I write to stay alive,
To release the words that tear my flesh
In their efforts to be born into this world.
I write to leave my mark on the universe
Rather than leaving marks on my skin.
I write to prevent the silence from strangling me
In its utter oppressiveness.
I write to wash the sins out of my body
And the stains off of my hands.
I bleed ink rather than blood
And wax poetic to avoid coveting new scars.
I write because it's the only way I've ever learned
To externalize the humanity that cuts me so deeply.
I write because language saves me from myself.
I write because my very existence depends on it.

Here's to Love that one day I will someday find my true love in a forever.
Here's to Love that one day I will have more friends that I trust and stay by my side.
Here's to Love that one day I won't be alone anymore.
Here's to Love that one day I won't be trapped in someone else's world ever again.
Here's to Love in hopes that I won't be lost ever again.
Here's to Love that one day I will listen to my instincts and learn to walk away at the first red flag.
Here's to Love that one day things will change.

empty words
pass as winter wind
sapping strength

Papa lost his papa to a poison in his veins,
Then followed in his footsteps, heading straight toward the grave,
But papa lived to watch my mama grieve her very own,
And I learned in early childhood that the hospital was home.
Now papa’s oldest sister, and his second from the last,
Are forced to sit and watch as their own bodies fail to last.
Meanwhile I’m watching mama cry into the telephone,
‘Cause her papa’s ‘cross the ocean and he’s dying all alone,
And she’d give away her soul to merely kiss him once goodbye,
But the flights are too expensive, and the oceans are too wide.
I yearn to take their suff’ring, pray it kills me in their place,
But I couldn’t make my mama claim another lifeless face.

- p. winter