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

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 shook his head. “Is he going to be okay then?”
“Yes. We can add some meds to his regular ones to treat this, too.”
“Okay… how much?”
I looked out the window at the skyline, fogged up and cold. Matched my mood. It was rainy and the gray clouds covered up the sun. Kody sighed and rubbed his head. I ignored what they were saying and looked at the IV in my arm and rolled my eyes.

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

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.

Passion
Fear
Please
Don't come near

Insert a word, letter, or phrase,
And then delete it just as quick.
God, all this writing stuff
Is starting to make me sick.
What words rhyme with vegetable?
Oh, I do not know…
I have no direction with this poem I wish to go.
With a swish of my wrist
And a flick of my hand
Boom! I’ve made a poem…
That nobody can stand.
Make it, erase it,
God what is the difference
It’s simply not as good
As those with a planned sequence

I asked my mom to teach me how to play piano.

She’s a prodigy, you know. She could play Beethoven better than the man himself.

She said, “I just took my medicine. As soon as it kicks in, I will come down.” She smiled, and I said okay and went downstairs to wait silently.

2 years later, I’m still waiting, I’m still laying down in my bed, because my mother should be down here soon. My room is messy, but I doubt she’ll be around to care. My blankets are warm, and even if she were to come down I would no longer feel like playing the piano. It is such a pretty instrument, and I do not have any pretty notes to play. How am I supposed to learn without a mother to teach me where to put my hands?

For no reason at all, I feel empty and alone. And I called my mom, but she didn’t pick up, and I called my dad, but he is too sick to spend time with me. I grew up around annoyed friends who were bothered by my clingy and annoying personality. For no reason at all, I grew up loud in class. My teachers and peers all roll their eyes, frustrated. It hurts when they call me annoying, but I play it off as a joke. And it’s funny, it is, but I keep forgetting to tell the punchline.

My mother doesn’t reply to the playful text messages I send her when I’m feeling happy, which is okay. That’s okay. Really, it’s fine. I’ll move on, I will. Which is why I know I shouldn’t be crying while I write about feeling confined to a bedroom that I could easily walk out of, and I would if there was a reason to. But there isn’t.

I thought about this today when I wondered how much I see my mother on a day-to-day basis. The answer I came up with once a day, when she walks through the door. She says hello to her boyfriend, Cameron, and she goes to her room. And I don’t see her for the rest of the day. I’ve no one to help me with my homework, so if I don’t understand it I just take the F and move on. My mom will be disappointed in my grades, but she won’t say anything to me. She’ll just glare at me as she passes by. My mom just… doesn’t talk to me.

Which would be fine, if it didn’t cause me to grow up an attention-seeker with attachment and abandonment issues… I lose more friends that way. I don’t have anyone anymore. I scared all my friends off, and it’s not like my mom is around to help me.
I am still so very excited to go to my manipulative father’s house, only because his lies require him to talk to me more. His apologies require him to spend more time with me.
The importance of an adult figure is commonly disregarded, and it is that neglect that has caused me to feel this empty and alone. Because I am constantly left alone with my very talkative mind, and the thoughts always make me question whether or not I am truly loved.

Am I?

Who knows. I’d ask my mom, but…
I doubt she’d reply.

Porcelain vase
Sitting atop
Your wobbly table
Good luck

It's been a while, old friend.
Old razor, the one I put away.
I have been good, I have been okay,
But then I was not, and I needed to see you once again.
It hasn't been great, old friend.
I have cried too many tears,
and now I need a friend to console me.
Oh, how I've missed you.
How I have missed you dancing across my skin...
How I have missed the scarlet beads you summon whenever you prance by,
How I have missed the bumps on my arms and the burn in the shower.
How I have missed this feeling: The feeling that is not numbness, but cannot be described.
No, maybe it can... Relief.
Relief that I can still bleed,
and I am not a robot.
I am not a monster.
I am not evil.
Hey, old friend, am I evil??
Am I selfish?
Am I a good person?

I do not love you, and you do not love me, either. I have stolen your first kiss, your spare time, and everything in between, but God forbid I ever take your heart.
I'm not good with hearts.

Oh, poor thing
What have you done to yourself
I can see your arms
And I can see your ribs
And I can see
the dark circles
under your swollen eyes

But I feel much worse
When I'm calling your name
Out of nowhere
When I'm calling to you
And you don't respond
And I grow heavy
And it grows bigger
Feeding off your absence
And I feel
Way
Way
Worse.

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

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.

I'm not mad...

Just disappointed.

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.

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.

Bound to look over the empty population;
Who **** each other,
Hurt each other…
All for the sake of a sick game
The point of life
Surviving
No matter who you have to hurt in the process.
I am bound to the sky,
Looking over the men,
Who are oh so selfish.

She is a child of the stars.
Flawless and beautiful, though she doesn’t know it.
With her eyes like the moon,
And hair like the deepest ocean.
Flowing.
Adrift.
She felt as the moon would;
Alone.
Among an endless sea of stars that do not encompass her.
Is she a planet or a star?
What is the moon?
She is the moon.
What else do you want from her?
Do you really need her to be one of the stars?
Is it not enough for her to roam among them peacefully?
No.
No, the moon is not enough.
She must be just like the stars or she is flawed.
Not too noticeable or you’re an attention-seeker, not too quiet or you’re angsty.  
She is a child of the stars.
She is trapped amongst the stars.
She lights up the entire night sky almost entirely by herself, but no.
That’s not enough.
Forget your trophies, forget your beauty, forget your perfections.
Oh, poor moon…
Swimming in the sky, floating amongst traitors. Floating amongst regular.
Trying to escape the current

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.

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

My dad is sleepy.
He cannot move.
His medicine makes him tired.
His medicine makes him mad.
It's the medicine.
He's yelling because of the medicine.
"It's making me frustrated,"
Oh, okay, father.
I believe you.
I understand.
My medicine makes me tired,
Though, you call me lazy.
My medicine makes me moody,
Though, you call me dramatic.
But that's okay.
I understand.

You try and speak
About your home life
And I go, "Yeah, felt that."

*****
Everything
Is always about me
isn't it

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 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.

Why is reciprocation so difficult
You came up to me
With a homemade batch of chocolates
on February Fourteenth
You came up to me
With 3 words that would haunt me
You came up to me
And you were so nice
And I am so sorry
I couldn't
give
that
back.

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.

Nevermind
My arms
It was my cat
Nevermind
My sleeves
I was using red paint
Nevermind
my tears
I have dust in my eye
Nevermind
my screams
I was just scared
Oh, these bandages?
Yeah, I fell..

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

Denial… No… Confrontation, forgiveness, and moving on.
Moving on.
I’m skipping town. I’ve got nothing left here. I left nana a note. She’ll be okay without us.
I packed a bag. I put Squid and our copy of To **** a Mockingbird in it. I’ve got plenty of money, not that I’ll need it.
I’m probably just gonna follow Shiloh, wherever he is. I won’t need this cash. I’ll leave it next to a note if I write one.
Shiloh is…
Whatever. It doesn’t matter now. I’m leaving.
That should fix everything.
…I hope.

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

Please come home
You spry little thing

I have been so very confused
And my search history has turned into
some monument for you
"Heart stinging?" It's a sickness
"Too much loving?" Call a therapist
"How to not love you anymore"
nothing useful
just a bunch of wikihows
"How to stop loving someone who doesn't love you?"
Ouch, that's rude
seems a little too direct
but that's okay
it's your fault, too

They showed me his body today. In fairytales, I would shut his eyes gently and say how peaceful he looked. But we all know this is not a fairytale.
He looked awful. Bruises were everywhere, his eyes had dark circles under them, he looked blueish and gray… he looked like his last moments were spent in pain.
I just hope Heaven can wipe his memories of all that pain. I wish Heaven could wipe my memories of him, while they’re at it.
Then maybe it wouldn’t hurt so bad.

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.

I cannot sleep
In a bed anymore
Because it reminds me
of his
His bed he forced me onto
His bed he was holding me down on
His bed that I was exposed in
I cannot sleep
and it
is
your
fault

I was ****** at the doctors. I’m angry at everything right now, but more than anything, I’m mad at him.
How dare he.
He broke so many promises yesterday. He promised he would stay here. He LIED to me!!! He said he wouldn’t do that ****** surgery!!
…
…We, uh… we had the um… funeral. For Shiloh. I just… No one… I was the only one there. Nana didn’t even come. What the hell?
Nobody shows up to your birthday, fine… but really? It’s a funeral!!
But… Somehow, I’m not surprised… because…
…The Peacock Effect: Who cares if you exist?

Projecting the blame
as long as it's not me
it's you, it's him, it's her, it's them.
It's just not me.
Because I cannot handle
messing up
one
more
time

My mother loved stories.
She quoted some of her own fictional realities to herself in her hospital bed to avoid the fact she would never see anything outside of the dull walls of the place she’d been stuck in for the past year and a half.
She always smiled when she saw me. “Oh, my beautiful baby boy.” She’d say. “How I’ve missed your company.” And I would always smile and say, “Me too, ma.”
She didn’t say anything more. All she did was watch cartoons on the television, waiting for the nurse to come in with her medication.
When the nurse came in, mother would always call her ‘Lilith.’ She thought she was my little sister. She wasn’t. The nurse just smiled and handed her the pills. She never knew how to break the old woman’s heart. Lilith has been dead for 10 years. Mom had a brain tumor along with Alzheimer’s.
Mother traced the outlines of the city with her finger when it was too quiet for her to handle. She always said the silence was too noisy.
After 10 minutes of noisy silence, she asked for my father. Every time, I had to be the one to tell her he left us. She sighed and said, “No, he wouldn’t do that.” And every time I just looked at my feet, unable to repeat myself.
I used to want to know more about my dad. She would always say the same sentence. Nothing more, nothing less. “He loved music.” She said. And every time I pretended to be amazed. Though, that was always something I’d already heard. And it didn’t tell me much, except we were alike in a single aspect. I sighed when she slept.
Until her last day.
She turned to me and smiled.
“He came from the stars.” She said.
And died.

My brother knows,
Though really, he will never understand.
I ask him if I pass,
If this binder does it.
He says, "not really,"
I just look down,
but then suddenly,
My thoughts start to stray.
I realize I'm not flat,
I realize I'm feminine
I realize too small
I realize I don't fit in them
Them being the category that is a male
Them being the jeans that I try despereately try to fit my waist in,
Them being society,
Them being normal.
I stand in front of a mirror 20 minutes a day looking at the small details that remind me I am "She"
I will always be "she"
I will never be "he"
Never.
And my mom knows that, so why should she bother trying to change it?
She says I have chosen a stupid name,
But it is not like I had any adult figure to help me pick it out,
So why is it my fault?
I wish I didn't feel like this,
But I do not have a choice.
Well...
this is not entirely true.
I could choose to not think too hard when people call me "She"
I could choose to not look in the mirror and call myself "She"
I could choose to understand that everyone knows me as "She"
And I could choose to move on
But I don't.
I told my mom, she said I'd grow up to regret it.
I gave her the statistics, but that wasn't enough.
She said "she"
She called me by my name,
No, not the name that I have chosen, the name she had chosen for me.
And I ignored it.
And I didn't say anything.
But it still makes me feel empty when I realize I have too many parts that make me a 'whole,'
3 parts I can't look at without feeling my eyes sting,
3 parts I can't wait to get off of me,
But that will never happen.
Because,
I will always be
"She."

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.

A man is making his move on me,
This I can clearly understand,
Though, I never learned how to say no.
I said I want to write, and that was the end of it.
I will wait until he goes to sleep.
He touched my stuffed rabbit,
And I couldn’t breathe.
I don’t like it,
But I never learned how to say no.
His tongue is jammed in my mouth,
He smells and tastes awful,
And something so wet should not be so warm.
I am uncomfortable,
But I never learned how to say no.
He says gross things.
“You’re pretty,”
“You’re cute,”
“I love you,”
It makes me wanna puke,
So I say ‘Ew’ and try to move on.
I ignore his ****** comments.
It’s awkward,
It’s uncomfortable,
And it’s stressful,
But I never learned how to say no.

Ouch, that stings,
but that's just the pain that your love brings.

Little young lady,
I have missed your face,
and I know you're lying
when you say that you're okay
I notice your face,
your clear fall from grace,
No matter how obvious,
your family looks away
When all you need is someone to ask you
if you are really doing okay
everyone looks away
so are you really okay?