(TW: Eating Disorder and Self-Harm)

1. Wash the tears from your face before going outside
2. Always wear long-sleeves and pants to conceal the scars
3. And wear gloves to hide the bruises on your knuckles
4. Put on makeup to cover the insomnia
5. Always smile and laugh so they think nothing’s wrong
6. Throw-up the food you ate to avoid their worry
7. Cover all the holes in the wall with picture frames
8. Only cry after everyone has gone to bed
9. Scream into the pillow so no one can hear you
10. Wipe the blood off the bathroom floor before morning
11. Repeat

I drive across a sunlit bridge over shining water
so deep
so beautiful
yet deadly as well
A reflection beside me?
Am I haunted by a sleeping past that causes doubt within my mind?
Yet now I imagine there is nothing
beside or behind me
now there is only the future and death.
My family has such certainty in these things
I do not understand
I am not like them
They see a man where I see only an empty seat
if there were a ghost he would do well to fasten his seatbelt

(TW: Suicidal Ideation and Self Harm)

Enjoy what life you have now, child, though it may not seem like much,
but those bottles won't always be filled with your favourite soda.
The lighters won’t only be for scented candles or bonfires.
The sharpeners will not be used for your brightly coloured pencils.
Those bottles of pills won’t just be for stomach aches or allergies.
The knifes you use to make your meals will have so much more to offer.
You will look enthralled from skyscrapers, but not to see the city.
Pray you die young, child, before all your demons come to find you.

(TW: Self Harm)

He calls me.
Silently, he screams in my mind.
Tempting me.
Seducing me.
Wrapping me in his cold, loveless embrace.
I know I shouldn’t let him,
but it’s hard to resist something you secretly love.
He kisses me.
His silvery teeth leave lines of brilliant red in their wake.
I shudder at his touch
and yet I cannot push him away.
It’s hard to resist my one source of comfort
in a world where no one and nothing understands me,
in a world where I don’t belong,
in a world where I am different from everyone around me.
Not because I am rebellious, but because I think for myself.
That’s my problem, I think too much.
I wish I could stop thinking.
Stop existing.
I wish everything would just stop.
But then he kisses me again
and I know I can make it for one more day.