I drink it down, and I feel happy
I sway on my feet, and the music makes me dance
My mouth tastes of fire and ice, the air around me of sweat and heat
I stumble over words and slur when I introduce myself
But, God, I feel so good
I sip away my anger, my sadness
And it makes me feel so much better than I did before
Some say that you can pick your poison
I have to disagree
My poison picked me
It picked me up and threw me around
Made me feel emotions on an entirely different level
Muted me and made me loud all at the same time
And oh, how I loved that sweet abuse
My poison made me feel special
Made me think about how I couldn't hear my thoughts
Made them loud and quiet at the same time
Made me realize that you actually can't change the volume of your thoughts
I smiled, and people looked at me like a gem, because I was taking off my shirt
And dancing on a table
And when I tripped over my own feet, my poison made me escape the shame
I laughed along with everyone else, because my poison told me it was fine
My kind of Poison made me wake up early and puke all my good feelings into a porcelain bowl
My kind of Poison gave me headaches that you could hear for miles
My kind of Poison left me smelling like sweat and stomach acid
But, God, did it feel good

I click my pen again and again
Again and Again and Again
click click click click click
but it still doesn't feel right
and the world is about to end
A thousand times I'll tell you that I don't know
I don't know I don't know I don't know
I'm so frustrated
But I can't stop talking
I don't know are my favorite words
and my most indecisive enemy
I wiggle my legs
up and down and down and up and up and down
I'll twist my feet
point my toes and swirl my foot around to make the shape of a heart
make the shape of a heart
make the shape of a heart
make the shape of a heart
Again and Again and Again and Again
You ask me what I'm doing but
I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know
A million times I'll blink my eyes
a million tries
to blink my eyes
Blinking and Blinking and Blinking
but none of those tries leads to triumph
because I still feel absolutely horrible
and my world is about to end
Six times
Nine times
Three times
I leap out of bed and I run to stand in the hall
but my mind tells me to go back to my room and I do
and then my mind tells me to go to the hall
and I stand there and then I run back
What am I doing?
I don't know I don't know I don't know
Why? Why? Why?
STOP
Stop asking that question
I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it
a million times over I hate it
But in the end I'm still stuck in the hall
clicking a pen
jumping up and down
Obsessing and allowing the Compulsions to eat me alive
and end my world

I follow your eyes in the stars
and listen to your heartbeat in the wind
The leaves of trees brushing together is a song you whisper
and every wave lapping at the shore is the laughter of your heart
Each cloud moving across the sky is a happy thought
and every rainstorm a show of emotion
The movement of grass in a field is a thought you have
and a story that you tell is the tap of a branch on my window
The sun peeking behind a torrent of clouds is a smile
threatening to break across your face
And every time a bird sings, I listen, and I imagine you there
with me
You're my whole world

The world is so beautiful
The trees are green
the sunlight is bright and warm
and the air smells of fresh lilacs
and everyone around me is so very beautiful
Such a beautiful, beautiful place
And then I open my ******* eyes
and all I can see is black
and I'm choking on smoke
and shivering because of how ******* cold everything is
And everyone around me is a demon in disguise
The world is an ugly place

Life did not always feel this way;
like death with expanding lungs
The girl could remember brighter things
as sunlight on burned skin
and laughter
and contentment, if not happiness
Such things that roosted in the loft
of hair and skin and bone -
like quiet
and hatred
and sadness;
winged creatures that refused to fly
and left footprints
like scars on her brain
She lived; her skin itched with it
This girl made of paper
with a heart made of water
who faced a truth that was subjective -
and on this night as light as sun
she held the stars in her palms
and wished for dark
She asked herself why words,
like glass
needed to be concise and clear
when feelings are never such
and faces never so stark
Could the ink of her thoughts
be destroyed by the water of her love
that spoke in tongues
and waged one-sided war with her face?
Where was the self she sought to keep,
the riches she was taught to reap?
The garden meant to be her life;
instead grew up a barren sky
She asked these questions no one heard
to the shadow of a bird
who took flight at once
and sang her grief to the trees,
taking credit for her spoken pain.

There exists in my mind the image of
a playground near my childhood home.
This playground is *****.
The swing sets are rusted
(they shriek when they are put to use).
There are shards of glass in my feet
that have never come out
or healed over.
These broken pieces came from
somewhere,
but when I try to remember where
the swing sets begin to shriek
(so loud that I can't think).
I am afraid I will never know myself.

I think back on every pill
and I am terrified
How high could I fly
if I could barely walk,
barely breathe?
How far could I swim,
when I was drinking down the sea
with every pill I tossed in?
The bland flavor and the eccentric,
electric aftertaste
The burst of color and movement
where none existed
made a dim room feel like a happy place
And the burning sensation in my gut,
wasn't butterflies anymore
Muscles torn apart, ravaged by the colors I consumed
Bleeding in every limb
I'm not hungry and I'm not tired
but you know that I'll still sleep
when I'm dead
I feel no cold, and I don't feel the blood pooling at the back of my head as I fall again
I pick myself up and my vision is blurry but I barely notice
because I still feel great
And then I'm laying on the ground and for the first time
I can't get back up
and I'm not scared because I see a light whispering my name
and I hear a voice telling me how slow my heart is
and another voice screaming into the phone
But I still feel great
I feel like I'm floating
I've finally learned how to fly, it feels like
And I close my eyes and the screaming gets louder until
it fades away
and I fade away
and everything around me fades away until I am
nothing
I feel nothing, I think nothing
I'm gone for a while
And when I come back I'm a child at the mercy
of multicolored scrubs and loud voices trying to talk to me
But I still feel great

In school they tell us stories
written by people we must strive to understand:
Emily Dickinson, Poe, Shakespeare
Teachers pleading 'pay attention'
always reading
no retention
Still we scrape together
all the pieces of a grade
and some of us walk away knowing
what it's like to be lonely, and hopelessly underpaid.

You and I were twisted, once
upon the inward swirling trunk
of an outward blooming tree
that held some rotted flowers
with mangled, slimy leaves
We felt the cool wind cutting -
and the eaves dripped acid down
(onto our waiting tongues)
The scalding sensation leaves a scintillating
taste on my tongue
You and I were tortured, once
upon the sunken ship of sorrows
we called a rose bush
(but it was a tree, wasn't it?)
When I pointed out this hole in our life,  
you said a thorn is a thorn
and it hurts all the same
You and I were traitors, once
twining two upon two in the untamed rows
that grew with an abandon we craved.
If it were a tree or a bush or a flower
with mangled, slimy leaves
I wouldn't know, and couldn't say -
I'd never dare.
You and I are twisted, still
with acid-coated tongues
and thorny thrills shooting up our spines
that chill in the wind as it blows
about the slimy, slithering leaves
we call our souls.
You gave me something wicked -
Now it's up to me to decide what to do with it.

When I had nightmares,
my mother would shake me awake
because she couldn't bear to hear me cry
Now, today
She barely hears it
and I rarely ever wake up

I want to bathe in the feeling
I get when I read
a paragraph of raw description -
emotions laid out on paper,
the smell of ink wafting around me.
The choked-up sensation
that swells and dips
like life is tangible and textured
and delicious.
The written rain that runs down my skin
is somehow more tantalizing than the reality
I face when I open the door and see
true storms
with lightning that lives, breathes, and breaks.
I want to drink down the words
on this page
and live on blackberry ink and
anonymous thoughts.

They all say that you've changed
I know for sure that you haven't
As you always do, you complain
about the smallest things
You choose to argue with her
instead of admitting that you might
actually be wrong
You stare at me from the corner of your eyes
knowing that what you do is wrong,
and that I see it
but you continue to do it anyways
Because you are old,
and you are set in your ways
that is no excuse
being older than me
does not give you the right
to think that I am always wrong
just as being younger than you
does not give me the privelage
to always be correct
You pray to your God,
this God I don't believe in
and you tell me I will burn in Hell,
a place I am also unsure of
I am not entirely disbelieving
only to the point
that I would not dare hope
that someone I have never met
will save me at a words beckoning
You still taunt me, wishing I was the obedient
little girl
that you first met
The girl who was scared of everything, unsure
and now that I am confident,
you cast a disdainful eye upon me
For I no longer accept you treating me as a little girl
I am almost eighteen
almost an adult
and while it is normal for adults to wish
a child to remain a child
It is unnatural to simply refuse to accept that I grow
and that I have grown
I'm proud of who I am today
because before, I was afraid, self-conscious,
and now I am more confident, and the fear has been pushed away
I never thought I could, or would, hate you, when I was younger
Now, hating you is all I know
How could I not hate you, for squashing my ideas
Telling me that women with voices are women best unseen
Telling me that as I am now, confident in my belief
that all are equal,
no man would ever marry me?
Telling me, that I would never succeed, if I didn't know how
to cook and clean
But I don't want to cook, or to clean
I don't desire to be a slave for man to use up at their hearts desire
I want to exist as an independent being
with a job
I want to be a nurse, a doctor
Help people willingly, instead of against my heart
Why is it so hard to believe
that I, a girl, a women,
am also a person?
With hopes, and aspirations, dreams?
So, no
I don't think you've changed at all
You have yet to prove it
I doubt that you ever will
for while you are demeaning
You are also a coward

Every touch is fire
and I'm sick of being burned

There were not birds
or flies
or trees
or dirt
No people, nor comfort
or fear
or hurt
No love, no tears, no breaks or spills
no light
or dark
or homecooked meals
No hunger, or need
Desire, or ***
When the stars went out, I assure you:
There was Nothing Left.