You can't hate yourself into loving yourself.
But I sure give it a solid try.
Trying desperately,
To hate my body into submission.
To torture it into compliance.
Years, months,
A lifetime
Of attempting to hate,
My body, my mind,
Myself.
Into a box I feel it should fit.
Tormenting myself when once again,
The unrealistic box
I try to shove myself in,
Doesn't fit.
You can't hate yourself into loving yourself.
But I'm proof,
You can give a valliant effort.

The one thing about pain,
There is never an end
To the amount of material
We get from the experience.
Heartbreak is such
A wonderful Muse.

Every happy moment
is always washed away
With the heart wrenching truth that
.....you aren't here,
you should be here.  

The devastating
Earth destroying
Drowning in sand
Realization that,
You'll never be here again.

I'm tired of thinking about you.
I'm tired of missing you.
I'm tired of loving you.

I am tired.
I just want to hate you.
To stop spending time on you.
To move on with my life.

No one ever tells you though,
The most important knowledge,
The most obscene piece,
How the hell to let go.

To step back from the ledge,
Of this gone relationship.
Take a step back,
And walk away.

From you.
Us.
What we were.
What we no longer are.
To a new life.
A new way.

So this is my goodbye.
I love you.
But you love her.
And i wont sit in her shadow anymore.

Scattered across the floor,
I see my life laid out in front of me.
Detailed pieces of my life,
Highlighted in yellow,
Red, purple, and green.

Sorted into lessons,
Triumphs, losses, and utter despair.
But something is missing.
Something's not there.

Laid before my eyes.
A lifetime of living,
With happiness missing.
There is no highlighting in pink.
No moment not ruined,
By loss or lesson.

My daughter's birth,
Ruined by a mother who,
Showed up to the labor room,
So drunk standing wasn't an option.

And now even in moments,
Of greatness.
My "happiness" is missing.
As if it never existed in my world.

A tattered and torn world.
Covered in Ash and debri.
Who created this world?
Was it really me.

My anxities and depression.
My agoraphobia and OCD.
Creating a world.
That isn't quite right for me.

Scattered across the floor.
Laid out in front of me.
Are highlighted moments,
In a world built to destroy me.

My world is often dark.
With blurred lines of acceptable
Behavior.
My skin a frequent
Ever changing map
To my mental anguish.
But
The true secret is,
The map exists solely
So that I don't shut down.
So that i stay here, now.
So that I always have,
A way back home.

We we're.
Then we weren't.
And in between this was,
An in-between I'd never seen
Where the love clung,
To my skin and clothes,
Like burs.

Buried deep within my skin.
However unsymptomatic.
I had no idea,
How very much my love,
That still remained,
Created my actions.

I loved you.
Unapologetically.
Without restraint
And in doing so,
I created a world in which,
I allowed a vortex,
Of broken glass to slide
Across my skin on a daily,
Basis.
For months.

Leaving me ****** and raw
Wondering how,
This happened.
How did this happen?

The pieces of me,
That were scattered among
The different tragedies
Of my life.

Have been glued together
With determination,
Tears and law defying persistence.

To create the patchwork
Beauty that I have become.
And every scar.
Every glued edge
I am proud to say
I survived that.

I am still here.
I am still fighting.
I am still...
Me.

I can't breath.
My lungs are on fire.

Does it ever get any easier.
Reliving this loss
Or
Will I
Never function at normal again.
I relive your death.
Never getting past the desolation of loss.
God, how dare you.

Why him?
I know you could have taken others.
Tearing at my skin.
Hoping to find at least solid ground.
Other then the emptiness
Useless tears
Tearing at my skin brings at least air.

You leaving is my biggest loss.
Out of everything I'll ever lose.
Unfortunately I lost you first, miss you most.

In my life I've missed a lot of things.
I've missed my favorite pen I lost.
The way my door didn't squeak at the hinges.
I've missed friends i haven't seen in yours.
Stuffed animals long forgotten.
The old days,
The simpler times of being a child.
I've missed 90's snacks.
Penny candy,
And 3D doritos.
I've missed phone calls,
Right and left turns,
And puns gone over my head.

But I never truly knew
What I miss really meant.
Until that I miss was you.

My soul is a mixture of dark and light.
Intertwined like silk ribbon.
My mind a chamber
Of deep thoughts,
And random ramblings.
Our heart,
Both love and hate reside.
Never able to distinguish,
The very difference of the two.

Who am i?
But a constant work in progress.
Covered in white out and scratch marks.
Trying to survive a world,
Where I am both
Dark and light.
Love and hate.
An intricate web of unknown
Intentions.

One of the most blissful parts of my day,
Is  getting in the shower that night.
And it's not for water or the warmth.
It's not for the quiet or the solitude.
It’s the smell.
The smell of you.
The soap you use to clean your body.
And it clings to the walls of the shower
Like ivy.
With the heat and the moisture,
It wraps around my skin,
Soaks beneath my skin.
And it's almost like this intimate moment
For you but without you.
How I’m adoring your scent,
Your existence,
Without your presence.
And I hope it tells you that,
Even when you aren't around.
Your presence is firmly seeded around me.
And I adore the fact that I get to spend,
However long you allow,
With your scent like ivy in the shower.

I often wonder what my life would have
Been like, had it started differently.
If I had a mother who adored me.
Gave me all the affection I wanted.
Protected me when I needed.
If I'd still be the same.
My tragic life of
Misfortune, neglect, pain,
Suffering, ****, abuse, and fear
Have shaped me
Created the girl that I am.
With a moral code so strong,
With standards about empathy and caring
So above standard.
I am reminded daily.
"Not everyone is like you.
Not everyone cares as strongly,
For so many as you do."

Would that girl be gone?
I believe the tragic life,
That i was given,
Was to create the woman that I am today.
And the outstanding and amazing
Father I was given,
Was to offset the mother I was denied.

And anyday of the week.
Any year in my life.
I'd take the life and father i was given,
Over a better life without him.
And without the woman that I became.

In the darkness I heard this keening.
A sounds so devastating.
As if they were dying from the inside out.
As if the world had swallowed them whole.
Devouring them.

And it took me a minute,
To realize.
That sound was coming from me.
I was the one dying.
But utterly and unwaveringly  alive.

And when my darkness
Takes over a little more
Of the space then it usually does.
And the days become hard
To even get up and out of bed.
You light the way to the exit.
So that when I am ready
And able,
I can find my way back home,
Back to you.
The light keeper,
Of my storms.

You’re my light
When my world is black and white.
And I struggle to keep
The darkest parts of myself
At bay below the surface of my
Bubble like concious that seems
To Bob up and down like a pogo stick.
Constantly, consistently trying to
Escape the confines of the corner I’ve
Tucked it into.
You are my light.
When I become darkness.
Swallowed whole from the insides of my own mind.
You bring me back,
Without thought or effort
You bring me back.
And that deep darkness that slithered it’s way
From confines of my conscious
Slips back beneath the surface.
Scared away by the light.
The light stays a pale blue hue that
Glows in my chest keeping all the darkest
Of my darkness no where near my heart.
You remind me,
That this world isn't always darkness.
And even when I am darkness
And I a struggling just to survive,
There is always light.
My light keeper,
There with every storm.
To light the way for me,
Out of the darkness.
Out from within myself.
A little stronger then the time before.

My insides
Vibrate as if my
Muscles have been turned into
A 5 foot 3 ***** on extreme.
And my mind is thrown
Back and forth inside my skull.
What do I do
If I failed?
What do I do
If everything I have ever wanted
Slips between my fingers like
Liquid sand.

And then I inhaled,
A deep earth quaking breath.
And exhaled
With an earth shattering roar!
Fire poured from my lips,
Smoke billowed from my nose.
I was no ones little lamb anymore!

Love is a fickle thing.
It's great until it doesn't get its way.
When the object of the love
Is removed,
Love turns to decay.
Blackening the heart.
Without you here the love rots.
And decays.
Creating a black hole
******* the rest of the joy
And happiness in other parts of my life
into it.
And grief is what they call it.
Soul *******,
World crushing
Grief.
And the love I want to give to you
Turns to sadness with no where to go.
Rots and decays within my chest.
Until the grief swallows it whole.

Sometimes missing you
Takes every molecule of oxygen
I have in my lungs.
And my lungs are devastated
Withered and gasping for air.

Happy mother's day?
My mom taught me what alcohol tolerance was by 9.
That some nights if I didn't make dinner,
I wouldn't eat.
She taught me how to be a light sleeper,
By passing out drunk with lite cigarettes.
My mother taught me,
Boys font like fat girls, and you're def bigger then me.
She taught me how to hate myself,
But still love her.
My mother taught me how to be strong,
By making it the only way to survive her
Never ending drunken rampages.
She taught me early,
Not love,, not her daughter comes before the drink.
She taught me how to take care of her.
Make sure she got home from the bar at 1am,
Unscathed from the journey,
And still be up in time for school.
She taught me how to live off little sleep,
And even less attention.
Early she taught me,
I was no more special than coat hanger on the wall.
She taught me your mother's cigarette smoke,
Will cling to your clothing strongly,
You'd have to fold them with dryer sheets inside.
She taught me,
That I'd stay for her to make sure she was okay,
All the while destroying myself.
She taught me how to love someone,
Even when you don't like them.
She taught me how to be respectful,
Even when those people don't deserve respect.
Recently she taught me something else.
Sometimes those people you love,
Will never love you enough to not destroy you,
As they destroy themselves.
She taught me we all have a breaking point.
A point of no return.
And that sometimes it is better alone,
To be an orphan.
Rather then allow them the satisfaction in your torture.

And some days are better then others.
Most days its a dull ache,
In the pit of my chest.
But someday, it's a typhoon.
Of sadness that washes over me.
And I gasp for air in the suddenness of it.
Coming out the other side drenched
In despair, choking of saltwater.
Most days you being gone has become
The norm.
And other days,
The realization of the "norm"
Slaps me so hard across the face
I'm left reeling from the pain.
Spinning from the sharp jarring,
Of the realization that my days
For nearly 2 years have started
Without you.
But always this emptiness persists.
Some days I can by without drowning.
Other days,
It feels like I'm drowning forever.

I still look to you.
I still hope for answers,
I know won't come.
I reach out for assurance
I know you can no longer give.
Some days I still expect you to be there.
Others I know you'll never be there again.
Most days I can't think to far ahead,
For fear of drawing in the realization you're gone.
And there are so many milestones ahead
You wont be there for.
So most days I think only minutes at a time.
To prevent myself from drowning,
In the reality of an entire lifetime without you.
So sometimes I still look to you for answers
Other times I know i'll never get them.

I dream of you.
And not the good dreams of our past.
But of how different your illness could have been.
How I could have tried to save you.
Each night a new way you could have gone.
Or how I could have failed you.
Like a film on repeat with different endings.
How I could of failed to save you,
In multiple different ways.
How you could have suffered.
And when I awake
I'm left feeling broken all over.
As if I've lost you again in different way,
But the ending remains the same,
You are gone.
I failed to save you.
I lost you.
The ending doesn't change,
The loss remains so fresh,
I awake wondering if you've just left,
Or if you've been gone a long time.
The end remains the same,
I miss you.

Some days I'm more,
I'll see you sooner.
Other days I'm more,
It'll be a while.
A constant battle between wanting to die.
But so desperately wanting to live.
The one consistent constant in my life.
After you died, that war pulled so far to the sooner
I had to step back away from the ledge
More times then I'd like to admit.
More times then I'd like to fail? Win?
I'm not sure, maybe both.
Missing you another constant in my life.
Wanting to find you on the other side,
But wanting/needing to be on this one.
For her, for me, but also for you.
Knowing it'd hurt you if I left to soon.
It holds me here, helps hold me here.
With her, for you, and me.
But some days
Om more I'll see you soon.

I'm losing the words to say,
To you.
I lose the ability to speak
What goes on inside my head.
To clouded by grief.
To angered by the past.
How to describe what's going on
Inside my head.
Inside my heart,
When all it seems to do
Is tear itself apart.

It's as if all the Syfy shows we watched
Ended as suddenly as you.
Like they came to the near end of their story
Only to stop just before the end arrived.
Cut short
Stopped just before the story closed.
And I'm left with the butter tatse
Of stories cut short before the answers
We're all answered.  
Left with more questions then answers
Waiting for the season finale,
That never happened.
Left,
Simple without the end of the story.

Reminders of you follow me.
No matter where I go.
Little pieces of you follow.
At work where you were diagnosed.
426 where you passed away.
At home,
What was also your home.
At the zoo where we took you.
To the aquarium.
Walmart, target, Hannaford.
It doesn't matter where I go,
Memories of you always follow.

I think of you.
Even when I don't mean to.
I miss you,
Even when I try not to.
But the good moments,
Are clouded by gray.
For all the things you'll miss
While you're away.
Happy moments you won't share in my elation.
And the sad moments you won't be there to comfort my frustration.
The good moments are still good.
And the good memories are still happy from my childhood.
But every good memory is shrouded in fog
Wrapped in sadness like a grim epilogue.
Every memory I have i hold tight to my heart.
For fear without them I'd fall apart.
But each memory gives a thing of pain.
Reminding me I'm alive, I'm still sane.

My career is fulfilling.
While most of my life,
My being crumbles around me,
On a daily basis.
My career is my one solid ground.
Where I seem to exceed,
Even my own expectations.
Where even my own cynical eyes can see,
This was the career meant for me.
I thrive in the busy,
The erratic motions of the nurses life,
Blending it to fit my ADD mind.
Most of my being,
Is a mess of rocky foundations,
Anxiety driven let downs.
And the overall sense of worthlessness I have for myself.
My career, becoming a nurse.
All the time, and pain it took me,
To find get here I can clearly see.
This.  Being a nurse was meant for me.

I'm devastation in cling wrap
Melted to the frame.
Popped balloons on birthdays.
A bankrupt business.
Giving out more then it has.
An empty O2 tank,
On the hip of a cystic fibrosis patient.
Useless extra weight.
Like an anchor
On a boat trying to set sail.
Going nowhere.
Remaining in the same spot.
Growing  roots
That barely scrape the surface.
Only to be blown over
With a gust of insufficiency.
Inadequate valves
Leaking out life sustaining fluids.
With more effort to fail
Then to just
Let go.

Created in the ******
Of an depressive alcoholic.
Barren of capability.
Devoid of the natural
Mother's instinct.
To protect and nuture
To love me greater then herself,
Or atleast enough to protect me.
I grew up ashamed of where I came from.
Who I came from.
Humiliated by the smell
Of wafting cigarette smoke.
Dozens of beer cans piled in the corner.
Only adding the smell of
Days old stale beer to the air.
Demoralized by the sight of
Dozens of cigarette burns in the carpet.
Proof of just how close to
A deadly close call I was my whole life.
Conflicted by my self destructive anger,
And the love I still had for her.
The drive to protect her,
From herself as much as others.
And the shame in myself,
For loving her at all.
Raised by a mother who more times then not,
Destroyed my self esteem,
And guilted me into the corner.
Shrinking me into a nobody,
A nothing so meek,
I wished with all my strength I didn't exist.
Tortured myself,
Just so she wasn't the only one hurting me.
The only one with power.
And even still,
Nearly 30 years later.
Her inability to love me,
Or mother me hasn't changed the fact that,
I love her,
But have never liked her at all.

You will never truly die
Because a writer loved you
With such an immense force.
Every sunset is about you.
Every sunrise is too.

Every morning begins with you.
And every night ends there too.
Such a love will never die.
It only changes and molds.
To something we like to call grief.

My reactions are never
A disgust in you.
But rather
They are a disgust
In myself.

You tell me how I write offends you.
That my use of memory,
Insults you.
It's weird for you to write of past loves,
As you are surrounded by new love.
I'm sorry my words,
My ability to relate to someone else,
Maybe help them with their struggles,
Outweighs that I may offend,
Another heart attached to mine.
So my words are silenced.
In fear of your offense.