SELF-PORTRAIT
by: Vanessa Romea


In the art of emotions Your words betray the accusations You make up for who I really am The way your eyes reveal YOU when you Proclaim that I was the same individual You first loved before all this

Well you're WRONG.

Between the spaces of these keepsakes That I hold so dearly to me, every hue Every perspective, every shadows of I Seem so transgressed yet surreal, I grasp Onto the remnants of you in these mutual moments As if there was ever still an us to treasure close To my heart and keep within the pockets of my soul Secured in this invisible locket that I carry everyday Just to remind me of everything that I've given up & lost But do I even remind you of me? Coz you seem so shady Now that things have come for the worst of uncertainties I'm afraid I am lost in the pages of this burning purgatory And I missed you, if I've only known earlier, I should've smiled When the photographer said cheese and should've thrown myselfIn that picture that we took like there was no tomorrow If I only knew better that it was the last intimacy we'll ever Have together again in this indefinite predicament of mine Then I should've just risked myself with the humiliation Of my endless insecurities, hair at the wrong places Or poses in slump positions which I'm quite good at but As you've noticed by now that whenever you're around I care Of nothing less about who I pretend to be on the outer just As long as you accept the significance of my infamy But just incase you missed out on the acquaintances? Well I am Me and I am feeble and I am prone to do the most absurdities In the most awkward disposition given at the wrong time & will I'd even live thru the embarrassment just to prove to myself That I too can have a normal day, that I too feel special just The way I am without all the excuses, without all your pity approvals That you solely make up for me, so I want you to know that like you --

I do exist.

It's just such ashamed that you love her more than I You fantasized her picture-perfect poses perfectly resized on that glossy frame Of expectations that you safely hammered By the corners of your walls like A Kali because she's so pretty? Coz she fits your perfect world of show-and-tell Even tho she's decayed from Within you're still obsessed w/ the temptatious traitor, I never understood why you worship her intently coz you mean nothing more to her Than a penetration thru the spine althru the night just to satisfy her deathbed wish While your acceptance to me is my only redeemer to this endless infliction, So please illuminate my perspective why I could never possess of your affections? And where are you now within these desperate moments that I needed you most? But behind a refracted mirror parallel to my fate kissing your ego, This pain that I feel is so stimulating yet the fatigue is overwhelmingly unbearable I paint a canvass of this sewn-lip muneca behind her mascara-breached jade Shadowed by immeasurable phantom stitched on the scars of her skid-marked limbs, I paint a self-portrait of a battered Mona Lisa on an exhumed cross silently shrieking, in a ritual between my monsters and me I died along with all your infidelities but I will not keep disguising that I am content while these diseases are well-feasted, I will not play this sick masquerade just to inspire others' shoaled fulfillment of their greed This struggle between my two religions of dreamscape & reality is life-shattering With I constantly buried in this omen that becomes so dragged and infinite, Everyday I walk on a thick barb-wire that pierces thru the veins of my confidence, On this narrow and infinite plank that I am threatened to balance out thru storms, Just to prove to you that I'm not a cowardice that I'm responsible for my consequences, While I gamble expectations over limitations on the surgeon's table w/ the reaper, So do you expect me to believe of this false perception that life's meant to be dandy Well why isn't it? Then why am I tormented inside this inconceivable maggoty shell? It's excruciating to believe in such bullshit that maybe I could even rely on you, I don't think you understood me at all that's why you allowed them to destroy this, That's why I think you're always too occupied w/ other things than to save me, For the moments that I needed youI really didn't need you at all coz you were never There to begin with so Why do you still need a holographic copy of us?

On this photo, I was smiling, on the other I felt smudged On this one I felt like we were just the whole world together That I never have to worry because I thought I had you by me forever Many times you'll see my thoughts sold on these panorama Other times when I enjoy admiring the reflection of this Chameleon who metaphors accordingly to the phases of the weather So don't assume that you know me coz most of the times, I'm not me I hate that woman in the picture, who's caused me this condemnation Given at any rate of reasons why I cursed self-portraits because I despise of chasing after the ghost of good things to heal fractured hopes And pray that out of all my oblivion I could could see me beyond this picture Such ashamed that I have given you everything I could, inspite of your Cruel intentions and vile rejections towards me, as I've always Loved you, no matter how much you hurt me but I cannot make you love me As much as I love you and I don't think I can ever understand this But I believe in you so much that I could die for the words that you say I'm so used to my life with you around, I don't know anymore the real me I'm searching for reasons to keep away the demons & distract myself from the awakening, Pack the wound with salt so I'll feel the numb when it bleeds coz it fucking kills, Please set me free, this can't be everything I see that my canvas is incomplete, For all the disappointments that shackled me to the bottom of my fate Why does it always have to be me that's always left out to burn in this trigger? I thought that I found myself today, I thought I had overcome this living nightmare, Who am I kidding but myself? I'm still lost in a portrait in a picture of me.


Please
Find yourself soon before
I lose myself.