I’ve been watching the waves for a while
Their rising, as the foam inches its way up the shore
And their falling, as the current seems to pull me in

The blue of the sea is enchanting
Its gentle whispers are inviting
The chill of the water prickles my skin
But I don’t mind it
The smooth sand washes over my feet with every footstep I take
The waves draw me further and further until my mouth is under water

I close my eyes and hold my breath
And I notice the silence now echoing around me
All I’m left with is my own thoughts, swirling in my head
Which is rather unnerving
In a comforting sort of way
I listen as my mind spills its heavy words
I hear voices I had never dared to acknowledge
I’m reminded of truths I was never willing to accept

I open my eyes to notice the light above me diminishing
I see blurred outlines of my friends and family
I strain to hear the muffles of their words
Are they peering down at me?
Do they notice my limp body sinking?
Will they dive in to save me?

I will not swim back up, I cannot
Despite my love for them, despite all the wonders of the world, I have no more strength to muster
I’ve sunk too far for them to rescue me
But I don’t mind

I don’t want to return to the chaos
I like it down here
It’s quiet, serene
As if time is standing still, no worries in sight
The eerie silence of the ocean as it swallows me whole

I feel a burning in my chest and my mouth bursts open
I inhale deeply and am met with salt as it fills my lungs
I do not sputter, nor do I cough
For it’s almost as if I’m breathing for the very first time

I let my eyes flutter to a close
And perhaps I am nearing death
But my lips curl into a smile as I feel something similar to peace swelling inside my heart
My heart which has been void of life for far too long

Dear people I love,
I'm sorry I let out my stress on you.
(Because often it's the people you're closest to who get hurt the most when you're angry at everything but them.)
I'm sorry you have to deal with my uptight, stress-case, mess of a personality.
(Because some things bring out the worst side in you, a side you wish nobody had to see. A side hidden beneath smiles and laughs and true happiness. The side that's all your fault.)
Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.
(One sorry for the people you didn't mean to hurt.)
(One sorry for the air which absorbed your negative energy.)
(One sorry for your palms which have been dug into far too many times.)
(One sorry for your eyes which have cried too many frustrated tears.)
(And one last sorry for you. I'm sorry you have to feel this way, that you think it's all your fault.)
(But that doesn't mean there's nothing you can do to change it.)
-I. Quill

Colors of the ocean marbled with fire
Blending like paint, like waves, like flames
Delicately adorned with glistening dewdrops
Clouds of white and grey crying softly
A dome of peace, life, humanity
A cage shielding us from the world which lies beyond
Undiscovered
Unlikely
Unknown

You know you’re broken
When your own reflection
Won’t even look you in the eyes

How can I possibly expect someone to love me when I can’t even tolerate myself.
How can I hope to be somebody, anybody, when I’m nothing but a blink amidst the infinite abyss of existence.
Even on my own planet my life won’t be much to remember.
An enemy to myself, a stranger to the world.
Isn’t it unnerving to realize that if I slipped away, the planet wouldn’t know any different.
The ground wouldn’t miss my steps and the sky wouldn’t grieve my gaze and the atmosphere wouldn’t mourn my breaths.
Just another body that doesn’t stay, only fades and eventually decays.
This is why legacy is so important, I suppose.
The only way a soul can truly live on.
Even if earth would go on just the same, even if history wouldn’t notice me gone.

Do we idolize normality
Or demonize insanity
And which is worse

like an acorn,
drifting down to a bed of emerald grass,
amidst a sea of crisp autumn leaves,
swirling like the color of flames,
crimson vermilion sunshine
scraping the dirt below.
but instead a breeze cuts off my course
and I come crashing down
onto concrete cold as ice,
only to crack
and eventually shatter.

I have yet to meet somebody I can spend right now with
If no one even wants me for a moment
How am I supposed to meet someone I can love for the rest of my life?
And more importantly
How am I going to find someone who wants to spend eternity loving me?

Blue when my life was one color
when the lines were blurred
Blue was the comfort, the sky, and the ocean
Vast and inviting, inspiring
Blue was every possibility on clear days with no clouds
Blue when my dreams were one color

Purple was more unique than I'd ever be
but it swallowed me up for years
Purple for the friends I made and the friends I lost
for the memories and the summer nights
Purple was every season, I thought it would be my forever
Shaped my growing up
Through every twist and turn
Purple was as safe as it was depressing
A childhood wound turned into a toxicity I couldn't abandon

Yellow was who I always hated but always tried to become
And when it came up like the sun
It was golden hour and then it was gone
Yellow was smiles and laughs and a spark back into my life
After the darkness, after the heartache, after the war
Yellow introduced me into a world with a purpose
I had never seen it like this
Crashing just as it began

Green when I can finally see
when I breathe for the very first time
when the walls of ignorance crumble around me
Green when I can escape in my mind
to a forest with evergreens and moss crawling up the trunks
Green when I learned to look myself in my own eyes
when I didn't see a monster anymore
when I could watch the tears settle like fog in a field
Green was the hug I was waiting for
the relief that I can trust my two hands to carry my own life

The slicing sting of the blade as it strokes my skin
Is not pain
But relief
From the raw bleeding within.

The draining drips of crimson as it drowns the floor
Is not unsettling
But reassuring
Compared the truest stomachache of all.
Living

Your presence is awfully comforting
Yet you leave me with shivers
tickling my spine
And goosebumps
prickling my skin.
You feel so near, right next to me,
But when I reach out
You disappear.

Your figure is just a silhouette,
maybe blue, brown, perhaps green or even grey,
could the eyes be that captivate me from miles away.
You still seem so close.

I'm full of emotions that make no sense, not even on a blank page
Full of ink splotches
and salty blue blotches.
When I wish to tell you how I feel, I mumble
Until all at once my jumbled words fumble
and fall into a pile at your feet.
Which you blankly stare at, before walking away.

You'd think there would be a number of how many times a heart could shatter
over petty things
Before it would learn to hold itself together longer,
to be stronger,
or at least you'd think that it wouldn't hurt as much when it falls apart again.

I thought people said that love could make you feel alive.
But being in love has only been an ocean full of waves which have crashed over me far too many times,
Until all my color has faded,
Washing away the childhood spark that once gleamed in my eyes.
Until all that's left is a shell of the girl I used to be,
A smile still drawn
on my blue lips
that were still waiting for your ghostly kiss.

But nobody sees my efforts, you don't hear my cries
that I muffle with "it's okay" and other shallow lies.
I know you ignore me
when you say you adore me
And I know I implore you,
when it's my bad I fell for you.
I'll continue to pontificate
on a dreadfully pathetic page
until I surely suffocate
in the mound of poems I create
which are riddled with your name.

But it's my fault.
For I fell in love with a ghost. Like I always do.
And he left me behind, like they always seem to.

everyone in my life is temporary
when will i learn to live for myself?

Lately I thought
The more I forced
A tug on my lips,
A glint in my eyes,
A light in my face
Like the flicker of flames
As they dance in the fire,
The easier it would be,
The more natural it would feel,
And maybe even some day
My mind would recall
How it felt to smile
And I would be able to
Do it for real.

We both fell in love
But I fell too far
Cuz I climbed too high
And you were too low

The gears in my mind that used to wind and turn so fast, are slowing. The ideas that never become words, die off. The tick-tick-ticking of pestering thoughts give up. And urge me to give up as well.
Why can't I process this train of endless emotions that long to
become stories? There once was a place in my mind that filled and
toppled over with wonderful ideas. But that place is now empty,
full of cobwebs and dust. Lost, buried deep inside me.
  How can I find it again? That place I'd go when the world shut me
  out and I just needed to express how I felt.
   I miss the days I'd feel lonely, and escape to the world of wonder
   I'd get lost in. The words, the powerful language... And I'd create
   something spectacular.
    But that gift was taken from me, ripped from my heart leaving an
    empty feeling in my chest.
     My power of writing unique ideas is gone.
      How do I get it back? Can I?
      I'm too weak. I can't search for those ideas. I'll never find them
      again.
      I let those brilliant thoughts slip from my grasp. They drifted
      away, soon to wither to dust.
     I am incapable of writing. Incapable of thinking. Incapable of
     loving what I write.
     So I may be unable to find those old words, but I can create new
     ones. It'll take effort, it'll take time. It'll take practice.
    But I am willing, to get my thoughts whirling again. To take an
    emotion, put it into words, and form those words into something
    beautiful. I'll sort my language for only the best, the most poetic.
   My feelings in the writing will swirl up from the pages and enter
   your mind and make you think, Wow... Who wrote this?
  But I am incapable of such a gift... I always have been.
So I'll drown in the dread I've made for myself. I'll swallow the
water of hopelessness as I sink deeper and deeper and deeper... I'm
incapable.
But at least I could make a poem out of it.

A writer writes for themselves
An author writes for the world
A poet writes for those who cannot speak

3 years
A hundred tears
A thousand fears

3 months
No hugs
No love

3 is your name
3 is my pain
3 is your face
3 is the change

I reveal to you
The scars I've always tried to conceal from you
I make a deal with you
That if you break me I promise I won't heal from you

I barely showed you the cracks in my heart and you said you'd help me when I fall apart but words are just that they are empty and cold and you left me behind which is just what I told you would happen. Again and again and again.

You found the parts of me that were still tender, caressing my wounds to make me feel better, then dug a knife into my exposed skin proving to me you're exactly like him. Again and again and again.

With the steel blade you carved out my heart, I'm left again hollow like I was at the start, but it's my fault for letting you in, yes it's my bad you showed me you'd win. Again and again and again.

Maybe one day when my body grows numb I'll meet someone who sees everything I've become and loves every part of me, broken pieces and all, someone who'll hold me when I seem to fall. Again and again and again.

I conceal from you
The scars I've always tried to reveal to you
I break a deal with you
That if you love me I promise I won't heal from you

I hate myself
I hate myself for everything I am
And I hate myself for everything I’m not

Marks on my skin hold your bruises that ache when I stroke them, they ache of your hands which once touched me, your lips which once kissed me, the feeling I still remember yet have tried to forget. Your words and now empty promises echo in my mind, empty now but ever so full that night.