“Up, down…” She held her pen and moved her pen up and down right in front of my face. The point was to follow it with my eyes, similar to the way a lion would look at a zebra before pouncing. That pen angered me, so did the old lady’s bobbed black hair. Or the way her neck drooped practically to the floor. What’s the point of me looking at her leopard-print glasses? What’s the point of this pen? What’s this going to help?

“Okay,” she muttered, “That’s worrying…” I zoned out again. Crap. She held it back up again. This time, she moved it side to side. I followed it as best I could. My stomach stings. I haven’t eaten since lunch 3 days ago. She brought a big box of fruit snacks today. On the box it says, “Party Sized!!!” With 3 exclamation points, even though it wasn’t all that exciting. It was just me eating this “party sized” box of 40 fruit packets. She sighed and put the pen on the chocolate-stained desk. Did I do that? I should probably clean up better next time. Ugh, I hate this room. It smelled of old ketchup and perfume… Was that just her? She started talking to me. There is no window in this room. I cannot see the outside, which makes me anxious. But I won’t tell her that, because if I keep getting anxious over such small things, I’m going to be confined to this isolated room much longer than I have to.

“So, I’m going to put Zoloft on…” I don’t care what she’s about to diagnose me with. It doesn’t matter. “Ava?” I feel tired and my chest feels heavy. It’s MDD, dysthymia, PTSD, anxiety, the list goes on. I wish she didn’t keep piling meds on top of my regular diet of 2 potato crisps a day. “Earth to Ava?” God, I hate that name. It sounds sour on the tongue. Ava, Ava, blah blah blah. I hate it almost as much as I hate silver cars, and red trucks… And the smell of pancakes, which is weird because pancakes are my favorite breakfast food. Who ever heard of hating the smell of your favorite food? “Ava!!”

Oops. “Yeah?”

“What do you think?”

Crap. “About what?”

“Have you even been listening?”

I haven’t. “Of course.”

She starts to lecture me. How annoying. I scream at her to shut up, but only in my head. Lots of things go on in my head. I have learned to mostly ignore them… They talk too much. “Quiet,” I hissed at them (in my head), “I’m trying to work!!” All those missing assignments, all their doing. Nothing bad is my fault, right? Always blame it on my head. I could never express my feelings out loud. But I could put on a real good fake smile. She goes on and on about “not being able to help me if I don’t help myself.” So what? How is telling me what’s going on in my brain even helping me?

I hate therapy, I hate being tired…
I hate it here.

"Why?" I asked him. "I'm not pretty, I'm not smart, I'm nothing."

"Stay, please. Just stay. It doesn't have to be forever, just for a little while... please. Just... stay."
"Forever," I promised.

I'm not mad...

Just disappointed.

I'm a mess

A beautiful mess, murmured a voice in the back of my head, the optimistic one; it sounded almost like you.

A smile tugged at my lips.

Look me in the yees
You can't tell that I'm a guy
I got the body of a woman
And it makes me wanna die
It makes me want to scream
But I can't even breathe
When I'm lookin in the mirror
Staring at my chest
Wishing I didn't have *******
Man, I shouldn't have to hate my own flesh
Sometimes I cut myself
To see how much it bleeds
Sometimes I wonder what would happen
If I cut too deep
I really wanna die
I would do anything to be a guy
Lord knows I should've been born with a
Y chromosome
But nah I got double Xs, oh
I got the body of a girl
But I know I'm a boy
But even if you look me in the eyes
You can't tell I'm a guy
My smile's not the same
It's all fake
I was a mistake
I'll tell people what I am
And they'll tell me the verses
But I wish I wasn't trans
I don't do this on purpose
I wish I could've been born right
So I could look like a guy
And I wouldn't want to die
I wouldn't even try
I know I'm a guy
I know mt name is Elijah, not Eliza
I should have a flat chest instead of a ******
Whatever you say it can't hurt me
Because deep down inside
I know I'm a guy

I have seen you behind the building
With the new person
And you tell me
You are not dating them
I have seen you
stick each others' tongues down
your guys' throats
but I'm sure you're just friends

When I see you walking around with someone else
I wonder if you might actually go somewhere

I'm missing so many assignments
I'm missing so much attention
I'm missing so many apologies
I'm missing so many notes
But my dad says "Don't cry."
Okay, dad.
I won't.

I gave you my time
And I don't get that back
I gave you my life
And I didn't have much of that to give away in the first place
I gave you my love
And that is on a cooldown
I cannot use it for years after what you did to it
I have to fix it up first
I gave you my confidence
Now I am left with soft apologies and broken hellos
I gave you everything
And I don't get that back.

I want to take you in my arms
We met 2 days ago
But you are so sweet
and kind and caring
and I have never known anything
Like that before you
So
Is this okay?
Or does love have its speed limits, too?

He told me to get in the car,
He wouldn't tell me where we're going.
We drove on a deserted highway,
Where there an abode was nowhere to be seen
His hand rested on my thigh
And the reflection of the sky
Was cast upon his sunglasses
And the orange glow of the sunset
Was making his golden hair
Turn a orange-ish shade
And my eyes
Turned a lovestruck blue
And I felt

...peaceful.

There are words written
On small sticky squares
Hung on my wall
None finished
just begging for me
To pick up my pen
And get back to work

After realizing that my hands
had begun to fade,
I then looked around
in the empty forest
and felt utterly
and completely
worthless

I sit in a tree,
observing
I see all and know all
Even the dark souls
of the lonely people
who trespass onto the land
of the loved

I could never dream
Of a tranquil end,
But maybe,
Someday
The end after the end
will be
calm

Yellow triangle,
Warning me to stay away
I kick it over
And slip

You showed up at my front door
Looking for a place to stay
Because your father had been drinking
And screamed for you to go away
I welcomed you inside,
Make sure you felt at home
Because I knew that it's just a house,
Not a home of your own.
You told me about your issues,
I sighed and said I'm sorry,
I handed you some tissues
Your eyes looked sort of starry

We've been
Migratory animals
Leaving under
Changing weather

He showed me his scars
Called it his art
He said that the drawing
Came from his heart
I wrote him a story,
He seemed to like it,
I told him my story
Came from my pit
He understood,
Said that it's fine,
I started his art
And he started mine.

It is a strange thing,
to go back to the same light
that has burned me
so many times

Today in school, I learned a lot about supressing how I feel.
Don't cry, chin up, smile, or else teachers will start to be worried.
I even learned how to force a smile!!
Oh, mother, I am so glad that I learned this skill...
If one more person asked how I was, I would probably start to be angry,
But now I've learned how to pretend like I really am alright!
People will no longer care,
No one else will notice.
Today in school, I figured out how to pretend to be okay.

Stop trying to live your dreams vicariously through your kids.
I cannot keep up with all these assignments,
I cannot keep up with all these extracurricular activites
I can't keep up
Because you couldn't do it yourself

I excitedly drew the fractured blade against my skin
So long without a tool to do this deed
Has done horrible things to my sanity
Like a drug, it draws me to it
And I use it,
get addicted,
No matter how much it hurts me,
and then go to rehab
or a mental hospital, as some would say
No matter
It feels great

Laying my head on your chest
Has never felt so wrong
yet so right

I recognize that you need an idol,
but I am not that person.

I was cleaning my room
And I found another one
My parents had hidden every other one
But that one
I felt joyful
To hurt myself
after
too
long

I am doing my best,
Ignore what my teachers tell you
I am trying so very hard
Even though all I can manage
Is a C-
I am trying.
I really am.
I promise I am.
I'm not like you.
It takes me a week to finish a single assignment,
And I don't know why.

Midnight by the window
I lie awake
Thinking about the things
I haven’t said
Midnight by the window
She lies awake
The moon
Looking out over the sky
Midnight by the window
The moon is lonely
And so am I
We sit alone
Outcasted by the endless sea of stars
That said we were useless
But we still do everything for them
The stars
The people
The monsters
Praised for their riches
“The stars are so bright!”
“They are very successful!!”
When in reality
It’s almost always fate that brought them to their money
‘Money.’
The variable that determines success
Midnight by the window
I cry with the moon
Her and I
All alone.

He sat by his kitchen table, alone, eating the chocolate cake he had bought the day before.
Just like last year, nobody remembered.

I knocked on the door lightly. I obviously got no answer… I don’t know what I was expecting. I opened the door and squeezed in, shutting it just as quickly and quietly as I had opened it.
The room felt duller than usual… I couldn’t tell if it was because of the weather, the boring colors, or the aura of a patient waiting to die.
He was looking out the window. The weather was cold, and the skyline had been invisible, thanks to fog. It was rainy. People ran through the storm to their cars below us. The windows had been covered in rain, and all you could here was the steady beat of the heart monitor and the rain pouring outside. It smelled like hand sanitizer and lies. A shiver crawled down my spine just being in here for 5 seconds… I wonder what it has done to him for 5 months.
I hadn’t seen him for years. I wasn’t exactly ready for this confrontation, but it had to happen. I knew that. If I ever wanted to move on in my life, I had to see him again.
His brown hair was messy and fell over his eyes. The light from outside had a soft gray glow reflecting onto his pale face, making him look ghostlier than ever. His skinny, underweight arms were resting on his stomach, and his green eyes had a dark tint on the skin under them.
Seeing him like this just made it more obvious why he was here in the first place. He didn’t sleep, he didn’t eat, he didn’t drink… he made himself sick. His bony fingers tapped on his hand anxiously. He turned to face me. His face looked dreary, and he looked sad in general. I gulped and widened my eyes, not ready for his icy stare when he looked like this.
He sighed and I relaxed my face, calmed down as soon as he wasn’t staring at me.
“Why are you here?” he asked me.

With eyes the color of magma, he watches.
Those nightmare eyes.
Implanting darkness in the mind with a look.
A single glare.
Always glaring.
Why is he so angry?
All the time…
Just filled with…

Rage.

I lied down on the floor
To go to sleep
Not wanting to sleep in the bed
Because I remembered.

I put down my blanket
And flopped into the pillow
And I jolted up
More flashbacks

I remember how I made a pallet
On the floor
Too scared
To be in the same bed with you

So
I picked up my blanket
Threw it on the bed
Sat down on the floor
In the emptiness of my room
And didn’t sleep

Too scared of the thought of you.

My eyes are a mood ring
No, it's not a metaphor
My eyes change color
Based on 2 factors
my mood,
and the weather.
When they are gray,
You will know that
I am feeling so very blue
So very sad
and the world around me
Seems so very rainy
When my eyes go back
to their usual
Bluish-green color
You will know
That I am feeling
Some way,
A way you will never know
Because I will never tell you
What my eyes mean.

We talked about my future, and my skin began to itch,
Because I have no ideas for it that I want to pitch.
My mom says be a surgeon, my dad says just get rich,
So we talked about my future, and my skin began to itch.
I sat on my bed itching, trying not to cry.
My brother asked what’s wrong, so I knew I had to lie.
I said, “Oh, it’s nothing!!” He shrugged and said goodbye,
Leaving me alone to itch and just try not to cry.
We talked about my feelings, I started to itch my arm,
Because all this weight I was carrying began to bring me harm.
I told her, “I’m okay, love.” She smiled and said I had charm,
Then she left me all along in there, so I had to itch my arm.
The skin peeled off, I scratched and picked too terribly,
I cried and sobbed while my newly naked arms began to slowly bleed.
The skin was in my fingernails, a bandage my arm needs,
I got up to go and get one while the blood came up in crimson beads.

“Really, he’ll be—”
“But m—be-”
“There isn’t anything we can—”
“THERE HAS— SOM—ING”
“Sir, I’m going to—ask you to—sit—”
“DON’T TELL—DOWN—”
“…I assure you—”
“*******—may—then—weeks—”
“Sir, please calm—”

Depression.
Some say it's all in your head, others say you're just being dramatic.
But what they don't understand is that you already know that.
You know because you tell yourself that every single time you feel that pit in your stomach that says, "I am empty, but I do not know why."
No, the pit in your stomach will not go away, but you will never know why it's there. You are not sad, you are not lonely, you are just empty.
This emptiness takes away any and all will you had to just write a five hundred word essay that is due in 5 hours. The feeling that will change when you sleep, when you eat, how you dress, who you keep around, and so on.
This feeling will drag you by your cut wrists to the bathroom to step on a scale you already checked 5 minutes ago.
The feeling shouts, "You are worthless, and nobody loves you."
The feeling says everyone hates you, but you know that's not true.
...Deep down.
But until you've dipped your toe in the water, you won't want to dive deep enough to understand that you matter.
That you are loved.
That you are needed.
Depression is commonly mistaken as a monster.
The monster under the bed that you need your mom to spray with a 60 mL bottle that carries the vaccination.
But it is a lack there of: It is emptiness.
It is tiredness.
I try to find what is making me feel so empty. When I was little, I thought I had found a cure.
I thought it was so simple.
I thought, "Oh, it goes away when I am distracted!!"
But now the feeling has evolved.
It began to feed off of my self-hatred,
and it has grown to be a most wretched beast that will no longer be conquered.
And now the only pieces to the broken puzzle I have found are the broken shards of a mirror I broke when the mirror said I was so horribly ugly.

I forgot the lyrics to the song I loved,
And now I don't even know how it goes.

My notebook is beginning
To look messy
Because the ****** words
Spread to other pages

"We grew apart,"
Though really,
You just left
Because you found
Someone better
And that's okay.
I don't blame you.

Use me,
I don't care
I just want to have a use
Be it a replacement,
A backup,
or a coping mechanism,
use me.

Forgive me, my love, for I cannot love you right.
I don't know how to
I think you should leave,
And I hope you find happiness.
Woe to me, the monster.
Forgive me, my love, for I will never understand
How your mind works
I'm still learning to understand my own.
Forgive me, my love,
for I have grown to close to you
And it is now time for this monthly ritual
Of pushing people away
Forgive me, my love
I am just trying to do the right thing.

Death is not a race
So wipe those tears off your face.

I've been doing
Pretty horrible, but I hope you're well
I hope you're happy
Up there in Heaven, cause I'm stuck in hell
I didn't use to
Believe in Christianity, God, or anything
I read the Bible
As a mechanism to pretend you're okay
I hope, however
If there's a 'Heaven' that you're up there
Where are you darling?
I hope you're at least somewhere
Cause it's scary to think
When you die, you go nowhere. ...
So, here lies the love of my life,
I hope that they're somewhere

Have you no shame?
Tearing apart people's hearts for fun..
Have you no shame?
Putting yourself out there like it's nothin.'
You walk around
So proud of yourself, who and what you've done
While the rest of us
Are stuck behind tryna' learn how to love
Don't mind me
I'm just one of your many victims
No, don't mind me
I'm just working on trying to move on
Don't mind me,
Don't mind me...
I've been drinking
Pretending that it helps seal away the pain
I've been sinking
Drowning in this beer, these tears and this rain
I've been thinking
You said you just needed space
The stars been twinkling
And remind me of the brightness of your face
So lately, I've been up at night thinking
Since you been gone so much recently
I've been in my head and it hit me...
The ****'s the matter with you?
You break everything that's in your path
You're a monster, you're a psychopath
You move on, forget the aftermath
You hurt the only people you love you back
You're crazy, you're insane,
You think that you're the only ruler
You got it in your brain
That the rest of us drool over ya'
Have I no shame?
Using the few people that I have to move on
Have I no shame?
Sobbing over someone who's already gone
Am I okay?
I've been pretending that I am for a while
I'm not okay,
But I'll just throw the pain in the forget-about-it pile
My dad hates me, he said so
My mom hates me, she said so
My family hates me, they said so,
Everybody hates me, so I'll go
**** myself on main street
the driver will not see me
I can finally be
Somewhere that's more happy
Have I no shame?
Pretending like I'm sad, but what about?
Have you no shame?
Telling me I'll be forgot about?
Are we okay?
We're a mess, we really are, it's a shame..
Are you okay?
I love you, and I promise you are not to blame.

Home sweet home,
Next to broken promises
Hidden cries
Large, fake smiles
And swollen eyes
Home sweet home,
Live, laugh, love,
But we are not meant to live
We will never learn how to laugh
And love we know nothing of.
Home sweet home,
Next to a drunk mother
Holding an empty wine glass
Next to a father
Holding an empty child
by the neck
Home sweet home,
Take away the sweet,
Take away the life,
Take away the laughs,
Take away the love...
And you've got yourself
a home.

Do not tell me to take a deep breath
You know **** well
I cannot breathe
That is just cruel
That is like telling
A blind man
To look how pretty
Your dress is.

Passion
Fear
Please
Don't come near

Sorry
Sorry
I'm so sorry
I'm sorry
My bad