You're a hypocrite.

I hear it again and again, like a chant in the quiet moments when no one's speaking. So I bottle my tears in jars only I know exist. Instead of looking for the next person to kill with the knife I sharpen daily—ritualistically, methodically—I find the next soul to kill with kindness. A warmth so polished, so rehearsed, it feels like venom in velvet.

They adore me. They thank me for being a light. I nod, smile, hug tighter. I say, "You're amazing too." Lies. Half-lies. Truths I want to believe. But I must live. And survival sometimes tastes like applause and other times like the silence between sobs.

Peace in my head is a battlefield with no survivors. I bang my head on the wall until blood comes out—thick, red ribbons of silence—dripping like the last remnants of joy from my soul. I watch it form a dark, glistening pool on the tiles. I crouch, lick it. Just a little. Just to know I’m still real. I laugh—not the funny kind, the kind that makes walls shift.

Then I clean it. I'm good at cleaning up my mess. Always have been.

I take care of my bruised head with the grace of a nurse and the numbness of a corpse. I take painkillers. I take sleeping pills. Oh—I almost forgot—I have to wipe off the slab where I wrote drama queen in my own blood. I chuckle. It’s funny. Isn’t it funny? My life could be a stage play and no one would notice the knives are real.

I feel giddy now. The pill hasn’t kicked in, but I dance anyway. In my oversized t-shirt and socks with holes. I twirl like I matter. I twirl like someone’s watching. I twirl until the dizziness matches the noise in my head.

Now I’m tired.

Sleep waits at the edge of my sanity like a lover I can’t trust.

I must sleep because tomorrow is another day to be kind. Another day to be loved. Another day to not die.

Not yet.