“This isn’t working.”
What a funny way to say that you’re leaving
A phrase that is arguably too simple for the mess it leaves behind

“It isn’t your fault.”
A cliche if I’ve ever heard one,
And trust me, I’ve heard many over the years

“I wasn’t ready.”
A funny thing to say
When you know at the beginning of anything
Whether you’re ready for it or not

And… “I don’t have time.”
And that’s what it all comes down to,
Isn’t it?

You didn’t have time to deal with me
Didn’t have time to communicate
Didn’t have time to put in the work

You didn’t want to MAKE time
Because I guess you never really
Cared about me in the first place

Countdowns have always seemed bittersweet to me..
The steady ticking away of time
The trickle of sand through the hourglass.
The fading of connections not curated.

I’ve always been morbidly aware of my own doomsday clock,
Slowly beating, decreasing, releasing my
Seconds into the atmosphere around me,
As I wait, sometimes impatiently, for it to hit zero.

Some days, I hope for my hourglass to run dry,
And while I know that that isn’t a healthy mindset,
Some days it is all that I can do to not hurry it along.

Not to take that revolver in my dad’s lockbox,
Not to take those pills in the medicine cabinet,
Not to take that rope and the one wobbly stool
that has sat at our bar for the past five years…

Just beckoning me.
Just wanting me to take that final step
into sweet, sweet oblivion.
But.

If I do take that final step..
Who would be there to pick up the pieces for them?
To clean up the mess that this disgusting body left behind?

Who would be there to finish my paintings,
To sing my unsung list that is ever-expanding,
To write these words that have seemed so forced these past months?

Who would be there for them, when I could not be?
Someone, I am sure, but I have been told that I am irreplaceable,
And while I may not believe that,
I am scared of leaving a mess behind
That my mother cannot bring herself to clean up.

I am scared of leaving behind a mess that would irrevocably break my father,
A mess that would torment my brothers,
A mess that my sisters would never even remember.

And maybe..
Maybe I am scared of the call of oblivion..
Or scared of the unknowingness of it all, rather.

Or perhaps I am tired of thinking
of myself as a mess to be cleaned up,
Nothing more, and nothing less.

And maybe
That is all I need
To survive one more day.

I see so many ads now
they feed into my insecurities
and help me to notice everything that is wrong with me.

"Got stretch marks?"
they ask, and my eyes shamefully
trace down my chest to my inner thighs and I learn to hate what I see.

So I read on, hoping to learn
how to get rid of the natural signs of an ageing vessel
"Neosporin, coconut oil, and olive, and they'll be gone in a week."

The ads proclaim, and so I do as they say
because how can I be pretty
if no one else thinks me so?

"10 Tips on How to Get the Relationship of Your Dreams"
"5 Signs that You're Not as Pretty as You Think You Are"
"4 Things to Try to Spice Up Your *** Life"

"1 Way to Tell Whether the Creepy Old Man on the Corner Thinks You're Worthy of Being Catcalled by Him"

I read on, trying to understand what it is to be pretty
but the more I see,
the more hopeless I become

Men will only ever see me as a piece of meat,
just a pair of **** and an ***,
only there for their enjoyment or pleasure.

but I am not here to make things easy,
I am more than the sum of my parts,
more than my cellulite and hip dips

I revel in my stretch marks
I have grown into the woman I am today,
and I refuse to erase the proof of that.

You have ruined me.. all I can think of is the sun glinting off your spun-chocolate hair, the infinite depths of your sea-blue eyes. All I dream of is your honeyed voice telling me that I am different; I am loved.

You have ruined me. All I hear is static when you aren’t here, that flat, buzzing, grating sound of nothing and everything coming all at once. All I see is uncertainty and anxiety and empty eyes when you aren’t beside me.

You have ruined me, but so did Apollo to Icarus, and Orpheus to Eurydice. To love is to ruin, and dear god, I am irreparable.

Lately I’ve felt as though every little sound and feeling and smell and sight is grating at my nerves and chipping away at my sanity.

My clothes feel constricting and too loose and scratchy and smooth and not right

My ears are full of constant ticking and ringing and noise

My skin wraps my frame too tightly and I want to rip it apart and off of me but then I’d be cold and miserable

It’s all too much and everything is loud and jarring and I feel frenzied and too stuck and not stuck enough and all I want to do is jump in front of a van because then everything would
Just
Be
Quiet.
Blessed and sought-after and evasively, quiet.

When my mom first thought that I was gay,
She and my father sat me down at the kitchen table.

I was fifteen and thought I was in love,
And all they could do was scream at me...

‘You’re a sin; what you feel isn’t natural.’
‘Where did we go wrong?’

And all I had wanted was to love in peace.
But apparently, that was too much to ask from them.

So I stifled myself.

I cut myself off from her and let us wither
Until there was nothing left of us because
I wasn't normal
And I was fifteen
And all I wanted was my mother’s approval
And how could I gain that if I wasn’t normal?

And then I was sixteen and I thought I was in love again
But this time with a seventeen-year-old boy
That knew nothing of love
And everything of sharp edges and even sharper words
But he spoke so pretty to me,
And how could I resist?

But he hurt me worse than anyone else that I’ve known
And he never even cared…

And then I was seventeen.

I was seventeen and my best friend had this mane
Of beautiful hair and I called her lovely and wife
And all the other silly little pet names that high school girls do
But little did she know that her smile
Lit fireworks inside my brain and the swarms of
Butterflies that beat in my chest rivalled that of a drum.

I thought she was beautiful.
I saw the universe in her.

But how could I admit that to myself without admitting it to
My mother, the one person whose validation I crave like
Air and water and life itself?

How could I admit to her that I wasn’t
Her little girl anymore?
That I was a disappointment?

And then I was eighteen.

I was eighteen and numb and not looking for anything when he found me...
I was eighteen and I thought that surely,
Surely
This was it, this was the feeling that I was waiting for.

But it wasn’t and I was eighteen and alone again
But this hurt worse than the others and then I was gone after that summer.

Now, I’m almost nineteen.

I’m almost nineteen and I’ve accepted the fact that
I will disappoint my mother;
The one whose opinion that I value the most;
The one that gave birth to me;
The only one that can tear me down until I feel like nothing.

But she’s my mother so how could I let her go
When she was there for my first word and my first steps
And every one of my other firsts.

My first date.

My first dance.

My first breakup.

She was there when I left for college, and she’ll be there when (if)
I get married.

Because regardless of my choices,
She loves me, and she always will.

And even if I can’t bring my partner home,
I will love her all the same.

So mom, if you see this,
I’m sorry.

I’m sorry that I didn’t turn out how you wanted.
I’m sorry that I disappointed you.

But I’m not sorry for being who I am.

I’m not sorry for thinking women are beautiful
And men are handsome
Because all the world needs is a little bit more love,
And who am I to deprive it of that?