Second Skin

The stars are hidden, smothered by the city’s glow, and I wonder if they’re still up there, watching me fall apart. I’m not asking for salvation. I’m not asking for anything. I just want to feel the weight of my own existence, to know I’m more than a shadow slipping through the cracks. I write in my head, lines of poetry that no one will ever read, because putting them on paper feels too permanent, and I’m not sure I’m ready to be that real.There’s a kid on the corner, hood up, eyes like mine, carrying the same kind of quiet that cuts deeper than knives. We don’t speak, but I know him, know the way his heart is a bruise that won’t stop spreading. We’re the lost ones, the ones who wear our sadness like a second skin, who sing our pain in minor keys and call it survival. I want to tell him it gets better, but I don’t know if it does, so I just nod, and he nods back, and we keep walking our separate ways. We’re the lost ones, the ones who wear our sadness like a second skin, who sing our pain in minor keys and call it survival. We’re the lost ones, the ones who wear our sadness like a second skin, who sing our pain in minor keys and call it survival. [Outro]