"persona"

The flowers I water

and the stones I rub

against my flesh;

salt in the wound

may make it hurt

but it makes it pure-

the mask is not

the persona

but it is the destruction,

the waters that capture me

and position my head so it cannot get out

until every fiber on my head

is ripped out by the current

and my lungs drown in their own fluids;

my smile was fake

as was all of it

and going back is harder

than accepting the fight

so I wear my armor

and I try to take the sword

and place it on the midline,

between your ribs;

I thought the only way

to be real

was to deprive myself of reality,

you fooled me and I believed you,

excuse my naivete but the way the blood spills

onto the horizon

and my reflection in the water,

a girl deprived of girlhood,

a woman who clings on to the only things she knows,

the only ways to be authentic;

your bones are not the only price you will pay,

my mind is not the only price I will pay.