I woke up today and I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

The grips of a dream tightly coiled around my throat as it forced me to acknowledge it.

I was a failure.

That was basically it.

And I knew that grades don’t define who you are, but they get you into university, they get you a good course, a good degree, a good job.

Money.

And then I won’t have to suffer living without it.

And I knew that money don’t buy you happiness, but they buy peace of mind.

How many times has my mum stayed awake worrying about how much to give and how much to keep?

One time my mum refused to send money back for the treatment of her grandmother. Not because she was selfish, but because my brother and I had taken to crying because we had no lunch.

She found out I hid away in libraries to stave off hunger while my brother hid in toilets.

Her grandmother died less than a week later.

The way guilt plagues her every breath even now…

Since then we vowed as a family to share what we have, even if we have so little.

Money buys safety. There are two red flashing lights on my mum’s dashboard of her car. When she took it to a garage she was told she’d have to get it fixed for a ridiculous amount of price because her break pads had no grip and her steering was askew.

She refused to pay that much for her own safety because her mother’s sister just died and someone has to pay the funeral.

Now she prays extra hard every time she drives.

Money buys my future.

Money.

If I fail my exam, I won’t have it.



Now I’m in my brother’s room because apparently I screamed into my pillow and apparently the panic attacks were back.

I called the school for a tactical day-off.

What are you so afraid of?

Getting your heart broken?

You can’t just bury it, under walls and nonchalance.

Let them see it.

Let them see what you have to give.

The brilliance under that smile

the tenderness behind your eyes.

Don’t be selfish.

Don’t keep yourself to yourself.

Because a beauty like yours

passion like yours

soul like yours

is made to be shared

to be

Discovered.

To be loved.

My mother had a miscarriage



Was

Her name was Diana

Gone before I met her

Is

Her name is Diana

Spoken through the tears between our family

Will

Her name will be Diana

When I have my a daughter of my own



She had 4 months to live in my mother’s womb

Unnoticed

Until we knew we had lost her



Would she have looked like me?

Like my mother?

My brother?

Her father?



Father.

Her’s is in another continent; oblivious to his unborn daughter’s death

Maybe mine will take care of her in heaven

Two people we’ve lost; both before I could’ve truly known them.



Please take care of her there



Diana and Christopher.

My sister and my father.

Soon, My daughter and my son.

With your eyes constantly pouring concealed thunderstorms

Do you even remember what it’s like not to squint through the blur?

My soul is bled out upon the foundation you call perfection

On the asphalt and cement you disguised as hard work

My body has nothing left to offer your expectations

After turning from good enough to being better than the rest

How did we end up chasing the impossible?

Being so scared of failure we **** ourselves for anything less than flawless.

When did it all lose meaning?

The fast paced world stealing away our time like we owed it something.

I lost my passion to the critique of others.

Forgot my name when I took someone else’s.

I took a gun and shot my self.

And a ghost rose to greet the world.

I

I observe my mother
she is brave and strong
And then I look at me
doing all things wrong

I have three close friends
who I treasure dearly
But the problem is
they show it back so scarcely

I believe in God
love Him so much too
though it become so hard
to always follow through

I am not near perfect
flaws are my constant friends
Knowing I have to change
right before it all ends

I’m here, but I’m not.

No.

Wait, that came out wrong.

It’s like I know I’m on Earth, but what I see is blurred, what I hear is foggy, and I feel nothing.

Sometimes, when It gets worse,

I wake up days after I’ve left. Minutes spent scrambling. Not knowing where I am, how long it’s been or what I’ve done.

Then I’ll remember.

It’s like when I was drunk.

I know what I did because you told me and I remember myself doing them but I wasn’t there.

I’m scared because I miss moments in my life.

And what if one day I wake up and realise,

I’ve missed my whole life.

I’m so scared.

A year from now, we’ll all be getting our results

and then we’ll be off our separate ways.

Living separate lives

theirs.

Stupid, stupid promises of staying together,

staying in touch.

They have no idea

no clue

that sometimes they’re the only ones keeping me from

Falling Apart.

And I try to quit while I’m ahead.

I try to end it all before they leave.

But I’m Weak.



They won’t mean to do it.

But then after, meeting up would turn into

Skype calls

would turn into

calls

would turn into

text messages

would turn into final goodbyes

would turn into memories.

Memories, that’s all we’ll have.



and I’m scared.

Endings don’t have to be bad. They don’t have to be chaotic either. It can be gradual and silent, seeping into things until you don’t realize it’s happened.

It can be the hesitant stutter of words begging to be let out. Or the way one ponders where the beginning of the end has started.

Really, endings aren’t that bad.

Sometimes endings can be just as sweet as beginning.

Sometimes I feel like I’m holding onto a rail above a black hole.

A black hole of insecurities and harsh words; a slippery rail of half friendships and broken relationships.

But I hold on. And the longer I do, the more the rail bends. The more the rail breaks.

So I wonder how long will it take to just snap.

I said a few stupid things

Like, incredibly stupid.

So stupid, in fact, that I wish I never said it in the first place.

I have this condition

It’s called spouting bullshite disease.

And it affects the people around me when it gets triggered.

It’s 5:22 and I still haven’t slept.

It’s not uncommon anymore and they say insomnia is a side effect of Paroxetin.

I call *******.

Tomorrow I’ll be picking up a new prescription - things they feed me to make themselves feel better.

St John’s Wort.

They say its safer and more traditional, less side effects.

I’m just exhausted.

I think they’re just trying to get me talking again. I’ve stopped coming to the sessions and is it normal that I’ve felt better since?

Probably because they’ve upped the dosage of my Paxil.

Do they know that Paroxetine can overdose? 560 mg I heard can ****. That’s 28 tablets.

I counted 13 in my bottle. That’s just about enough to get someone to hallucinate and *****.

Useless.




I hear chirping outside my window.

It gets me smiling.

There’s a sob stuck in my throat.
I want desperately to let it out
but there is never the right time.
Not on my bed where my tender mother sleeps,
Not in the morning where I rush to be in time
Nor in the noon where I have to keep up with studies
Never at school where my friends need me to be strong.
But I’m not strong.
I’m not stable.
I’m weak and a second away from crumbling
D
  O
     W
        N
But there is sob stuck in my throat
And it’s stopping me from breathing.

It’s sad and invigorating

How you can lift me up higher than I’ve ever reached

Yet also kick me so far down that it’s hard to resurface

You’ve pulled out the widest smile out off me

But the heaviest tears come from you too

I’ve learned the dance

I’ve played the part

It’s nothing new

just breaks my heart

No, the title doesn’t have an underlying tone of sadness.

I just haven’t written anything positive in a while.

And I don’t want this thing to turn into a negativity freefall.

So I’ll list all the things that make me happy (no particular order).

1. Loosening my jeans after I’ve eaten

2. Getting a lone seat on the bus and listening to music

3.  Accidentally matching with my friends without planning it

4.  Stepping on crunchy autumn leaves (kinda why I love Fall so much)

5.  Snapchat memes (mainly from PAMS)

6.  Snuggling with a loved one. Or just Snuggling full stop

7. When leaves start to fall/change colours during Autumn

8. The smell of coffee

9. My faith

10. Writing and Reading

Smile

That’s right

Just Smile

You’re doing great

The well-kept secret

It festers

inside you

No one suspicious

at all

I only hope it doesn’t break

free

until you yourself finally

Break

The first thing that greets you in the world is bars.

Strong, iron bars surrounding you on all sides.

It grips your heart so tight that you’ve learned to breathe beneath it.

It’s there when you laugh and there when you cry.

It’s there when you feel like you’ve finally succeeded, reminding you that that it’s fake.

It’s there when you feel like drowning in a flood of confusion and hurt, joining you in pain.

It’s worse because suddenly everyone says that have it too.

So you’re hopeful, desperately longing to understand.

But then you realize it’s nothing but a game to them.

And when you wake up and feel like you can’t breathe,

You can’t understand how anyone in the world would want to have these iron bars.

And it’s not sadness.

It’s not despondency.

It’s a weight on your chest and a fog in your mind.

It’s getting worse.

Help.

The stupidest thing I’ve ever done, I figured out

Was ignoring what was right in front of me

The invisible shield that blocked out the harsh words

The punching force that defends whoever tries to hurt me

Why-oh-why have I been sleeping on my great friends.

My heart breaks for a girl.

She is my friend, a person within reach yet she never lets anyone inside.

She’s special- and no, not in that way- and smart and beautiful and passionate and wise and everything she doesn’t think she is.

Sure, we ****-heads sometimes but ultimately, I love her. She opens my eyes to the world and makes me see it in a whole other way.

Others don’t realise her worth because other people drown her out; But she’s more than those people combined.

She’s a candlelight among a universe of suns.

I love you Irish, my little candle-light.

Why?

What do you get out of

ruining lives.

Happy families

broken

once you show up.

Today, a girl’s lost her father

to you

yet do you even know her name?

She weeps and cries and asks you

Why

aren’t you ashamed.



- To Marie