I couldn't breathe.
Like the walls
Were closing in around me.
The air thick with panic.

Then I looked up
And you were there.
I could feel your presence
Wrap around me like a blanket.

And the walls stopped moving.
And the air wasn't so thick.
For the first time
In months
I could finally breathe.

The fire inside me,
Burns so bright,
I burn people i only meant,
To keep warm.

Scorching trails
Through my life.
Setting fire,
To anyone to close.

I was only meant,
To be held at arms length.

Before I even walked through the door
My glasses have fogged up from
My own breath bouncing out of my mask .
We walk through the door, check out Temps.
We've passed the screening
We wash our hands.
We hit the floors.
We always wear masks now.
Answering call lights that never end
We wash our hands.
Put on our gowns, gloves, shield.
Put on a brave face to take care of you.
Countless times.
We take off our gowns, gloves, shield.
Hand sanitize.
Wash our shields with bleach.
Wash our hands.
The skin on our hands are peeling.
Cracked open and bleeding.
But the lights keep ringing.
Patients need us.
We answer more lights.
And wash our burning hands.

My life can be best described as
No one
Who's been sitting on a chair with
A broken leg for her whole life.
A tetter totter to balance myself
In hopes I don’t fall
Or the chair doesn’t break under me
In Utter embarrassment and shame

Some days I feel like
I'm sitting with my back to the fire.
And it's melting away
The layers of my skin.
But my face never reveals,
The pain, and undying loss.
Until one day,
Everyone I love will awaken.
To the charred ashes of my remains
And a note that says I'm sorry,
I didn't know how to show you.
I did not know what to say.
How do you describe a loss so great
With only words to say.

Will the thoughts of you,
Ever become less.
How can i still love you,
With our relationship in such a mess?

When do i get to move on.
Set free from the chains,
That you put on me.
When am i set free?

I hate that i still love you.
That i choose you daily.
Even when,
You are no longer a choice.
What kind of voice,
Does that give me?

Why can't i let go?
Why cant i see,
That you've moved on,
You no longer want or need me!

And it all went gray.
All the color in my life drained away.
The vibrancy in my words
Liquified and ran down the drains,
Of my life like tears.
My life became a black and white movie
With no sound.
A vestibule to my torment.
Then like a solar flare.
Blue awash my vision.
And slowly as it cleared there was you.
Blue in all your glory
In my world that had been gray for so long.
And the colors are slowly coming back.
In small solar flares at a time.
Glimpses of oranges, purples, and pinks.
But my favorite,
The vibrant life assuring ...
Green.

You broke my heart.
You destroyed me.

But our souls,
Connected in a way,
That I know will never happen again.
A matchbox love,
Destined to combust.

Which is both good and bad.

I'll never love anyone else that much,
My heart will
Never burn with that desire.
But I'll never hurt,
To that point ever again either.

I have stepped back
So many times from
Confrontation
I have ended up
In the next room.
Backed into a corner
I never meant to put myself in.
So,
I spent a few years
Learning that
I never have to silence
Myself to avoid
The doubt that others
May have in me.
I am capable
And worth
The confrontation.

Forever she'll be
The girl that just
Doesn't fit anywhere.
The broken girl.
Visible flaws
people stare.
And the girl,
She hides
Hoping to disappear.

Darkness like a fog.
Swallows me whole.
Like an embrace.
Wholeheartedly understood.
And for moments I think
Let go
Give in
Drowned
And if I relax to long
Sink into the thought
The fight to the surface
Is harder.
And the disappointment and
The sadness that comes with knowing
I have to survive,
I have to live.
Is teriffying.
What kind of person
Is sad to survive.
To be alive?

Dear Dad.
I wish I could tell you,
That I'm doing okay.
And I'm getting along just fine.
I wish when you look down,
Upon my life that you would see,
Happy.
I wish I could say.
I'm doing okay.
But the truth is dad,
Every day is a struggle.
To get up and get dressed.
Running on auto pilot all morning.
Hoping I don't forget to pack,
Her lunch for school.
It hasn't gotten easier.
It hasn't dulled in any way.
I still hurt,
Just as much as that day.
I wish I could tell you,
I'm okay.
I wish when you looked down,
You saw how happy I am.
Im sorry I'm letting you down.
I'm sorry I'm not doing,
The best I can.
I am trying
But every single day I end up crying.
I miss you.
Every
Single
Day.
And it doesn't get any easier.

Dear heart,
I ask again.
Tell me why of every human.
You chose to love the one,
Who could not love you back.

Tell me again,
Of all the hearts you could have loved.
You chose the one that simply,
Was out of reach.

Dear heart,
Of all the souls in this whole world.
How is it you connect with the only one,
Refusing to connect back.

In this world with,
Billions of people to love.
And my dear heart,
Simply chooses to love you.

She sat upon the world.
Looking down at the souls,
So far from her fingertips.
And she smiles knowing
Each one will one day,
Taste her.
Feel her love.
Death is promised,
To all.

The more time you spend with grief.
The more at home you become
Within the folds of its
Despair.

The more comfort you take
From the sudden on slaughter
Of memories and tears.

The more you are able
To recover the facade
Of being perfectly okay
In a world that now only
Feels like it's decayed and dying.

Reverberating within myself
A constant vibration
Internally decaying
The only way out
Is through my
Written rot.
Just a mess of decomposition.
Left for everyone else
To read.

Breathe deeply
Inhale
Exhale
When the world
Starts to tilt
On its axis.

Stand up.
Believe in your
Strength.

For your strength
Has gotten you through
100% of all of
Your very
Worst days.

The demons in my head,
Come to the light in segments.
Created by a younger me.
The broken bleeding 11 year old
Who had her virtue,
Her self worth taken.

Created by the mind of a child.
To protect a future her from the same fate.

Astrid the anxious
Demon one.
Questioning ever person.
Their intent,
Their honesty.

Lilith the angry.
Demon two.
The fire that burns inside
With ever unjust,
That can't be changed.

Alloster the protector.
Demon three.
The biggest.
Holding a wall so high around me.
Not even those I  love can't get in.
To protect me,
He's isolated me.
Lonely

Grief.
Demon four.
Drowning me in waves.
To only let me breath a moment
Gasping for air.
Before plunging me back,
Deep into her grasp.

Feeling like you're dying.
But breathing.
Wanting to die.
But wanting to live.
Drowning without water.
Suffocating surrounded by air.
Lost in a crowd.
Utterly alone in a room full of people.
Knowing Life is to short,
But it's so long.
A contradiction of epic proportion.
Depression is
Dying but never ******* dying.

I drown in
The weight of
My own longing.

Reaching for,
Grasping at,
The silk teether,
Of my own desire.

My story is covered in
Tear stained ink marks.
Blood soaked covers
And ripped out pages.
It's not a pretty story
With flowers and happy endings.
There's no shining armor
And forever after kisses.
There's no magic.
The evil villain is me.
My story will most likely
End  in the words,

"She really tried."

Far to often we leave
after the love turns
To ash in our mouth.
And our lungs harden
Like cement in our chests.
And our hearts,
To diamonds under the pressure
And then shatter.

My mind's like a fishing net.
Capturing big important details.
But,
Letting the smaller day to day tasks
Slip between the holes in the cloth.
Some days,
The bad days I get angry.
I beat myself up,
And lose self confidence
And self assurance.
I lose the drive to be myself.
On other days.
The good days.
I laugh it off.
Forgive myself for my inadequacies.
And remember that I am only human.
All I can do is work to do better.
Improving my mind.
Adjusting my techniques to remember more.
To go from fishing net to,
Fish tank netting.
So fewer and fewer details fit between the holes.
But on all days,
Whether good or bad.
I try to remember,
Atleast at this point,
I have always remembered to put on my pants before leaving the house.

It wasn't until I turned around,
And truly looked.
Did I realize how far I'd come.
When I looked back,
And was able to see every footprint,
Uphill battle,
Failing lose and triumphant win.
And every mile I'd traveled
Was I able to truly appreciate,
The woman I had become.
Really marvel at,
The woman I had fought to be.
Remembering every wrong turn,
Back track,
And devastating loss.
Tracing every miss step,
Right step,
And every step in between.
Until I laid my life out in front of me
Like a novel I was finally ready to read,
Did I realize the incirmountable excuses
I could have used to remain stationary.
To never take a single step,
In either direction.
My life was set up to fail,
With countless obstacles,
And unmeasurable devastation,
That it wouldn't have been a surprise to anyone,
Had I curled up in a ball and given up.
And yet,
Here I stand looking back at the hands I was dealt,
The good, the bad, and the horrible.
Knowing that no matter the circumstance,
I stood up to the challenge.
I fought hard.
Following in the words of Nightingale;
"I never took nor gave any excuses."
And I've got the miles of deep rooted foot prints behind me,
To prove just that.

I write about you.
I talk about you.

Forever keeping
Your memory alive.

Deep in my heart.
Where darkness swirls.
I'll keep you safe
From that part of me.

I'll never let your memory
Get swallowed in that part.
So I'll keep talking about you
Forever in my art.

Who am I?
Who am I to you?
When you think of me
When I brush across the fibers
Of your mind and wind between
The endings in your memory.
What am I,
Who am I to you?
When thoughts of me show up
Unannounced
At the forefront of your mind.
Are you happy to see them.
Or like the bad taste in your mouth
From stale sleep do you,
Brush me from your memory.
Did I leave an impact on you
And when that mark I left
Shows up in conversations
Is the mark I left good?
Is it like a warm touch to your shoulder
A smile on your face.
Or is it bad,
Like the after taste blood,
Leaving you feeling defeated,
Wishing you'd never met me?
Who am I to you?
What am I?
Friend or Foe.

And it's like I wake up.
And realize all over again,
That you're gone.
Like,
I realize all over again,
what it means that you're gone.
And it's like a sucker punch,
To my stomach.
The air is ripped from my lungs.
And I'm left gasping for air.
I miss you.
And the weight of missing you,
Some days takes all the breath
From my lungs.
And I'm left gasping for air.
Convinced I'm dying with you.

The effort to keep it..
Together.
Somedays is to much.
When I feel like the world,
Will crush me,
Beneath it's weight.
And I become an insignificant,
Ant beneath it's boot.

When I become,
Became, always have been,
A nobody,
A nothing.
The urge to fight,
To survive.
Dwindles to an itch,
That's easily ignored.

When my existence,
Isn't felt by anyone.
Not required,
Ignored.
The minimal fight I've got
Turns into a slow
Melancholy descent into,
Good-bye.

Some goodbyes are like butterflies,
So soft if you hadn't been watching,
You'd never have known they'd gone by.
Other goodbyes are as loud as fog horns.
Going off inside the confines of your head.

Some goodbyes are like yo-yos.
They come back a few more times,
Before they're truly gone.

Often goodbyes are as painful
As an electrocution in a downpour.
But sometimes they're as freeing
As the wind caressing your skin,
From the open windows.

Some goodbyes are heaven sent.
Others are hell bound.

But one thing they all have in common,
At the end of every goodbye,
It takes a small piece of you as a memory.

Green eyes
Drowning in human lies.
Swimming in sin,
Dying from within.

I grew up the daughter whose mother
Didn't want her.
The daughter of an alcoholic.
A melancholy teenager.
Whose mother told her daily,
Just how useless she was.
How much better she should be.
I grew up the daughter of the angry town drunk.
Whose words were like knives,
Directed at my jugular.
I grew up with the towns expectation,
I'd never go anywhere.
Doomed to follow in the haphazard footsteps of my mother.
I was raised to love the woman who told me,
I wasn't worth a ****.
I grew up taking care of the woman who never wanted me.
Putting out lit cigarettes that had fallen from her
Passed out fingers.
I grew up the daughter of a mother,
who never should have had children.
On more nights then not the target for her drunken rage.
I grew up the daughter of a woman who hated herself so much,
She made sure I hated myself too.
I grew up the daughter of a pitiful woman,
Who despite it all I still love.
I grew up in a life so damaged so early on and for so long,
I never thought I'd make it out alive.
But,
I grew up,
To be nothing like the woman who made me.

Grey like this
Or gray like that.
At least with May
It's spelt one way.
It's one word
Two spellings is just absurd.
But how do I honor you,
What you went through.
If I can't figure out
Without a doubt,
What the hell way
To spell the word grey/gray.

And the ground beneath
My feet vanishes.
The air in my lungs
Evaporates within me.
The blood in my veins
Exsanguinates through my pores.
And my mind shrivels and expands
Like the core ready to explode.
And I’m dying.

5 things I can see:
The chair
The sky
The door
The walls
My hand

The walls are closing in.
4 things I can touch:
The floor
The chair
My hair
The walls

The walls swirl in my vision
3 things I can hear:
The birds outside
The fan
The sound of my feet bouncing off the floor.

The walls move in and out of my vision.
2 things I can smell
The cut grass.
The sweat on my skin

The walls
1 thing I can taste:
The salt on my lips.

And then the walls vanish.

The hardest part,
of your dying.
was being able to survive.
Being the one to
let you die.
even if it meant
you wouldn't suffer.
letting you go....
I still haven't
and I don't know if I
actually survived.