people i don’t want to be
one:
in my closet i keep skeletons belonging to the people i don’t want to be/ sometimes they grow restless, anxious to wear my skin but mostly they hang in silence/ patiently waiting for me to take them from their hangers and wrap around my throat.
two:
when winter hits, the shivers keep them rattling/ at times i believe their voices to belong to sirens; their lust-filled melodies— come closer, we don’t bite/ my skin yearning for a time without solitude—just a couple moments won’t hurt/ but it will, anyways.
three:
a girl in a cap and gown stares into a mirror/ sees nothing but a cage of bone and sinew and skin and skin and skin/ i run my dirty fingers down the glass
in hopes that she will finally see me/ a timer rings in the distance,
a clock quits its ticking/ this is what it looks like when the screaming stops.
four:
in the dark i watch the twinkling set of lights play hide n’ seek against my eyelids/
they don’t understand how it is to be this tired, to feel this way/ they just keep on dancing, taunting me as i watch through the pane/ i tell myself they’ll understand
sometime, maybe if… but it is their naivety that keeps them
moving/ i send a prayer to the space above that their feet never grow ill of tapping/
that their hearts never tire of trying.
five:
i am told that i am a ‘handful’ but when i peer down at my hands they are not full, ever/ the spaces between my fingers look back at me, judging as if to say it’s all my fault/ they’re right, everyone knows so.
six:
at sixteen, i lose the split tongue and my teeth grow incisors/ i can cut through wires and thick ropes with the tips of my fingers/ every morning i wake up with claws/
every night, go to bed with blood beneath my nails— survival of the fittest.
seven:
on the days when i really hate myself/ i compare myself to the growth that naps restlessly in the crook of her neck/ impatiently waiting for her to join it in slumber.
eight:
i don’t think i’ll ever be able to look into the mirror/ without seeing her staring right back.
Montana Leigh Jackson is a student in Montreal, Quebec. Her work has been featured in semicolon lit, Turnpike Magazine, Entropy Magazine, Capsule Stories, & Re-Side. She finds peace among words and within thunderstorms. Find her on twitter: @montanaLjackson.