Only howl into hollow air until my throat breaks,
until my voice turns into static,
until the echoes eat themselves alive.
Or am I just sound without substance,
a body banging on the walls of nothingness
until madness takes my mind for company?
Because silence is not neutral,
silence is a slow suffocation.
I feel it’s hand around my neck,
a chain dragging me deeper into myself
until I am drowning in thoughts too loud to contain.
Still I tear pieces from myself,
that someone will see the sacrifice
before there is nothing left to save.
How much longer do I have to bleed
before the bleeding kills me?
Before the scream is the only sound left in my skull?
Before the echo replaces me completely,
and I am nothing but the memory of a voice
I am running out of time.
And if no one steps forward,
if no one says, “Stop, you’ve bled enough”,
with what voice I have left;