I understand that you don't understand.
That you feel confused,
And threatened.

What I don't understand is why you call me confused
And dangerous
When you're the one out to **** me
In the name of

Woman's rights
Religious Beliefs
Children's safety
Your own good.

When you know **** well you don't care about any of them.

I don't want to debate
Or be politically controversial.
I just want to live.

Just let me be.
Let me exist.

I watched 3 little boys try to buy oreos.

One was trying to shove a gummy bear into a coin slot
Another kneeled on the ground with dollar bills splayed in front of him
The other was trying - and failing - to type out the corresponding numbers for the oreos.

They yelled and laughed and pushed at each other in a beautifully obnoxious sort of way.

A boy puts in a dollar and out comes a coin - but no cookie packet.
They're confused, so they run off to get a woman, mom, to help.

I take the chance to step forward and buy my own peanut butter cookie.
As well as step back and love my child self.

Pretty little flower
Growing as you please

Pretty yellow flower
Pesky little ****

Roses, orchids, hydrangea
Are gifted and adored

Pretty Dandelion
They stomp tug cut

But pretty fluffy white
Remember this clear

When the hopeful children blow
Wishes are the greatest gift

They rather gaze upon my wall of sullen blue certificates
And black and white report cards

Over the wall of art, creation, life
And the expanse that is I.

I’m not quite sure
What I’m doing here

What does it matter?
Why do I matter?

How is this the river mouth of my tears?
Are these the consequences of my actions?

What would it be like if things were different?
Why couldn’t things be different?

What does it matter?
Why do I matter?

Do I matter?
Why?

I’m not complaining, really
Just questioning.

Being able to stand at the bedside
Of that woman who
hurt
            hurt
                        hurt
you at your most vulnerable

And kiss her cheek while she is
hurt
            hurt
                        hurt
and at her most vulnerable

Is incredibly commendable.

I wish I remembered.
Only then would I have an excuse
to not forgive.

Forgetting
is not unexperiencing.
Its being left with a lingering reminisce,
a senseless dread,
a dull ache
that you can't find the source of.

I wish I remembered
so that I can hate you
without hating myself.

Because it feels like you did so much
while doing nothing at all.

But I know you did.
I know you hurt me,
I know you hurt me.

I just can't quite
remember.

Good dogs listen

Bad dogs bite

Hurt dogs
cower
whine
bite
and listen

Who are you?

Immovable ponytail
School hoodie
Rectangle glasses.

Obnoxious laughing
Oblivious, blunt
Complete idiot.

Niche interests
Fictional men
Cat pictures.

Motherly, Childish
Protective,
Silly.

Passionate
Empathetic
Loving.

Off-p­utting art
Little trinket gifts
Poetry.

…
Who are you?

Thirty Nine,
Itsy bitsy.

Yeah, thats you.

I don’t have myself in me
My insides are hollow and dull
My mind is foggy gray
And my heart is a darkened ash

I don’t have poetry in me
My words have run dry
My language has lost its depth
And I can’t find how to end this stanza

Hah hah hah
Isn’t it funny

Funny how everything kind of *****
And we’re stuck in the same repetitive loop

Every day and every day and every day
And we’re constantly just working towards another repetition,
Another drain, more work,
And it never stops, does it?
No, it never stops

Because even in the intermissions
Your mind never stops
It never stops
You’ll never stop thinking thinking thinking
About everything, everything
All at once
All the time

And nothing nothing nothing
Because you’re truly are insignificant, aren’t you?
Isn’t this all insignificant in the end?
Yes, you lead a truly insignificant life.
Over 35,000 people are born every day,
About 100 billion people have died since the world began

Too much, much too much, and yet not quite enough
Not quite enough, no
It’s never enough
Never enough

You’re not enough
You’re nothing, remember?
Remember remember remember remember remember remember?

Remember, this is funny,
Because its all just a big ******* joke
Yeah, you’re a joke!
You’re so so funny, and you’re so so laughing right now.
No difference between laughing with or at, right?
Laughing and crying, am I right? Theres no difference

No difference
No difference
No difference

Remember, yeah?
Remember you can make that number about 100 billion and 1.

My heart beats
beats                                       BEATS               beats
            beats  beats                    BEATS
       BEATS                          beats                BEATS
an unrhythmic beat

Just a sip
and my heart wants to skip
a couple of pumps
and add a couple of thumps

I bought myself a cup
just to keep up with the lecture
but now with this unrhythmic   beat   beat          beat
I’m wishing I’d skipped the caffeinated treat.

I thought
           I thought
                               maybe
      if i
hurt
                       on the          outside
then it would
stop hurting
                      so much
                   so much
on.the.inside.

not working
      not working
                 why does
nothing
*******
work?

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.