Pictured, Painted, Stained.

I start speaking and boy, do I love myself.

The confidence you slash and dive at...

It's unreachable.

For you, at least.

For me, it has melted and molded to form the crest of my heart

A great weight of chain mail that deflects the sharpest swords.

The dagger's tip does not dare penetrate me,

And neither will you.

But I know this does not end here.

I will be gone soon.

Soon, I say and I must smile;

12 months is not soon.

Gone without a trace,

I will leave a trace

If it is paper,

Or pictured;

Painted,

or stained;

I will leave a trace.

The red wine staining your breath does not amuse me.

Nor does it help you as you swagger and sway. But not from the faux alcohol you drink.

It is the tang of ego and pride that sharpens the air.

I am near the edge,

You are on edge, walking me closer until you leave me to jump myself.

In my own time, I will do what I wish with my own world.

The words I sharpened my fingernails for,

The words that your heart had no armour against,

Are inevitable and infinite.

My bushfire heart drips and plants the seeds of the future.

A simple idea,

A trace of my world, my story

How I survived and fought and survived again

All out of spite?

Out of stubbornness,

Determination

Righteousness.

I will let you decide which is most vile, twisted, painful

That the ones like me would think to act like me.

That there are more of us,

Us seething, silenced beasts that writhe under the smoke you think you can make smother us.

It is only when your paper thin and lifeless tears catch alight that you realise my words hold meaning.

Depth is the thing you lack,

And yet you find yourself so desperately requiring a shield from the truth

That we had better, and we want better

And none of us, ever,

Will accept anything less.

~