Sometimes I crave for addiction
Just to have something dependable,
Consistent.

I already have it though, don’t I?
As they said, if I wanted to stop being “sad”
Then I would just stop.

How can I, though?
This is safe, this is still.
This is pain.
This is me.
All I am.
All I’ll ever be.

The depression is “persistent” after all.
More persistent than I’m willing to be.

I like to hide out in my mind
when the world is too much to handle.

It's safe in here.
Dark and serene.
No one to hurt me,
Nothing to fear.

Sometimes, though,
I’m hidden for too long.
I get too comfortable in here.
Too comfortable.

Ready or not, here I come!

If no one comes out to find me,
Seek for me,
Then I won’t be hiding.

I’ll be lost.

Blame me for my pain
Chastise me for my tears
Reprimand me for feeling
and for saying what you don’t want to hear.

I’m sorry that I hurt so much
Hurt so much that it leaks through my tear-ducts,
Bleeds through my scars,
and reaches you—
You.

You make it all about you.
Because how could I be so selfish.
How could I dare hurt you
By hurting myself.

Don’t you think I could’ve used a shoulder to cry on?
Hands to soothe?
Arms to sink into?
Because I think do.

All I sunk into was myself,
I repressed all you saw was wrong with me
Deep deep within me.
Deep deep until I was no longer me
Or I.
Deep deep until I no longer was.

Lost lost
Lost in myself,
Losing myself.
I’m losing
myself.
And you’re losing me too.
God, how could I do this to you.

I’m sorry.
I’m so sorry for hurting.

My poetry is the result of an influx of thoughts.

My head can't hold them all,
So they spill out onto paper and soak and stain,
Leaving these tangled strings of words.

I try to arrange them to something comprehensive
But it's mostly an indecipherable nonsense.
I suppose thats what makes it poetry.

At least, it makes the mess in my brain
Just a bit more tangible.

As if it was just feeling "sad".
No.

Its a beast of shadows and darkness that consumes you from the inside.
Its being hollow, devoid of self and everything human.
It's a violent ocean who's waves crashes against your ribs.
It's a pain that infects your core and spreads to the very tips of your fingers.
It's the heaviest nothingness.

It hurt hurts hurts hurts hurts hurts
so ******* much.

I just want it to stop.

"I really don't understand whats wrong with you. You have a loving family and food to eat, and you didn't go through anything traumatic. You have no reason to be like this. It's like you want to be like this."
...
"We didn't even want to send you to therapy. We could've dealt with this ourselves. If you slip up once they'll take you away from us and put you straight into a hospital. Those people don't care about you, your friends don't care about you. Only your father and I do."
...
"Everyone else is happy and living their lives. You're the only one who is all sad. And nobody cares, they're going to just keep living regardless. Even I have to, so you're not going to stop me by being sad like this."

They don't understand how I can't control my need to
Pull
Scratch
Tap
Bite
Pinch
Rock
Pick
&
Fidget
Constantly
Because
I just need to,
To not implode.

Like, nothing thats happening to you is actually happening to you.
Like you're just watching other people's lives play out in a book or a movie.
Like you're the side character.
Like nothing actually matters and you're just doing it for the sake of the plot.

Like nothing is real.

Like you're playing from the third person, just above the character.

Like you're not real.

Like every day is just a repeat of the last.
Like you're the only real one
Like everyone else are just actors and someday someones going to come from behind the curtain and say
HA PRANKED.

Like the sunsets are too beautiful to be real.
Like the squirrels crossing the street stare for too long for this to be real.
Like all that is meaningless is too important for this to be real.
Like all the sounds are too artificial to be real.

Like nothing is real.
Like nothing is real.

Like how when you wave your hand in front of your eyes and

Its not real.

Like when you pinch your skin hard hard hard until you bleed and maybe it hurts it doesn't matter and it doesn't really because this body is not yours, just a vessel you were forced into because

You're not real.

Like how you're not even sure who you are anymore, because you're nothing but fragments of broken things, nothing things, nothing,

You're not real.

You're not here,
You're not in here,
You were never meant to be here,
You're nothing.

You're not real.

Losing hours of sleep
Hours of my life
Over things that don't matter,
Won't matter in a few years time.

Why?
Why must you torture me in such a way?
Why,
Why must you make me fall in love with it, the feelings of achievement and acceptance,

Only to break my heart when I fall subpar?
When I'm a B-grade,
Grade leveled,
Average
Disappointment.

Why is anything less than perfect disappointing?
Why am I losing sleep over this?
Why am I losing my life over this?

It lurks in the night
Waiting for my vulnerability
To lure me into its unforgiving hold
So it could wrap me in its cocoon
Ever so tight
And hollow my insides

Washing over me
Like a tsunami
Consuming me
Like a beast
Spreading
Like wildfire

And I cant touch the flames
I cant slay the monster
I can't swim countercurrent

I can't do anything
Except cry
And suffer
And reduce
Into nothing.

Hot water rains on my skin
The fog it creates holds me

Like you once did.

I breathe it in,
let it  travel   over     my           body
as your       hands          once            did
like I used to breathe you in
and the reminise our love left
in the air.

I close my eyes and let my mind float,
like the vapor,
to you and I
when we were still "us."

I loved you.
You loved me.
Why?

My hand detatches from the wrist
and turns the heat
up
        up
                  up.
Until it burns me.
Like you did, with your burning sweet caresses.

The steam fills the room
Fills my body;
an empty hot vessel without you.

This acid rain from my shower head,
It hurts so good.
Like our love.
Like before.

Now that we're you an I instead of we and our,
I’m just left longing
For the kind of hurt,
For the kind of love,
For the kind of everything that a hot shower can’t give.

Hate swallowing pills.
Reminds me of memories
I rather forget.

Things I'm good at:
- Keeping A grades
- Public speaking
- Making people happy
- Pretending to be okay
- Sleeping
- Making a fool of myself
- ******* up my body
- ******* up other people's life
- Crying
- Giving up

Things I'm bad at:
- Guitar
- Patience
- Managing my emotions
- Self control
- Self care
- Sleeping
- Socializing
- Communicating
- Being a good friend
- Being a good "daughter"
- Being a good Christian
- Being a good person
- Being a person
- Being anything

- Poetry?

They find ways to argue
                                      with their inside voice
                                                                              so that when anyone asks

They can say I was just being dramatic.


                                                                                    I pretend to not listen
                                          Keep my headphones on
Ignore my own inside voice

                                                                                And pretend its all okay.

Your greatest poem.
Its okay if its not perfect yet,
You have time to make edits.

Don't mind the typos and awkward bits,
The "flaws" of it all is what makes it you.

It is to be dedicated to you and you only.
**** what others want,
This isn't about them.

This poem is constantly evolving.
It doesn't have to make sense,
As long as its truly yours.

I'm stale, spoiled, way past my due date
And yet I'm still here, in the back of the fridge.

I know the cold is meant to keep me around for longer,
But the prolonging was meaningless when my demise was inevitable.

I'm without purpose, without notice
I'm not quite sure why I'm here really.

I wasn't supposed to be around this long.
Just pour me down the sink already,
Theres no chance I'm getting better now.

I am the apple that fell off the family tree.
They say I don't fall far,
and its true.
Its impossible to completely rid of my roots.
But I still have the power to do what those stiff branches were too stubborn and fixed to:

Grow.
Grow from their flaws and generational hurt.
Plant the seed of healing which will grow with the generations to come into a new tree with deeper roots and riper fruit.

It hurts to detach myself from my history,
But it would hurt more to put my children through the same pain.

Nothing works,
I took all they gave.
Therapy,
Diagnoses,
Drugs.

And they took all I had.
Blades,
Technology,
Privacy,
My sense of self.

All to get "better."
"Better."

It seems that nothing works.
I'm just the same as before.
Or - I can't remember before,
I don't think I was there for that,
I was off where my own thoughts couldn't hurt me
(Maybe it got so bad because I wasn't there. I let go of my body and let It take the steering wheel and steer me towards my death.)

All I know is that right now, I feel like
nothing.
nothing.
nothing.

You were supposed to fix it.
What happened?
Why does nothing work?

You are the main character of your own story, so you better start acting the part.

Love.
Hate.
Grieve.

Treat yourself.
Boast shamelessly.
Feel pretty.

Be childish.
Be emotional.
Be angsty.

Be human.
Be you.
Just be.

Despite what you might think,
"I don't know"
Is an answer.

Stop telling kids they have to know,
Right when they're asked to.

Take your time.
The best decisions stem from
"I don't know."

Poetry isn't the description of the unique, never before heard.
Poetry is the carefully crafted common
The familiar and mundane
As an abstract art.

Not only your beloved persons or unrequiteds,

But that kid that always sits across the cafeteria with their head buried in their sketchbook.
That old man flipping through the contents of the half-abandoned little library.
The boy resisting the leer of sleep as he nods of on the bus,
And the lady that walks her dog as the sun meets the horizon.

Remember to love long hot showers,
The moments of serenity between wake and sleep.
Dancing with young children,
or listening to their plotless stories.
The last period of an essay.
Late nights writing poetry.

Most importantly,
Remember to love
yourself.

I walk into church and know I don't belong.
Feel the eyes tracking me down like its the final judgement.
Put me down like a dog for my sins that are emphasized by the lens of stained glass,
Then hang my beat body to be "saved."

(Y)our lord and savior died on that cross for the salvation of humanity, yes?
Then it makes sense why you dehumanize me, because I seem to not be on the roster.
I can repent all I want but it won't change who I am, only whose mask I wear for the holy supper.

Tell me I'll be eternally ****** for my estrangement.
Thats alright. I'm practically already there.

I fear that I'm an insignificance of the universe
Lost in the marvelous stars and moons

But, even the pieces in a puzzle that are but a fragment of ocean or sky that have so many others like it
Are the only one of its kind

But, they're only noticed when they've gone missing.

I'm sorry I let go.
I know I promised, its just

We were the wild children,
Never where the adults needed us to be,
For the world was our playground.

We were one,
Joint at the hip.
I thought that we would never get lost as long as we stayed together.
But as the illusion of childhood dissolved, so did you.

You used to look up to face the adventures of the day,
But eventually your head grew heavy with the foreign disease
And you could only stare down at your shoes,
And then you couldn't even lift it off your pillow.

I didn't understand why you no longer wanted to explore.
You told me you were tired.
But how, if you were always in bed?
I was told that you were sick.
But I thought fevers and colds left with rest and time?

I waited for you,
Sat at your bedside,
Missed out on my own adventures with the hope of more with you once you got better.

But you never got better.

I know that I told you,
Promised that I would follow you to the ends of the Earth.
But as your heart hardened and your mind wandered,
I no longer could find you inside yourself,
And there was no one left to follow.

Thats why I let go.
You were sinking, drowning,
And I couldn't too lose myself in your Mariana Trench.

It feels like
Relief.

Taking a deep breath and
Breathing for the first time.

Looking in the mirror and seeing someone familiar
Instead of that stranger that only grew more foreign with time.

A weightlessness from letting go of the heavy load
That had accumulated over the 15 years.

If feels like
Utter, pure joy.
Excitement.
Relief.
Freedom.

If feels like giving in,
Like all the progress was for nothing.

Nothing.
At least this makes me feel something,
Even if that something is nothing more than a dull burn beneath my lemon-orange socks.

I don't know why I do it.
Why I try.
Why I cry every time,
Why I can't just ******* ---
...

I never thought I could get in trouble for staying quiet.

It was a form of self-protection, I suppose.
A coping mechanism, you can say.
Every time something that brought pain or confusion or any complicated feelings,

I just
left
my body.
I'd be there
but
not really.

You can always get in trouble for spilling too much, I thought.
So if you don't say anything at all, don't let anyone in, don't let anything out -
You'd be safe.
I was supposed to be safe.

But when I was threatened with the psych ward for staying silent
I realized
that wasn't true.

I'm not safe
I'm not safe
I'm not safe

I'm not
safe
here
real
okay.
This is supposed to fix me,
supposed to make me okay,
why am I not okay?

I am
dying
dying
dying,
drowning,
asphyxiating,
drowning,
drowning in

Lies.
Lie.
That's the only thing I can do now.
Now it's all just lies,
I'm a lie
I'm a lie
I'm a lie -

Hah.
Don't you wish you never asked?

You left me.
But you're still here.

How could that be?

How could you be so close,
But disappear every time I reach out?
Every time I need you -
Do you understand that I need you?

To everyone else you act so real
But when I am near you fade away like mist into nothingness -
Like a rainbow.
You're full of lies,
You intangible thing.

Do you understand how you lied?
Do you understand that you left me?
Do you understand that I love you?
I love you
I love you
I love you

Just say it back,
I love you too
or - at least an
I hate you.
Anything, anything to prove your existence,
Anything that gives me some sort of sign of what to do, what to think-

You can't just leave me like this.
Please.

Reach past barriers
Fingertips press like a tender kiss
Or like your body when it melts into the ocean.

Inpatient
Crashing
Straining
And never enough.

Love me hard
Love me so it hurts
Love me 'till you can't
Love me forever after

I am fine
Go ahead, Turn blind eyes
Ignore the signs

'Cause I am fine
Theres no mental decline
And its not like I hate this life of mine

I'm fine
Totally fine inside the mind

When I say "goodbye"
For the last time
Don't gasp and cry

Couldn't you see past the glass lies?
Couldn't you see that I wasn't truly "fine?"

Or were you willing to simply stand by
Only caring to care when I had already died.

I'm still a child,
in most senses.

I would be one to say no child deserves to die.
And so I don't deserve to die.

Don't say your parents don't love you.
I wish my parents loved me.
They're not liars, at least not in that sense,
But I fear that they love the concept of their daughter more.

Don't paint them to be loveless monsters.
They're not, I know they're not.
Thats what makes it hurt more.
The fact that they hold so much love
That I am simply unworthy of.

Don't you love them?
I do,
But aren't I allowed to love myself more?

Listen
While I cry to you all the wrong of the world.

Hold me
While you whisper to me all of her beauty.

you blame your past self
say you were so **** stupid...
but they're just a kid.

You can't open  the session with,
"How suicidal have you been feeling?"
And expect me not to immediately shut down.

"[Deadname], I know you're not..."
Choose your words carefully.
"stupid,"
Score.

"I know you can do it, you just choose not to."
It was never a choice, just a response.

"Come on, [deadname], just talk to me."
How am I meant to tell you to tell you of the deepest darkest parts of myself when you don't even know
my name.