my openness

words are fickle homes for thoughts and feelings. they're heavy and too tight and my frame can't hold them all. I want to leave them somewhere else. wash my hands, make room for something more that matters. I remember my heart. when we were kids I couldn't pass the people on the street begging for food. now I see them in the city and turn the other way. what happened to my openness?

I cried in the bath under the water last week. not for the world I wake to lose faith in, or the children I watch limping in and out of death on loop. my tears spoiled the bathwater for myself alone. the boy in the mirror can't hear his heart. he'll sooner watch the world burn than turn on the lights. I wish I lay there longer.