I probably smoke entirely too many cigarettes and I know I laugh too hard at jokes that aren’t actually that funny.
My mother always told me I had a big heart though.
So maybe that’s why I do everything so intensely.
Maybe that’s why I have so much empathy flowing through my veins.
I love too hard,
I know that.
And maybe that’s why you stopped loving me.
You didn’t know how to put out such a big fire;
so you just left me to burn.

We make sense only after the sun has died and the moon begins to breathe and we’ve sought shelter underneath our blankets.

I’ve never been good at pretty metaphors or painting dreams onto pieces of paper but if I told you I wanted to write about it, you’d be the first to proof read the catastrophe.

I’ve bared witness to our secrets becoming our strengths and I’ve felt our tears become the ocean.

There are dead roses planted at the bottom of my rib cage and you...slow time down long enough for me to believe that I have it.

I promise I never meant to make a home out of your heart but somewhere along the way, I stopped fighting wars and started sinking cities.

We bathe in the blood of people who could not love us.

I've been having quite a few conversations with your ghost lately.

You're still alive, but it's your memory-
your essence of presence that still haunts me.

Last month we talked about the park we used to meet at during the summer of 2012. (I think I can't remember the dates of us anymore) I used to always get there first because I lived right down the road.
You've been telling me to go there but I can't bring myself to take the drive because I know I'll just end up sitting on the bench alone.

Last week, you told me you never meant to hurt me, but there was just too many factors plotting against us.
There was never enough time, my mother couldn't stand the sight of you, and we were just too different. I held my tongue as you said these things because you again failed to mention the truth.

You had fallen out of love with me way before I even realized it.

Last night was the most recent discussion we've had.
I reluctantly confessed to still having the note you had written me on our one year anniversary. We were in high school. The only reason I remember that is because I remember the notebook you used to write to me in. (I didn't tell you that part though).   I also told you I almost burned it the other day, but that I wasn't ready to face that flame yet.

Your response to that was something I didn't expect.

You told me that it should have been you cleaning up the shards of glass you used to pierce my heart with. You know, instead of forcing me to apologize once again for leaving blood stains on your clothes.

But I haven't said anything back to you yet.
Because you are a ghost and this isn't real.

The bottom line is that...we just don't know each other anymore.

I drank poison
and expected you to be the antidote.
I'm sorry.

You always got so annoyed when I didn’t let you run your fingers through my hair. It was very rare that I’d ever have my hair down in plain sight around you because I knew you’d tell me how beautiful my hair was naturally and then you’d want to kiss me and then I know I’d let you. That’s the problem. I let you. I let you touch my hair even though I know my hair is too close to my skull which is close to my brain, which is my mind and honestly I just didn’t want you running your fingers through the knots and tangles that grow so close to my brain because my mind is not a natural or beautiful place.

So why the **** did I let you touch me?

I have this bad habit of unintentionally giving people my consent, allowing them to walk all over my heart without ever asking them to take off their shoes before they step inside my soul.

When they ask me what happened I’ll have to tell them that my arms weren’t strong enough to keep digging graves for people I should have buried a long time ago.
I’ll have to find a new favorite shade of green because green is the color of seasons changing and grass growing and my life has been nothing but false promises that even I couldn’t keep. Not to mention constant heart-break that I couldn’t keep up with.
The worst part about it though, is that I’d have to apologize for battles I’ve lost and relationships I could have fought for.
I’m terrified of being alone but one day someone’s going to ask me if I’m seeing anyone and I’m going to have be honest…

I’m going to have to tell them that the last song I listened to was a goodbye letter dedicated to he

I’m not someone you fall in love with. 

I’m the girl you find in the Fall and get sick of by winter. I’m the girl you make empty promises to. I’m the girl who holds onto those promises. I’m the girl who wakes up every morning missing you not knowing if you miss her instead. I’m the girl you stay up until 3am talking to and then the same girl who doesn’t get a good morning text. I’m the girl who gives you second chances because I believe we can make this work. I’m the girl who’s not brave enough to tell you that I’ve loved you since November and still loved you in February…even after you told me you had feelings for him. I’m the girl you use. I’m the experiment. I’m the trial and also the error. I am the girl who breaks her bones while crying into a pillow. I’m the girl who smiles at strangers because they might have it worse than me.
But I’m the girl you ******* leave.

If I shed a tear into the ocean,
I’d love you until I found it.

You get sunshine and hot coffee.
While I'm stuck with cloudy skies and an empty stomach.
My mother never taught me anything about falling in love or how to water a dying plant, but growing up in the dark made me realize that crying into your pillow at two in the morning doesn't make you weak. And laughing so hard that your bones ache, doesn't make you whole.
But sometimes I find myself crying or laughing while hoping that you miss me.
Sometimes I even convince myself that you do.
Even if I know that you don't.

I’ll keep your memory in the closet
Right next to all my other skeletons

I'd rather **** on a cigarette than kiss your lips ever again.
It'll take nicotine at least twenty years to **** me.
It took you two weeks.

A cigarette is dedication.
You were just a bad habit.

You sit there on the edge of your bed at seventeen wondering where the hell it all went wrong.
Growing up didn’t seem so awful until you realized that eventually you’re going to fall in love with a beautiful girl, and she’s going to tell you she loves you back but not until she loads her gun.
So you keep sitting there, at the edge of your bed, praying that she loves the color of your eyes more than she loves the smell of the flowers she’s going to place at your grave.
But she doesn’t.
She never did.
So at seventeen, you decide to jump.
You jump off your bed and the fall seems to go on forever.
But your bed was never a bed, it was the pedestal she had you on for fifteen months and you finally had the courage to take that leap of faith and free yourself.
Except freedom isn’t freedom if you’re still shackled up and chained at the bottom of the oceans in her eyes and helplessly addicted to the satin feel of her skin. You scream and scream, but nothing can break the silence.

That’s when you realize she pulled the trigger and didn’t even kiss you goodbye.

It’s 4 in the morning on a Saturday and you haven’t slept in 3 days because you don’t know how to sleep without hearing those three words that you've always so foolishly believed. So you just lay there flat on your stomach with your ear against the mattress, drowning in silence and choking back ***** your stomach is too empty to throw up. At this point the sound of your heart beating at all makes you anxious and confused because how does a guitar make music without any strings? You’re rocking back and forth, tossing and turning trying to escape, but you won’t sleep because yesterday she promised to love you through anything and now you know that when Sunday comes around you will have lost everything.

I think what people don’t understand about what I’m going through is that it’s not a connection I’m able to bond with someone over. It’s not like asking about the weather.
I ******* hate the weather.
I mean I love the weather.
But how do you talk about the rush of swallowing rain drops like honey, sitting at the bottom of your tea…to someone who’s protecting their eyes from the sun?

See, my anxiety isn’t cool.
Or beautiful.
Or poetic.
It’s my boss asking how I’m doing and me telling her “I’m tired, but I’m doing good”. It’s her asking if I’ve ever tried melatonin at night to help me sleep.
It’s me saying “Yeah, once or twice” and meaning “I’ve been taking narcotics since I was 16, but I had to ween myself off of them because I’m too nervous to call the pharmacy back”.
It’s not that I don’t sleep. 

It’s that I won’t sleep.

Because I can’t sleep.

Because these voices plant seeds in the dark patches of soil underneath my eyes and I have to let them grow or else I might die. 

It’s not that I haven’t tried sleeping, it’s just that sleeping is hard when you know you have to wake up the next morning.

People don’t understand that wearing the same hoodie for 4 days and not leaving my room for 3, isn’t because I’m lazy or unorganized.
It’s because I haven’t found the motivation to look for the keys that unlock the chains around my ankles that have me shackled to my bed.

Please don’t ask me to go to lunch with you, I won’t be able to sit and have a conversation with you for longer than 10 minutes before I say “I have to go to the bathroom, I’ll be right back”, and that isn’t me using the toilet for anything other than bowing my head in shame, as I throw up the poison and acid in my stomach that I pretended was food.
You’ll ask me “Is that all you’re going to eat? You barely ate anything” and I’ll smile and say “Yeah I wasn’t really that hungry. I had a big breakfast….3 days ago”.

My arms are not an optical illusion.
But if you look at them long enough, I’m sure you’ll see the words to my poems written between the lines.
Don’t ask me about them because I’ll want to tell you about how I never listened to my mom when she told me not to run with scissors.
But I won’t.
I’ll butter it up and tell you that The Lion King is my favorite movie and that my cats name is Scar.
But you’ll tell me you never really liked cats, you’re more of a dog person.

I’m not quiet.
It’s just that most of the time I don’t have anything “socially acceptable” to talk about.
I’m not quiet, I’m not tired…well I am tired.
Jesus **** I’m always so ******* tired. But I’m aware.

I think that’s what a lot of people don’t understand. 


My story isn’t written in ink on pretty piece of stationary. 
It’s not squeezing a stress ball because I have an exam at 8 in the morning. 
It’s not wearing all black.
It’s not eating almonds for dinner.
It’s not heartbreak. 
It’s not falling leaves or stars in the sky.
It’s summer, spring, fall and winter all ******* in a nest of knots, sewn together with every vein in my body.
It’s 7 journals, in 6 months with 27 suicide notes, 4 hospitalizations and a dozen different letters I’ve written to the voices inside my head.
It’s 13 pills a day kissed by bottle of wine every night.
It’s not a symbol of beauty, it’s a form of torture.
And that’s what people don’t understand.