Your skin is thick for every stored box

The titles engraved hold promises of a better life

And yet, you could not find one wooden hope calling your name.

Your skin has always been thick

Against the changing tones, against the winding roads, and you seldom feel anything but the aches of it.

The cheap material of happiness digs into your flesh, body tucked in close and bones clinking in the tight embrace

Voices of confusion swim over your head, sticking out and unsightly, your cramping hands can't hide you away

The voices become louder, uglier, and your body spasms, hitting the shiny wood, yet there is no possible escape.

Thick fingers push harshly onto your floating head, and a gasp is stuck in your throat while a flurry of words gets thrown at your uncovered ears

You wonder, distantly, unmoving despite their building frustration

Why you differ even in the thickness of flesh.

The jagged edges of happiness are cradled in your palm

Head swimming in something slow, phantom touches pulsing and squeezing around your throat

The wood is dull against your shaking palm

Tiny, insignificant, and forever lost.

The price of a broken box was surely paid

With a beautiful title, it held a light for those delicate and frail

The price of happiness was surely paid

In return, you get to hold the remains.

Your laugh is dazzling as you move your hands in a bashful declination

Such fine wood with such a lovely color should be kept for those who can take it

The returning smiles are blinding in front of your bruised deformity

The admiring whispers are loud in your ears

Hunching your back and pushing your ribs together

You return every smile with a brighter one.

You hold the tender flesh of a hand with a practiced grin

Heart thudding and back hurting, you press your trembling lips to the unblemished softness

Letting it be mistaken for the rumble of a laugh

You have not yet fit into any title

You have not yet found a home

Spinning the stories into a choice is but a second nature, old.

You turn the broken shards of faded brown into a vibrant rose

If you wished to succumb to the constraints of a home

You would settle into one with hardly a wait

You simply don't.

Smiling, winking, placating the twirling delicacy of intrigue

You simply don't.

Your knees ache

Kneeling on the soft dirt, caressing a faded name

Larger than most things you are, in front of the wisps of memory, you turn into a bumbling child

Curious, loud, and lost in the confusion of their doubt.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Your lips are stuck with the residue of tears

Breaking the calm is akin to a sin

You press them to the cold stone

Whispering an apology

Waiting for an answer that doesn't come.

The dread pooling in your spine strains your smile

A scent of repressed nature tugging at your muscles

The wheels can't stay forever spinning

Once, or twice a year, you need to face your fragile deception.

The title is pretty in front of your empty gaze

Slowly blinking until the letters become something unnamed

The shade is lighter than the one before, darker than the one after

The well-worn scene plays, and you milk their rapidly fading grins

Embodying pickiness in front of their dwindling patience

Searching for a color that isn't faceable

Darker center, lighter edges, smoother surface, calmer scent

Bigger space, bigger floor, bigger lid.

The pushing hands mark the ending of their grace

And you bend your bones until the pain is searing, gasps hidden in faltering sighs

A drop of despair ricochets off the surface of an ocean of some years

And the pushing and pulling at your limbs barely register as you watch the horror reflected on those passing by

Your smile wavers as your eyes shake, dropping to the quickly reddening wood

You shouldn't be able to see their stricken selves

Dainty hands covering open mouths.

The white sheets are coarse under your bare skin

Arms and legs strapped, light shining into heavy lids

Soft fingers dig into the crooks of your slack limbs, tracing the bumps of carved flesh

The scratching sound of a pen writing reaches your muffled ears, and you stare at the ceiling, mouthing the words you buried in your skin

Flashes of muted screams and sticky floors flutter and splatter on the clean white

You continue mouthing the words, slipping into a numb haze

Wishing the prodding hands would stop

There isn’t much to find out

Your skin has always been thick.

Streams of a burning fire run through the dips of your laid body

The ceiling turns blurry as you slur out apologies

The fire only rises until a hand covers your wide eyes

Water trickling through gaps of trembling fingers, salt pooling in your mouth

You hear the faint whispers of returned apologies

And you slowly blink through dry eyes

Feeling a morsel of relief as the burning stops.

You prefer the sleek glint of stone over any tenderness of wood

It's ingrained into you, as most abnormalities, and yet

There is one shade you never could let go of

A young child, holding onto the soft fabric of safety later buried in cold

A child, looking at the white sky through gaps in tender hands.

The morning peaks through the blinds

Your room, not yours

Familiar and calls the bile.

The sound of scratching had stopped, replaced by an unsteady beating

It breaks the silence of the room in erratic intervals, each worsening the pounding in your head

The fabric sticking to you is painful

Something throbbing in your body, from your head, and down to your curled toes

A hand is clutching onto you, cloud-soft against dry blisters, and you close your eyes, following the gentle breathing

Hand tense in skin cherished by wood.

A human has nature in them

It's present in their faintest trail

You have the wrong one

Thick skin, harsh hands, big head, and malfunctioning masks.

You slip your convulsing hand away from the gentle grasp

Staring at the ceiling, letting your body ache

There is salt in your eyes, salt on your tongue, and you wish for an end

A fitting one.

That is kinder to your sore limbs; away from this.

The steady breaths falter, giving way to a soft murmur

And you clench your eyes closed

Away from this.