This Christmas I have been alone
All by myself
In a new city
With no one near.
All my friends visiting their own family,
And my own 2000 miles away.
I am proud to have made it through the day, and year.
Even though all day I have missed you.
Wished you were here with me.
Even if I could only message you,
Even if I could only be happy you were with someone else.
Even if I just knew you were still breathing.
Would be better than this.
In my head I wonder if all the ache is worth it.
We did not date.
We were not together long.
And yet the moments we shared live infinitely in my mind,
On replay.
Maybe it is a “trauma bond” as I have googled.
Or maybe it is simply that my soul was comfortable with you.
You understood my depression and suicidal desires at the same time as loving me for being successful.
You did not shame me.
You did not make me try to explain why this and why that.
We basked in the shared understanding.
And maybe I was a fool to believe you.
To believe you would stay.
And maybe it was an accident.
It seems almost all my poems end in this now.
If you can even call them poems.

I felt like writing a letter to myself
One of love and joy
A letter to remind myself of all the things I am worth
To reiterate the fabric of my being
To examine my thoughts
And to accept them for what they are
To hug myself
Inside and out
To look in the mirror and smile
To be okay with the faults in my mind
And to reach out for help to better them

Have you ever seen a suicidal successful blond?
Have you ever thought of all the people on the edge around you?
Those that you have no clue, are in the same boat as you?

And if I were to pass
They’d look.
And they’d find the searches for how to find a therapist
And they’d see the time I tried back at college
And maybe they’d see the decline my spring semester senior year
Maybe they’d see how I was dedicated a few months and then
Falling apart the next 6.
They’d look and they’d find the list in my notes
They’d look and remember in high school how I cried
And tried
And maybe I did throw my notebook away so I didn’t have to remember the pain.
Maybe they’d remember taking my knives.
Maybe they’d speak about the times I asked about being bipolar.
And they would blame themselves.
For the failure of my own heart
And mind.
They’d blame themselves for the poison in my brain.
If I passed I wouldn’t be able to fix the next hike.
I wouldn’t be able to feel the next High.
If I passed then I wouldn’t be able to save you
And that’s what I really want to do

I keep picturing what it would look like
To wake up and do the yoga
A fresh cup of coffee.

I wonder what it is like to actually write in my journal every night and not switch to using my notes app on my phone.

I wonder what it’s like to not be working out for 4 months then take 2 months off and restart everything.

I wonder what it is like to accept my own body. I wonder what it is like to just be happy.
To wake up and not want to stay in bed.
To wake up and not feel fear inside of you.
To exist and desire to remain existing.
I wonder what it would be like if you were here still.

I keep picturing this better version, a more put together version, a version that doesn’t keep eating candy to deal with stress and depression.
I am here at this point in my life but I do not feel like it is where I should be for myself. I have been saying I need therapy since I was 12 and I have yet to get it. Maybe that is what I will do for myself.

Attempting to be patient is a thin line with being lazy and making excuses for yourself.

Sometimes I wonder
How did I make it this far?

Sometimes I wonder when are you enough?
When do you see yourself as “there”?
Do you ever feel as though you are done?
Do you ever love yourself as much as your mom loves you?
Or your dad?
Or friend?
Is it ever enough?
What I do?
Who I am?
How much I weigh?
How I look?

Is it ever enough
To be
To exist
To breathe
To be
Happy

The sound of a beating drum echoes in my mind.
Over and over it goes.
I find myself waiting upon each break, hoping to hear the sound; to remind me that it isn’t hiding and plotting.

And at the same time I feel the relief of a beat-I wish it was an ocean wave or the wind howling at the peak of a mountain or a stream running by or the sound of my sisters laughter.

and I could romanticize it and say that it changes if only you adjust your ears.
But it doesn’t.
It beats on and on and on.
Eventually you learn how to hear both.  

You learn how to remember the joy in sunlight.
You learn how to be grateful each night.
You learn how to take a deep breath, while you wished you weren’t breathing at all.

And you have to chose this every day. Every day you wake up.
You need to chose to remember the things you love. And know that one day you’ll enjoy them again.

You must remember that you are living for everyone who let the drum beat them down.

You are living for everyone who let the drum beat so loud they forgot the sound of happiness.
They couldn’t feel it.
They couldn’t find it.
As if the drummer was beating them instead.

And so I will hold it out to you- a hand.
A friend.
A pair of headphones.  
And the promise to partake in laugher with you once again.

I think I’d prefer to remain by myself
To not begin a new friendship
The pain far outweighs the good
And disappointed I become again and again
When you fail to actually be a good friend

I look around and see smiles
A resting face
A quiet one
A calm one
All sorts of faces.
Everyone talking to each other,
With each other
Right there
But everyone is so far away.
They rate you and review you
And everyone likes you
Yet everyone is so disappointing.
The “friends” here are not that at all

Sometimes I fantasize what it’s like to fade away
I think about the comfort in a Black Abyss
I imagine you’re there.
To hug me and kiss me and make love to me and be complete,
Unlike how we were here.
Unlike how we never had the chance.

I imagine slipping away and no one realizing.
No one will have to feel the pain of me gone.
I wish it could be that way.
I imagine not having to wake up and be saddled with guilt, and sadness, and anxiety, and exhaustion, and fatigue.
It’s not even bad right now and I still desire these things.
Or maybe it is bad and I just still haven’t learned myself.

They wonder why I think politics are life
And it’s because I see my brothers and me and them and everyone
Your socioeconomic status growing up makes drastic impacts on the opportunity in life you have
Dramatic changes in perception that you are not even aware of
I see how my brother sold drugs to be able to be on his own at 17
I see how thankful I was for my bf at the time to have a place to live
I see how thankful I am for the Army to pay for my school
I see the work and hours myself and coworkers put in
I see the privilege my sister has to use my moms new car as hers has broken down
I see the coworkers at Tops not prioritize education
Graduating high school is not an expectation
I see the privilege in my pocket and my own opportunity
I also see the ability for a friend to not worry about where she will live or how she will get a loan for school
How do people escape poverty if they don’t have anyone to co-sign a loan?
How do you get ownership?
And that ties into an entire discussion on systematic racism and current oppression as well.

I see my friend complain about pumping her own gas in her brand new Jeep her mom bought, and the gas her dad is paying for. I see another friend complain about having a (parent bought) Nissan instead of a Mercedes.

I see my friends and coworkers and siblings sell drugs to make more money because minimum wage jobs simply don’t give you enough. I see them sell, and use. Smoking **** turns into ******* and soon you have more.
I see them use to avoid anxiety and depression because it costs 90$ to see a therapist once a week.
I see my friend boast about how much she has loved therapy her entire life.
I fall in love with a boy who needed drugs to escape reality.
Depression can make you do silly things like get addicted to drugs that can be laced with fentanyl.
Poverty can make you do things like sell drugs, and use them to escape mental illnesses, because you can’t take off work to pay for or even miss for the therapy session you need.
Furthermore, therapy is not even a common recommendation.

It can make you do things like join a military that owns you.

It can make you do things like sell your body or pictures or videos.

It can make you work hard and “be proud of it” and then realize the capitalist pig society you live in.

This is not even direct poverty it is a lower income class that still has several opportunities.

The income gap is much more than just that it is a life gap, an opportunity gap, a smile and happiness gap.

It is quite literally the difference between a living and breathing and thriving Tony, and a dead one.

It is the difference between my brother eating one day or having a place to live the next.

It is the difference between my brothers having their mom alive or not.

And I know the rich or well off can be addicted to coke with therapy, and they have their own issues with family and they can be suicidal despite every comfort and opportunity.

There still lies the difference in every opportunity, the difference in air breathed and health standards, the difference in education and expectations.

The difference in life and choice.
In opportunity or fate.
The rate of work one must put in to get to where another starts is astounding.
And this is only mild in the US compared to other places.

Some would say I should not complain. But how many people will I see from similar backgrounds be addicted or die until something changes?
How many people will I see sit by and do nothing?

Someone asked me if I found what I had been looking for?
But how can I find it?
When I did and he left.
He disappeared,
He could not fight anymore.
And now he is gone,
So I’ve tried to be alive,
For me and him.
And every day,
I find something to be thankful for.
Because I did.
I found what I was looking for-
Or something close.
I tasted him.
I loved him.
I loved him.
I loved him inside of me.
I loved him looking at me.
I loved him exposing me.
And seeing me,
The depression and all.
And I failed to see his Dire need.
His dire need to be seen,
And now he is gone.
So if I don’t even find what I’m looking for again,
I guess it’s my fault for not saving the one that actually saw me.

Because who else will even hear all of me?
Who else will know or realize?
Who else will see all the sides that exist? And understand them all?
So it’s just me,
And “you”-
Now.
…

An actual connection with someone would be nice

How many years will I spend fighting to love the body I’m in?

I wake up in a fog
I get through the day
I try my best
I talk to her
And her
And them
And I laugh
And I smile
And I breeze through the day

I get home
“Home”
To this place I sleep

And I try to breathe
I try to be happy
I practice my gratitude
I try to keep my gym and eating habits
I try to stay stable
Stable is all I need

How to escape this depression
I will never
But being stable?
That is doable

So I wait until I get home to do the feeling
To do the crying
To being so busy I don’t have to think about you or about the lack of everything

I wonder if you had to fight for your happiness the same way I do every day

Looking through my old poems
It has hit me that following my break up of 4.5 years
I did not write a single sad poem about missing him
I did the breaking up
I guess for good reason
Because the poems about HIM are from years before the deed was done

It always feels like a trap-
When you’re happy,
And content,
At peace one could say.

At the moment I have a resembling monotone of balance,
A comforting noise level.

I feel the old tug
I know the shoe may drop
But I also know the amount of times I have lived
I know the pain I have overcome
In my head I think this makes me stronger, I have the hindsight to know I can make it through
But
Through writing it down
The more fatigue you go through the less strong you are over time
Erosion is not only for the rocks and rivers and mountains
It is for the will to live as well

I use to post the things that said “it does not mean you’re lonely if you’re alone”
But I guess I was never really alone
I am still not completely in solitude but
I might as well be

Lonely is a feeling I haven’t felt in a long time
A wave that rolls in slowly but so powerful
It is deep
And makes me fear for the future
If I am lonely now
How will I ever meet someone that accompanies my heart the way you did?
Will anyone be able to touch and see and feel me the way you could?
Will I feel connected and understood for the things I do not want to talk about?
Or will I feel this lonely for eternity

I miss your laugh
The way you smiled
I miss the kissing
The melting into each other
I miss the desire the need
I miss you
And I can’t get you back
What if you were the love of my life and now you are gone?
How do you get over someone that is no longer alive?
I miss you
All the adventures we never had
All the opportunities we missed
I wish you had not left
I wish you were here with me
I wish I had told you I loved you then
I wish I had been enough for you to stay

I decided I would carry you with me
I chose to live for the both of us
Because you could not be here

I breathed the air
I smiled in the light of the sun
I felt the ocean water on my skin
And the sand beneath my feet
For you and I
We could share this moment of happiness
Because I would feel it for more than one
Because when I thought “wow I could come back here to **** myself, it’s the perfect location”
The thought directly after was that I could not because I had to enjoy it for the both of us
Because you gave in
And I’m left here

To wonder through the lava
Waiting for you to flow back to me
For my energy to heal
To replenish
To find equilibrium

Waiting and living
Breathe I remind myself
Smiling and laughing
For those that did not make it

Sometimes I wonder how long I will last
I wonder how many more bright days there are
Until I am sad again
Until I am nothing again
Until it gets much worse again
Sometimes I think about how good I can feel
How bright the sun is
How thankful I can be
How happy I am
How laughter feels when it rolls from deep inside
How it feels to live for you and me and now another
This year began with one death and now another has come and gone
It is said to travel in threes
So I am weary
For the third cannot be me
But another
I do not know if I can handle

It has been almost 6 months
And I still have not written a goodbye letter
I think about you every day
I should have saved you
I should have known
How have I stared numerous suicidal people in the face, and helped them?
Why did I believe you when you lied?
Why did I not recognize the severity in your gaze?
The lack of shine?
How do you have a suicide prevention class and be certified and fail someone you love?

I never knew how much you meant to me until you were gone
Until you disappeared to hell or heaven
To be with your sister or not
To decompose and help a tree grow
To reincarnate and come back to me
To fill the void
To anywhere but somehwere with me
To anywhere but somewhere I can see
To anywhere but the place I need you to be,
Here with me

I look down and see fat
I look down and see wide hips and wide legs and jiggly things
I look up and see jiggly arms and jiggly this and jiggly that
And I look to the side and I see the phat ***
I go to the gym
I see the muscles underneath
I work them
I love them
I try for them
And I smile at them
And I take care of them
And I come home
And I see bloated big belly
I see legs that are not all muscle
I see flaw and flaw and flaw and flaw
I try to change the mindset
I try
I tried
I am trying

Have you ever lost an intimate partner to a drug overdose?
A drug overdose that was most likely a suicide but is not known for sure?
How do you keep losing people when you are fighting so hard to stay yourself?

You can only distract yourself so many times
before it catches up with you

I know that you are gone
But I keep swiping
I keep searching
As if I will find you in someone else
As if someone else will be you?

Repeatedly I think
If only I believed in a God
I would be much happier
But I cannot accustom myself to this treachery
No matter the pain I feel
Half believing is not an act I could participate in

I have dated a man for over 4 years
Last year we opened it up-only for me
I slept with women, men, both, did some threesomes
Had some fun
I met a Tony
I was infatuated immediately
The ***
The depression
The eyes
The shower
The jokes
The moments

And he is gone
A man I drunkenly texted wishing I could see
A man I drunkenly said I would leave my boyfriend of 4 years for
A man I snuggled and watched soul with
A man I knew saw other people
A man I was rooting for had finally found a girlfriend who cherished him and loved him and was monogamous for him
A man that stopped responding so I thought he had found a girlfriend
The man I found out a month later had overdosed
The man I had texted that entire month waiting for a response
Missing him
Needing him
Wanting him
To find he is gone
After all the signs he left
After all the blatant statements he said
After the suicide prevention training I have literally had
And I couldn’t even save the man I still want today

My first poem on here is from 2012.
I did not begin writing online until my entire journal was full of sad poems already.
8 years ago, I was already 1-2 years deep in that journal.
did you ever think at 11 or 12 you would still be this sad?
****,
it is really hitting me. I am 22 and time and time again
it gets me.
it comes back for me.
This is what I wonder when you hear of middle aged men and women committing suicide.
Did they make it that far just for it to climb up the walls and drag them down again?

What an exhilarating experience life is
What a privilege I have to smile
And laugh
And be free
How the colors twinkle
How the music plays in the bumpy car ride with the one I love sitting next to me
My gratitude is out of this world
And this is why it so sad
When I am
Sitting In the car with the hand of the one I love on my thigh
And I still think
It is okay if I die

He pays me for the night.
He gifts me with a present.
He asks for a show and tell.
He asks for a season and no ***.
He reminds me of whose bed this is.
He reminds me of what we are.
He reminds me of what we are not.
He does not pay me and do I ask?
He will soon have another gift for me.
He asks for a cuddle and sleep night over.
He asks for a kiss.
I am unsure of this new playground.

I am trying to gain discipline but it is proving difficult.
I would just like to lose 20 pounds and keep it off.
Maybe I would feel comfortable in my skin.
Maybe I would stop eating until my stomach hurt.
I enjoy running and working out.
I wish my knee would stop hurting.
I wish I had the discipline to eat healthy and stick to it. But if I cannot eat a perfect day what is the point in trying at all??

Today, I did not work.
My sister came over and I ordered door dash and watched Netflix with her. We did not do homework or classes online.

Yesterday, I went to work.
Yesterday, I ran two miles and showered.
At work, I ate a frozen meal and an orange.
At work, I wore a mask and gloves and had to repeatedly tell my cashiers that wearing their masks was not a choice, but mandatory.

Tomorrow I have off. I will savor this day. I will work out and eat well. I will make sure my sister finds some joy.

Friday I will work. I will be back at the grocery store. I will encounter the rude, the scared, the thankful, and the ignorant.

I will try to protect my cashiers. I will try to protect my customers. I will try to protect myself. I will try.

But when will my government decide to protect me? When will they decide my life is worth more than a two dollar raise?

I will go to work. And I will remember the anger. I will remember my frustration. The people who are working for minimum wage that isn’t even a living wage. The people getting less than a basic wage and putting their lives at risk because otherwise they would face homelessness. The unemployed who are getting more than those putting their lives at risk. The government who has forced millions into unemployment. The college students get kicked out. I get kicked out. Some get checks, I do not get a check. I am still at my grocery store.

And I will try to protect us.

It’s years later
And I still crave it.
It’s a thousand smiles later,
A million victories ago,
And bunch of times overcome.
And I lay here craving it more than anything.
I need it, I want it, please.
Let me grasp the release I miss
Let me climb down
Let me see it
Let me feel it trickle down
Down my legs
Down my back
Let me feel it sting
Let me think of something other than this
Let me release
Please
Let me down

I am trying so hard and it feels like nothing is getting done.
I miss a meeting or sleep through a class and I cannot seem to find the energy to start that book.
I order another pizza on uber eats and I drink coffee after coffee.
I take down the counseling centers information.
I took it down weeks ago.
The imminent failure that seems to be coming makes me paralyzed to preventing it.
I am so frustrated with myself.

I watched some videos on self-love and trust issues.
I heard the advice but could not infiltrate it into my life.
I know attendance matters in class but I cannot seem to get out of bed.
I know my GPA will determine where I go, I know my PT score is crucial to success.
And here I am laying in bed.
They said to end the cycle, just get out of the downward spiral,
but how do i get out?
And so I am sitting here in bed with 10 minutes before class.
I am trapped

When do you stop forgiving disappointment after disappointment?
When is love not enough?
I keep wondering will I turn into a women at old age continuing to be disappointed over and over?
What if im expecting too much or being too needy?
Am I too ambitious?
Should i be with someone of equal goals?
Will i become the bread winner and resent my partner for doing nothing?
Can I depend on him?
When is it enough to leave the love and find someone you can depend on, and feel equal too?
Is the love enough to stay?
What if this version of love is the only version I have known and there is a much better one far out there?
What if this is the best it gets?
What if there is something wrong with me?
When is it enough to let my doubts consume me
When is it enough?

It is an interesting trickle,
The people that come in and our of your life.
Those you keep and those you throw away.
Those you lose touch with or those that flee.
Reminiscing on who you once were,  becoming who you dreamed of being.
What a thought it is to be in the process.
To dream, succeed, fail, and try again.
Drip, drop,
To remember your fear from years ago and to embrace your laughter of today.
What a trickle life is, flowing and flowing until you're a drop in the ocean once more.

My heart breaks more and more each day
And it’s like your words have no meaning
Because it takes you so long to respond
And you do not love me the way I need you to
You do not accept my feelings for what they are
Instead I feel guilty
Until I will feel no more for you
And I will find a better someone new

Sometimes it’s hard exploring a whole new world by yourself.
I want to know, why I am bad at making friends even though everyone loves me?