Remember being okay..!

i can dimly remember being okay
i think about it sometimes, about the time
when i could smile without effort
and my laughs were genuine
and it wasn’t such a chore
i can hardly recall what that feels like
i’ve lived like this for so long
it’s like a permanent state
drowning my lungs like the dark murky water
at the bottom of the ocean
a room with no door that i can’t escape
from with my thoughts written
all over the walls, letters jagged
and stabbing my skin like the blade
in my bottom drawer the acid roils
in my stomach and i find myself
on the bathroom floor again,
body cold as the wind in the arctic
and wondering how i got here
and if i’ll ever find a way to get up off the ground

i’ve never wanted anything more than to be okay
people ask me the question over and over
and every time i smile and i lie and every time
the lie leaves my lips they move on with their lives
and it’s like they don’t see but really
that’s my fault too because i’ve gotten
so good at pretending

pretending

pretending i don’t spend my nights sitting
on my windowsill staring not at the sky
but at the concrete beneath
it’s not far a fall i wonder every single night
if the drop would end it end me end this
but i don’t have the guts to find out

pretending i don’t scream into my pillow
at all hours of the morning wishing
the darkness would leave my head
and escape back to the sky, taking
with it the voices that i’m trying to drown out
who even am i anymore?
does anyone know?

i feel like a ghost, like i’m not even here,
and god knows when,
if ever, i’ll come back to life
i feel like i’m dead already

it’s been so long since i was okay
and now i don’t know how to be