Stop

Thirteen, they said, it keeps growing in the corner of my desktop. No sooner will it fade than they will place it on an inkstone chiselled with sharpened metal, and with the palm of their hand will smash it, pound it, grind it, scorching with ultraviolet light. Can’t it stay that way, can’t they leave it alone. Stop feeding, stop holding, stop loving, stop trying so fucking hard, or it will keep growing, and I don’t want to be the one to tell it, to bend it, to mend it, to fend it, only to find it upending, depending, find yourself defending, fucking codepending ... codependence ... Who fucking said? There is no comfort in it. Stop pretending, stop looking at me, stop looking at me with your dark hollow eyes, an alien life form, I don’t want you guessing, knowing, smelling the core of me, stop it, stop, get your own fucking pain, a hammer, a mirror and your own three-inch nail.