broken skin, shattered shock {nyte}

I've stopped counting the days between the moments I was given so much as a nod of approval from my father, somewhere between the end of death by unintentional suicide and a lust for a watery grave Enzo had convinced me to stop giving a fuck. Now, I'm left with the former, bathing my insides in smoke and nicotine while waiting for a purpose. I'm left with a heavy soul with black marks upon it, tallies for the day that passed since I tried to lose myself to something beyond the realms of my comprehension but well within my reach and my reasoning. I quickly decided that despair would be my falling grace but when faced with worthless liability he called family, my cousin chose to show me what was behind his hard exterior when he wrestled me from death's skeletal hands and stole me from Poseidon's kingdom.

I had nothing left, so he let me stay with him and the tallies I've left branded on my heavy soul tell me it's been just over a month since that day. I haven't so much as heard the repeated phrase that defines my worth and leaves me scrambling for a death too quick for a death wish but too slow to be savored.

No Nevah to twist rusted metal in my gut with her words, no Father to define my worth by the skills I lost and could never regain; I'm still content to bathe my insides in smoke though.

They call it a cancer stick, I call it a coping mechanism. One where I have to steal away from the house and roam the streets just to savor because I don't want to be a rotten influence on the younger ones who have two eyes and a galaxy full of stars waiting for them. A coping mechanism whenever I find myself reaching to satisfy a burning pain in my eye and move my hands down to feel the black and blue bruises that have long since faded from my rib cage. My hands shake when they fly to the place where my eye once was.

I've lost track of the day it happened but I still find myself trying to restore a piece of myself that can never be found.

I look to the night sky and release another flume of smoke from between my teeth and my hands stop shaking. I take a step forward, the clacking of my shoes against the ground quickly drowning out the echo of any call that would label me pathetic. It's hard, so damn difficult, to forget the feeling of glass in my eye or water filling my lungs with only tar and nicotine but I try in the name of restoring this shaking equilibrium to the concoction that's quickly become my mind. Two thirds of it despair and one third of it simply self loathing. In a split second, the ground becomes the ocean and for half a second I think I'm about to just

sink.

I take another drag and try to relax, focusing on the sound of my footsteps rebounding off the ground and filling the sky. "Shit." But the curse is no louder than a whisper as the smoke rises up to the sky, quickly spreading thin across the stars and losing purpose when my one-sided vision loses concentration.

("Evander my ribs.")

My hand flies to the place where my eye once was and I only feel my eye patch sits, hiding the missing piece of myself behind man made vanity and the shame that comes when despair leaves my mind in a constant imbalance that not even my second second has succeeded in setting to the appropriate equilibrium.

So I let the cigarette butt fall and grind it to the ground against my foot. "Drink, I need a drink." I whisper to myself, shutting my eye tight only to be greeted by the sight of broken bodies littering the street beneath the rubble. I quickly spin on my heels and pace myself, giving myself direction but quickly walking towards nothing. Towards anything. Just away.

This district was broken, once. In the aftermath of natural disaster, destruction of homes and livelihoods. I remember finding my way in the late stages of my recovery, walking upon broken streets and less than sturdy footing. Tears of red spilled down my cheeks and death etched silence across mt lips when I wanted to howl so I suffered in silence. Death passed and we all lost pieces of ourselves but the district let itself move on in the face of tragedy when people were given the chance to confide in one another and wear their grief on their sleeves.

I wasn't.

I once walked these streets when they were broken on fragile footing, now I'm the one that's in the process of repair. The first place I went to was the bar and met women with fire in their hair and good intentions on the tips of their tongues. Perhaps that's why my legs carry me to the bar so quickly and easily, I find myself there in less than ten minutes because I know the route like the back of my hand.

No thought for my surroundings or consideration for who's watching me, I grab the first seat I can find at the bar and give the bartender a weak smile. He knows my face, the sad boy with the eye patch and he knows what I'm gonna ask. "Looks like you've had a tough day. Need the usual?" He asks and I quickly nod and keep my hands locked on the wood.

I swear, it feels like someone's staring at me, burning holes in the back of my neck as they shoot daggers at my back.

I decide I don't care when the bartender comes back with two shot glasses full of whisky. "Thanks." I tell him, picking up the glass and swirling it slightly.

I down the first glass and try to bury the agonizing memories beneath my skin.