I woke up this morning happy,

Smiling cause I dreamt of you.

This will probably sound a bit sappy,

But that dream showed me something I knew.


Dancing in the summer sun,

In a rainbow of people and color.

We twirled around and we spun,

Like in this world there wasn't another.


Free from your parent's strict rule,

Your true self showed to me.

You were carefree and a happy fool,

We could be together and be free.


You stopped to hold me close,

And went in for my lips.

This is what I missed the most,

Us being lip to lip and touching hips.


I woke up from this so excited,

Knowing this was a good sign.

It showed my reasoning was ignited,

I know everything will all be fine.

Here I am,
A silly little human
On this silly little planet.
And I have these...
These incredible experiences.
I have these earthshattering nights
Gazing into someone's eyes like they're galaxies
With my heart crashing against my ribcage like the tide.
I have these spiritual awakenings,
These end-all blossoming moments of total wonder,
And I could eat the world,
Swallow it.
I could be all of it
And it wouldn't encompass what I feel.
And I'm just this...
This little ant, here,
On a marble
Crawling with millions of other ants
All having experiences all over the place,
And I'm really not that unique at all,
And nobody really cares in the long run,
But god,
Spending a night in your arms rearranged me by the atom.
And that's pretty big
To me.

At 11:43 pm, you are strong and confident.
(Now its 2:00 am, and you're screaming into your pillow.)
You smirk at fools and tell me everything i don't know.
(Now you're trembling more and more, the bed is shaking.)
You tell me to think logically and i will be fine.
(I can't see your smile, please, tell me what to do?)
I listen intently and hold on to your every word.  

Its 9:15 am, and you are smiling.
(Now its 1:56 am, and you scream in my arms.)
You tell me that you love me,and thank me.
(Now you're kissing my neck softly.)
I ask what I've done, and your eyes soften.
(I can't see your face, but i can feel you smile on my neck.)
I listen as you tell me that no one has ever stayed for you.

Its 8:12 am, and you are so excited, for us.
(Now its 12:35 am, and you are smiling.)
You hug me tightly, and kiss me, its our day, you say.
(Now you're lightly petting my hair, telling me about your past.)
I ask how someone could ever hurt someone as wonderful as you.
(I can't see your face, but i feel your blush in my soul.)
I listen to you as you recite your vows to me, and i say mine.

I am afraid.
Today I woke up
Scared.
Scared of many things.
Scared like I would be anyway
That tick tick tick
In a few days
You will be gone altogether.
Scared more because
I feel myself reaching for you
And I can't stop.
Scared
Just because I haven't heard your voice in days
And something happened inside me
That needs that comfort to heal.
At breakfast
I was scared of my pancakes.
They were a challenge.
It has been days since food has made me anything but nauseous.
They steamed on my plate
Hot and sweet and doused in thick syrup.
I stared them down.
I tried hard to lift my fork.
Set it down.
Moved on to my coffee.
Its sweetness, too, sickened me.
I was afraid of that coffee.
As if it would suddenly strike
Like a cobra.
I was afraid
Of every person in that room.
I was afraid
Of my hands.
I was afraid
Of my heartbeat.
I was afraid
Of you
And your silence.
I laughed with my friends
And I was afraid
Of my laugh.
Afraid of how they didn't know
How scared I was.
Afraid that I would just slip and tell them
And they would support me
And it wouldn't help.
I excused myself,
Went to the small private little bathroom
Just outside.
I locked the door and tried to cry.
Nothing.
I felt sick
But nothing there, either.
Finally I looked myself in the eyes in the mirror
(You called them beautiful the other day)
(That thought flashed through my mind
And I saw it strike a spark of longing inside them
But it quickly died.)
I said,
"I don't want to be mean.
But if I'm not mean, you don't listen.
People say never to put yourself down
But if I am not harsh it doesn't get through.
You are being stupid. Grow up. Live. Eat something
Go on.
Nothing bad has happened.
And if you do not see her again for six months
You have lost much, much more before.
You stand up tall like you've earned.
Come on, just stop this."
I stared back, hollow looking.
I pulled up the bottom of my shirt
Let my stomach out as far as it would go.
It made no difference to my waistline at all.
I was afraid
Of that.
I pulled it down and grabbed the edges of the sink,
"You are DYING. You are starving inside,
Don't do it outside.
Let me eat.
Please.
Now you're going to go out there
And you're going to smile
Like nothing has ever scared you.
And none of those people will know you thought any of this
And none of those people will see your terror in your eyes
And that
Will be your strength.
If you refuse to feel better
I'll be ****** if anybody will see it."
I took a deep breath
And in the mirror
I complied.
My face settled into a calm mask
The face of a girl who had just had pancakes for breakfast
Who had a final to study for
Who had friends to laugh with
Whose day was ordinary.
A hint of a smile on my lips
A lift to my eyes.
I know just how
To rearrange my face.
(The goal is
People's eyes will slide right over it
And not take in any traitorous details.
Feng Shui, and all that.)
And the satisfaction settled over me
That at least there was that.
At least
All of a sudden
The girl in the mirror wasn't afraid
Even if I
Still was.
I walked back out
And smiled
And laughed with my friends
And ate my breakfast
Feeling sicker
With every bite.

I am afraid.
I am afraid because I am here
And I want to walk away
But instead I am right here.
I sit here.
Why
Do I sit here?
I think I'm doing it
Just to see how long I can.
It's like holding your fingers over a burning candle
To see how long you can stand the heat
Before your skin blisters
And you pull away, defeated.
I sit still.
I always sit still when it hurts.
I think stillness
Started a few years ago.
When I first hit the ground
I was afraid to breathe.
It was like I had been dropped from a high bridge onto a concrete sidewalk
Below
And I knew
Knew beyond any doubt
That things were broken.
Things inside were very very broken.
Things were splintered and punctured,
And if I moved, even to draw a breath,
I would bleed out right there.
I think that's when the stillness started.
And now whenever I am hurt
Whenever something hits me
I go still as stone
Except for shaking hands
That flutter, fragile and white, until I clasp them tight together.
The world moves around me
Under me
But I stay still as death
Not even daring to breathe
As if I will be found
As if I will tear apart into a million shreds of wasted paper
And drift to the floor.
I stay so still my muscles ache.
I never cry.
I can't cry.
I just sit there and feel how peculiar the sense of damage is.
How odd it is to be full of explosions and debris whipping around inside
An utterly motionless body.
And part of me, even as I feel
Just sick
With how much I know I'd die if my body betrayed my anguish in real injury
Part of me looks on from above,
From without,
With a detached analysis
Of this and that
Of just where I feel this blow
And this stabbing pain,
Of just how each moment changes me.
I freeze like ice outside
And burn like hell inside.
It is the most curious sensation in the world
And I hate it so much I would die to escape it.
And yet when it comes upon me
I do nothing
Nothing at all.
I say nothing.
I turn to stone, part by part,
My fingers
My elbows
My shoulders,
My legs
My stomach
My neck
Like I'm being submerged in drying cement
And finally my lungs
Stone
My jaw
Stone
My lips
My throat
The top of my head
Stone.
Until all that is left
Are my eyes
Just watching.
I am paralyzed
And I look out on a world in motion
Whirling, spinning.
Moments before I was a part of the rhythm like a heartbeat
But that was moments ago,
And we all know how much can change in just a moment.
When I am stone
You can come at me with a chisel
And I will say nothing.
Bang bang bang
And little chunks come off
A shard of my cheek
A finger at the joint
The swell of my collarbone,
They crumble when struck
But I can't move an inch.
I sit still.
I always sit still.
My stillness is the waiting.
It is the wish
To destroy.
It is the craving
Hot and metallic
To do something
To slice away how much I hate my own helplessness.
It is knowing that there is a relief
Besides just being saved.
There is a way to save myself
From this chaos inside
A way to feel better
Instantaneously.
My stillness is the resistance
The longing and the "No, I can't."
The firm denial
Cold as ice
Hard as granite.
Is it strong to let the world dismantle you by the inch
When you know you could get there first?
Is it strong to sit and take take take
And do nothing whatsoever?
Is a statue strong
Or is it just
Trapped?

It is cold today.
The snow comes down in white clouds
Heavy and wet
And I bend beneath it
Like the tree branches that brush the ground in fatigue.
There is no passion in a snowstorm
No lightning
Only weight.

I sat up last night
Waiting.
It was very late
When I finally laid down to sleep
And I had spent so much anguish
That I had run clean out
And slept well.
I awoke this morning
Less afraid than I thought I would be
Somehow embalmed in the night,
Coated in my own version of silent frost,
Even as the world went white and grey outside my windowpane.
Now I am waiting again
And I do not feel sick
Only very tired
And I think the secret must be either to stay awake all night
Or sleep all day.
I love sleep. It's the waking that gets me.
Cold like falling through black ice.
Hot like the metallic tang of blood when you've slipped in the snow and gone down,
Down.

The escape, though
Is worth the return
And for the first time I wonder
If when I am asleep I am as barren and lifeless as the world is
When it hibernates for the winter.
Maybe I hate the cold
But maybe the land needs to burrow beneath itself
And hide under its blankets
And find numbness for a few months
In order to bloom again without crumbling to ashes.
Maybe all this time
I thought winter was my punishment
When it was only
The earth's rest.

I am waiting
On the sun to tell me
Whether I am rising or setting.
Whether I should sleep all day
Or wait up
All night.

You say I don't have to worry.
When we were laughing, happy,
And I said, "I'm trusting you."
I meant in all things.
When I sealed it with a kiss,
I meant
I am trusting you.
Trusting you the way I have only ever trusted
One other person.
One other,
Who dragged me through hell and repented,
Whose every ugliness and cruelty I saw and accepted,
Who I know better than I know myself.
It took that to trust her,
It took seeing every corner of her for me to give her
What I am handing you right now.
You are still shrouded in secrets, in uncertainty.
I've not seen your darkness, only heard that maybe it exists.
In so many ways
I don't know you.
But looking into your eyes
I trusted you
And I trust you
And here,
Here you go:
Here is every night I lay awake, my stomach twisting in knots,
Fearing that you'll forget me.
Here is every morning I wake up
And try not to bother you too soon into the day,
Fighting the irrational panic that if I don't hear that you exist
You'll have been only a dream.
Here is every midnight I will spend wandering in the cold
Looking for ghosts of us together in the dark
Wondering what you are doing halfway around the world under the same moon that paints the snow silver here.
Here is every doubt I have.
I trust you.
Here is my faith.
It is never given lightly.
But I love you.
And since I do,
I have the choices:
Trust you
Or don't.
I will love you either way.
I will fear you either way,
And what this trust means is that
I have found a new kind of courage.
When I am sad, or scared,
When my day has raked me over the coals,
When I am forced to my knees, and have to get up all alone,
I will allow the thought of you
To comfort me.
I will let you in
In my darkest hours
And let the light that fills up every inch of me when you touch me
Return without you
And warm me.
You may never know what this means from me-
You've not seen me guard myself like a fortress for eighteen years.
You've not seen me refuse to let anything comfort me
In fear that if I rely upon it
I will lose it and be unable to survive.
You've not seen me suffer silently, grimly, stubbornly
For months
Just so I will have done all the getting-up
Myself.
This trust, this faith,
This is the most precious thing I have.
And I gave it to you,
Laughing.