Fire Underneath My Skin

Please don't read this in a voice of glamorization 

I used to write about fire differently 

Blue is the color of my soul and ice covered my ribcage 

I used to crave passion and fire with the warmth they brought

The keyword is: "used to"

Now I found out that passion is not synonymous with fire 

Because here I am engulfed in flames 

And possibly more apathetic than ever 

Passion is still something that I need to find

But I discovered my fire 

It isn't a symbol of glamorization 

Fire is a sign of my suffocation 

I haven't been sleeping well lately 

The pile of anxiety is increasing nearly each day

Regrets from the past

Words I said and actions I did or didn't do

Haunt me all the time like my very own personal poltergeist 

It's always worse at night when I'm all alone in the dark

Fears for the future 

I have to plan mine out and I feel like I'm losing my mind

It feels like I have an anchor attached to me and I'm drowning 

It's always worse at night when I stare at the ceiling in the dark

That's not all of it

Oh I haven't been sleeping

Countless tossing and turning

They say you gotta fake it till you make it

But a peaceful sleep is out of reach when I 

Have a past that haunts me

Have a future that I fear

The past and future are playing a game of tug-of-war  

And I'm caught in the middle

Stuck and mentally paralyzed 

The third factor is called the heat

This is where the fire comes into play 

My room feels like a strange type of sauna

This isn't relaxing

This is suffocating me 

It's hard to sleep when the house feels too warm 

It's hard to be in a state of calm when 

A battle is raging on inside my head

I'm afraid I'm losing the war 

It's hard to rest when my skin

Feels as if it's rotting and starting to melt away 

I'm so very tired

But I can't sleep 

I press my fingertips to my skin

It feels like there is a fire prickling there

I get shocked whenever my fingers touch  

It's all just so warm 

It hurts and it burns 

There must be fire

There is fire underneath my skin 

I didn't bring this up for a while

One of my characters is called Duke 

And I'm attached to him

In a personal way

I think I'm becoming more like him now than back then 

Fire flows through his veins and fire erupts from his fingertips 

And now it feels as if I also have fire in my fingers 

But that's not it

Let me tell you a little about Duke

And how he is a part of myself

All of my main characters are parts of my identity 

Duke is a character that's a representation of my vents

I use him as an outlet for venting

It's better to hurt characters than myself 

Strength, weakness, life, death, impulse, anger, fear

I label those as traits that Duke dominates in 

The way I share those traits might be totally different 

Than how he has them

But I have them as well 

Story spoilers or not

I'm not entirely like Duke of course

That would be ridiculous and terrifying 

But I'm similar to him in the ways that I 

Have parts of my past that I don't openly talk about

I've done things that I shouldn't have done 

I'm getting angry and frustrated 

I'm in the beginning stages of losing it

Duke has and will again lose it

He's way more than someone I poke at for jokes

And he's more than a character of suffering

We're both sick and tired

Of life treating us this way 

Of living our lives in the ways that we do 

We're gonna take a stand and take control

But that time is yet to come 

We both feel like our time is coming to an end

That we won't be alive after significant events 

Thoughts of death contaminate both our minds

And now the burdensome fire is a part 

In Duke and in myself 

So maybe my characters aren't real

Maybe I write about them so much so I can

Avoid thinking about my own problems 

I can shape them differently and project them

Onto my characters 

But underneath all that fictional exaggeration 

The vague outlines of my characters' problems 

Are very real 

And I use my story and characters 

To cope and to escape

From this doomed reality

Since after all

I prefer living in fantasy than reality 

Perhaps the heat is messing with my head

That must be why my thoughts are so foggy and muddled

My head is full of the smoke and steam

From the fire that lingers 

Right below my skin and also

Throughout my body 

Fire isn't easy to control

It demands to control itself

It makes it difficult to breathe

Oh I can't breathe 

Fire isn't a comfort 

It is a danger 

Please don't read this in a voice of glamorization 

I used to write about fire differently 

Blue is the color of my soul and ice covered my ribcage 

I used to crave passion and fire with the warmth they brought

The keyword is: "used to"

Now I found out that passion is not synonymous with fire 

Because here I am engulfed in flames 

And possibly more apathetic than ever 

Passion is still something that I need to find

But I discovered my fire 

It isn't a symbol of glamorization 

Fire is a sign of my suffocation