Yesterday
Driving down
The road
Lizard brain said
Pull the steering wheel
Find the peace
You’re craving
Do it.

Yesterday
Monkey brain said
Climb under table
Table safe
No noise
Curl up
Safe

A week ago
Lizard brain said
Stab scissors
Into palm
Do it

A week ago
Monkey brain said
Blanket over head
Hides self
Safe

A month ago
Lizard brain said
Walk into traffic
Jump.
It’s time.

A month ago
Monkey brain said
Tell everybody
How you feel
They care
Safe

6 months ago
Lizard brain said
Those pills?
Take them all
No feelings.
Just bliss.

6 months ago
Monkey brain was quiet.

2 years ago
On the balcony
Five stories high
View of my whole world
Lizard brain said jump.
No one will miss you.
Do it.
Safe.

And the only thing
keeping me alive
Was the fact that
I didn’t want
To make
Anyone
Clean
It
Up.

I dreamt about getting out
14, knobby knees, the urge
To just give in and
Run run run
(Don’t look back)
To the edge of the world.

I was going to leave
this city in the dust.
Find a place safe
For us and our ideals
And never look back
To the edge of the world.

A decade passed
Goals and outlooks
And best laid plans change.
Growing up is pain.
I’m still here.

Is it considered being trapped when you hand-picked your own cage?

I’m not some
Manic pixie dream girl
In that I’m not a Dream
Although I’m frequently
Manic and
A girl.

Instead
I’m a bit messy
Introspective
Get lost in my own head

The men I’ve dated
They don’t understand
They see a facet
And think they
Love
The whole gem

One
And his mop of hair
And dreams for our future
His inferiority complex
And insecurity
Complimented mine
In a clusterfuck of
Teenaged wasteland
And a savior complex
too big for his own
Good

Two
Sweet as cherry pie
A man in need of
A mother.
A solid
Safe
Dependable man,
My colors didn’t match his
And it showed in the
Only mutual breakoff
I’ve ever faced

Three
A shitstorm of emotions
Teenaged rebellion
About 6 years too late
Control and *******
*** and lack thereof
“You’re the one I want to keep”
And gloves that lit up the night sky
A string of bad decisions
Which led to a text.
Don’t date
Your coworkers.

I’m alone now
And feel every minute.
They say there’s someone
For everyone
Can someone handle my colors?

Things I miss

Once I looked at you
And you looked back
Made eye contact
Saw me.

Now,
Six years has passed
And we’re still
Together.
Stuck.
Together.

And you don’t see me anymore.
I miss the
Security
Of knowing how
I fit
In your world.

Now,
I just watch.
You don’t look.
You don’t see.

But I guess I’m just too much emotionally, huh?

When you can taste the music
That’s been spinning
And twisting
Through the exhausted thoughts
And panicked memories
That’s when you know
That the thrumming of
Your heart is actually
The beat to a song
Sometimes forgotten
But still beautiful

It’s always surprising
To realize that the bit of me
That I left with you
That was always yours
Would no longer fill the hole
That it left the day
We parted ways

That hole
In your shape
Has been worn down
To a slowly filling
Always healing
Flesh wound
the faded pink of a scar
A reminder
And nothing more

Time has moved on
I have too
And the holes that were yours
Are reserved for new aches
That will never relate back
To the you that I knew
Just like I
Am not the Me
you knew

Time changes things.

I’ve written before
About living in the grey
The in betweens and out of lucks.

I seem to never escape
The areas where the line blurs.
I don’t love just one part
I can’t be just one type
I’m a hurricane and a sprinkle
A little lost a little found  
Blue grey black yellow pink

These dualities live in me
The insecurity yet destiny
The anxiety yet certainty
The love of one v love of all
And above all
The absolute knowledge
That these dualities
Can’t
Be
Known.

Sometimes I get the urge
To run
And hide
And find the nearest dark spot
And cover my head
So I don’t have to feel for a second

In the same vein
Sometimes I want
To run to the water
An ocean
Any ocean
And have it swallow me whole

This isn’t a new feeling
The sense of calm as
The water rushes over me
And the moment
Where her song echoes
And twists around mine

Creating a faux haven
Where calm is guaranteed
The calm that only
Comes from the quiet of
A watery tomb.

This urge seems to grow
When I’m stressed
Alone
Uncertain
And her call echoes.

Is that why I don’t like the beach?
The certain uncertainty,
The calm and horror I feel
Watching the waves run
And return
And wax
And wane

The never ending drumbeat
Echoing, calling, yearning
To embrace my shaky mind
And become one
At last.

Skin on fingers cut down to the quick
Calluses formed for so long that the
Nerve endings that were and should be there are long long long gone
The tear of the skin as the anxiety ebbs and flows and wanes and waxes in a never ending pulsating mess from my rib cage spiraling outward

I sometimes feel like a personal hurricane
And excuse my cliche
But the vortex of overwhelming paranoia and nausea and dread
Are the things most frequently busting out of my chest
From a heart long out of rhythm
From a heart longing to be dead

And yet I’ve gotten everything I worked towards for so long
Yet my life is a train wreck
I live like a squatter
I have three friends
And I am always
Alone.

And just like those fingers
The discoloration from stress and anxiety
The bags under my eyes lengthen and grow to match the shadows my mind is now full of and I don’t remember ever being this tired and I do remember being less happy but sometimes it’s hard to separate the two

Am I doing any good?
Is anything ever going my way?

While I never thought of
Self inflicted scars and the
Silvery afterthoughts that
Always seem to follow,

I did think quite a bit about pain.

Pain that drowns, consumes,
Baffles, and clouds,
Until you aren’t your mind and
Your mind isn’t you
And the disconnect is concerning.

Sometimes this pain
Manifested in this or that way.
Mostly it was a fog
In which my eyes couldn’t see
Ears couldn’t hear
I wasn’t human
I wasn’t me
I just was.

The flickering exit light
usually shown through
This fog but I never
Had the energy
To take the running leap
It required.

While depression
Is familiar to me
Like a middle school friend
Now gone,
I sometimes miss
The warning signs
And then I’m
Catatonic.