I’m losing my voice again looking for signals in the dirt from someone else, slipping into casket fantasies and the death of anything I love. I’ve been dabbling in dark arts again. Stressed in the silence of little secrets I keep like momentary loss on the train, like forgetting the definition of words I know how to spell and use to describe the light. Like convincing myself on a Sunday that none of this is real and the songs I string along on repeat are just constructed to bring me to life. I’m bordering a birthday and all the stories I tell myself are slipping, and some days I want a cigarette to remind me that I’m allowed to love myself and not the person I thought I would be.