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Alex Berthelot Apr 2017
here i am sifting through images in my head again,
and i’m still not really sure which ones are from now
and which ones are from then.

all i know is that time has lost meaning,
and i don’t have the energy to fight.
i still feel you on top of me most nights.
i’m sorry.

i’m so sorry,
and i don’t really know for what,
i guess i was praying those words
would make you stop?

but those prayers went unanswered
i wasn’t strong enough to push you off.
and that was the night that i lost god.

as a kid i used to pray before going to bed,
but ever since god left me, i’ve been writing
and rewriting suicide notes in my head.

its ironic because they sound much like a prayer
god, please take me home i don’t want to be here.
Alex Berthelot Mar 2017
and however you arrived here today,
whether it was your soul raging just as much
as the storm around you and finding yourself
pounding on the door between then and now
with bloodied and bruised fists,
or whether it was feeling your heart shatter
into a million pieces and so bravely picking
each one up and trying to complete the puzzle
of your heart with no guide, once again.
you are here now
and here is becoming home
and you are piecing yourself whole again
and you are learning that no guide is ok
because now you get to decide what whole is
and how whole feels
and then one day you'll learn that the storm
wasn’t the only force raging inside of your soul,
courage was there all along raging just as strong.
courage was the pounding on the door of now, bruised fists and all.
courage was the piecing together of your heart again
and soon you’ll learn that underneath all of the rubble and pain,
you were always whole.
pieces of your heart together or not,
you are and have always been undeniably whole.
  Feb 2017 Alex Berthelot
Jack Jenkins
I don't want you to know that I'm going down/
All the words getting stuck in the back of my throat/
My blood turning still and lifeless within my veins/
I chased you without knowing the price to pay/
Oh baby I'm a tormented soul in this world/
It's so hard for me to let go of the stars/
Oh I'm going down in flames today/
Someone give me a reason to stay/
  Feb 2017 Alex Berthelot
Q
Everything you took from me
Summed up to everything I was
The hardest thing about it all
Wasn't letting you go
It was arranging a new me
You wouldn't ever know
  Feb 2017 Alex Berthelot
Maddie Fay
monday morning
and my skin still looks like
something you could touch,
but we both know from experience
it would burn you if you tried.
my mouth in the mirror
is soft and still alive
and hides the ghostly grinning skull
we remember from our nightmares.

wednesday every pore is oozing poison,
and when you tell me
i look pretty in my dress,
i can feel the sharp edges of scales
pressing up through thin flowered fabric.
wednesday i slash my lips red,
and as in nature it's a warning.
i am only an animal and
i have been consumed enough times
that my body has
made itself dangerous.

friday is a heavy knit sweater
even though it is warm,
because friday my chest
is caving in
and i cannot stand
even the accidental brush
of someone else's skin on mine.
friday no one tells me
i look pretty
and i fill my lungs a little fuller.

sunday is disembodied echoes,
a bathroom floor,
and a body that has never been mine.
sunday is gorgeous,
because i am not real,
and i am not here,
and all the things that have
happened to this body
have nothing at all to do with me.
sunday i am nowhere, which is
as close as i have ever been
to free.
  Feb 2017 Alex Berthelot
Wake
Do you ever feel stuck,

like the ground is glued
to the bottom
of your shoes,
or the clouds never move
despite having
every reason to

And your friends never stop
running circles
around you,
moving like a picture trail,
capturing every
last one of their accomplishments
just to compare it
to the empty trophy shelf
gathering cobwebs
in your living room

Do you ever feel stuck,

like the world is spinning
around you,
faster and faster
and it's all you can do
not to sleep
the days away,
finding some comfort
in closed eyes and nightmares

anything but the spins

I would compare this
feeling to quicksand,
but even then,
you're still going
somewhere

even if it is down

even if it is to an untimely end

Do you ever feel stuck

like there is no beginning,
and there is no end

This poem has neither,
in most regards,
it doesn't exist

So I'll leave you with
an incomplete sentence

Stuck....*

A proper ending,
if there ever were one
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