How can you stay alive in a world like this?
So hard to maintain
Beauty
In the face
Of adversity.

Don't worry, I can fight my own war
And I can be graceful in defeat
And I can make my own castle into ruins
And I can lie like someone who has lied to themselves since
They were born, because I am perilously close.

Keep this door locked
And do not look inside: throw food in twice a day
And ask no questions. The beast will lie
Alone, and mutter and twitch for all eternity.

And smile, because this is the only way to exist.