Copy of a Copy

Keep your eyes on the surface and pray it doesn’t blink back. One wrong breath, and another version of me steps forward. Feel the twitch in the jaw when the switch flips clean, another me wakes up, crawls into the scene. You think you’re talkin’ to one? Try three, maybe four, all of us fighting for the hinge on the door. Paper grin stretched tight on a skull outgrown, charcoal veins drawing maps I’ve never owned. You want honesty? Fine, here’s the smear: I don’t know which bastard of me got here. They breathe in sync, they mouth my name, I feel them crowd the edges of my frame. How many ghosts can live in one shell? I shed a face, wake up wearing another as well. Burned the mask down, melted into my bones, now I can’t tell which voice is actually my own. One laughs when I fall, one steadies the blade, one turns my panic into something handmade. One hums warm songs while I lose breath, another rehearses every angle of death. My chest is a crash site of things overwritten, wrong lines, wrong hands, wrong shit I've bitten. Don’t ask who I am, ask who’s awake, ’cause the wrong one stepping forward is a hell of a mistake. Shiver in the jawline, no, wait, that wasn’t mine, somebody else clenched first, dragging the head off-line. Names collide, three at once, one speaks before I think, another rewrites the intent mid-blink. Hands twitch, whose hands? Too many prints inside my reach, one pries open the ribs, one tries to preach, one just scratching for something beneath. Memory stutters, exits, re-enters, half the room losing centers. Hear a sentence finish before it begins, some older version forcing its way in. Faces flicker on the inside glass, not reflections, versions try to pass. Seams don’t hold, edges cold, stories bold, none unfold. Thought spikes, cuts out, reboots in error, another stepping forward built from terror. Borrowed calm, smoothed lines, meanings I didn't design. Identity jammed in a revolving door, one steps through and wants more, another shoves back with a claim on the core. A whisper snaps: “move.” Not my choice. Another echo shoves with a different voice. Silence, the cruel kind, none aligned. Room tilts, ribs tighten, stare shifts, that’s the moment something else takes the lift. They blink as one, they grin too wide, they drag their nails through the inside. How many ghosts can live in one shell? I shed a face, wake up inside another hell. Tried to kill the mask, just fused it in, now I can’t tell where I end and they begin. WHO THE FUCK IS DRIVING THIS BODY NOW?! Wake up mid-sentence in a stranger’s tone, jaw locked shut with names I’ve never owned. Rip the skin, TEAR IT BACK, still no “me” hiding under the tracks. I’m not split, I’m staged, built by every stare that caged me. Sick of wearing versions just to keep ‘em calm, I wanna carve one truth down the length of my palm. If there IS one. IS THERE FUCKING ONE?! How many ghosts can live in one shell? Each one learned the smile, played the role well. I dug for the real, tried to claw within, found nothing but dust and echoes of him. If this is me… why do I feel like a copy of a copy of a scream?