knuckles split with clenching. wounds rehash with sharpened tongue. oversensitive to everything around me. slow to slaughter, you're the only one i will make the glaring effort to destroy. all because i hate you for loving something so imperfect and so ungracefully self-destructing while i love you dearly for loving something so imperfect and so ungracefully self-destructing.

i feel outside of myself when i kill what's beautiful, like as though there is a silenced self still screaming within. all to be felt is the tremor of air around us to signal that muted existance. oh but she sees everything. she sees the beatings, the abuse and the rage that exudes from this vocal self. and like a suffocated victim she claws at my throat scratching and tearing apart my vocal chords, whether to sever them completely or bide her enough time to breathe and stay alive: either are the same. her name is virtue, her name is compassion. her name is love, empathy, morality, faith. she is my stigmata, emancipating herself into my world through her self-inflicting wounds.