A/N: this isn't very good because i didn't polish it but it was collecting dust in my notes so here y'all go

There's a place in the backyard, a patch of rockless dirt, where he fell to his knees and dug a hole to place the dying pieces of his heart inside. He isn't sure if he is a snake shedding its skin, or if he is all scar tissue: a chrysalis he can never escape from.

The uncertainty of his own existence makes him shaky. He wants to put his signature on important documents but it never seems real when he writes it down, like his name is lemon juice on parchment. No one has bothered to open a lighter and burn the words out of him. He's not sure if he even wants anyone to.

He exists, in and out, like moon phases; he wanes but never really waxes; he increases the dosage but the high is unchanging. He stares at paintings and wonders what he would look like if he were one. If his insides were outside, would people recognize him? His mother? Would he still be her precious boy?

He's so so so so quiet, he's a whisper of pastel pink, he's the half-erased wrong answer on a test booklet, he's the ringing in his own ears when there is no noise. There's no way around his state of nonentity; denser than a black hole, he sucks in on himself until he is a static, cheap imitation of real matter.

And if he were a painting, he would be an untouched canvas, collecting dust in the attic.

There is no beauty in nonexistence.