Dear Me,
You have always been enamored of language and vocabulary,
But your words are better suited for shaking the earth at a slam
Then writing your own obituary.
Is it not true that you have been unimpressed with every suicide note you’ve ever written?
What compels you to believe you’d do it better this time?
Dear Me,
We’ve courted suicidality like an ill-fitting suitor for enough years to recognize
The red flags by now.
Isn’t it time we stopped accepting pale apologies for the bruises it has left on our psyche?
“I am sorry” means little when it’s written in your own blood.
“It’ll never happen again” is a futile phrase when uttered more than once.
You used to believe that abuse was the price of being loved,
And should we not retire that sentiment?
Dear Me,
They told me to make peace with the fact that I may always want to die,
But you always wanted sugar as a child,
And what did that give you but a bellyache?
It’s not required to indulge your every whim.
Contrary to your own belief,
The thoughts will not **** you.
The last ten years of your life are proof that you can deny this demand.
Think of it like a work order,
A request that you repair yourself.
The goal is not that you never teeter on the edge.
It’s that you know in the end,
It isn’t a viable option.
Dear Me,
I used to think that “nice girls” never wanted to **** themselves,
But I’ve met a lot of “nice girls” who’ve sought a way out.
This desire is not a commentary on your value as a person.
You can be kind and broken and worthy at the same time.
Being happy is not a contingency of being whole.
Dear Me,
You’ve borrowed time the same way some borrow clothes,
Trying on different ages to see what fits,
Wondering what 60 is going to look like on you
When you haven’t grown into your 20s yet.
Your jeans from when you were 15 no longer hang in your closet,
And that proves you can take anything to the thrift shop when you outgrow it.
Dear Me,
I know you’re tired of these seemingly endless circles,
But you were told that mental illness is like a spiral staircase.
You still spin around even as you climb.
You are not the same person as the last time you wanted to die.
This moment is proof that you have changed despite feeling stuck in the same spot.
Dear Me,
It isn’t your job to befriend every lonely being in this world.
The Reaper will be fine if you tell him to make his own acquaintances.
You do not owe him your time and affection.
It isn’t your job to answer his calls.
Let it go to voicemail.
Dear Me,
I am not angry that we’re here again.
This is a love letter to the part of you that wants to die.
It is understandable to wish for an end to this pain.
You are still mine when you’re hurting.
I love you for all the times you’ve wanted to call it quits
And still showed up for practice the next day.
I pray that one day that kind of strength is unnecessary,
But never let it be said that you weren’t strong when it counted.
Dear Me,
We are in this together,
And I am never letting you go.

I yank the tears from my chest
As if plucking them out will some how
Cure me of Depression's persistent arrhythmia.
The salt water,
Flowing from my heart's wounds,
Is bitter and jagged and hard won.
I wonder if I cry enough tears whether
I will feel lighter or simply be dehydrated.

Death does not frighten me.
It calls to me from beyond the veil,
Beckoning with it's bony hands,
And I resist it's siren song.
I do not fear it.
What scares me is that one day I may wake up
At 60 years old and feel exactly as I do now,
Wondering what the point is,
Trudging through the days like wet cement,
Feeling like all those expectations were wasted upon me,
And I have nothing to offer for all the burrowed time they gave me
But the scars that show I toiled to be alive.
It scares me that while others grow old with grace
And pass down stories of a life well lived
That I will be keeping the same desperate, empty company
I've always kept,
That existing will still feel like hard work,
And that I will have spent the next 40 years trying to prove my worth
By maintaining a body that's been trying to **** me since I was twelve.
It's not death that frightens me.
I am terrified of a life that does not feel like living
And a world that will be so disappointed in me for never becoming
More than I am.

My soul itches for poetry,
Fingers long for the tap of keyboard or scratch of a pen.
My mouth curves around syllables,
Missing the way they slam against a microphone
As I make myself heard amongst a crowd of those
Who know what it means to be beholden to this master,
To write lines of a poem the way some breathe the air,
To be so made up of adjectives and metaphors
That I no longer know where I begin and the poetry ends.
I am simply molecules and letters masquerading as a human,
Trying to become whole again on paper.

When I was waist high,
Freckles are angels kisses,
And bedtime seemed a comeuppance
Years old,
I used to wish to grow up in effort to shed my
Child's problems.
Now that the years have raced past,
I've grown into an adult's body
Along with adult problems,
And I wish I hadn't pleaded with the fates
To hurry it onward so.

I am not made of miracles or borrowed prayers.
There is no magic in my bones or mysticism to my name.
I am made of sweat,
Of salt stains on flushed cheeks.
I am made of blood smears
And too much hand lotion.
I am made of toil and trouble,
Of mistakes and rectification.
I am composed of ink and paper,
Of ill-remembered idioms and words I've absorbed from books.
My existence is fueled by a certain brand of sock,
A teddy bear given to me at birth,
And a desire to prove that I was more than what they told me
That I could be greater than what I thought of myself.
I am made of laughter and twisted humor,
Of Murphy's law and learning to conserve energy and care.
I am made of misbehaved neurotransmitters and wild thoughts.
I have a love of the night sky and swimming in cool waters.
My soul steeped in the desire to frolic and eat sweets.
I wear scars that prove I have suffered and earn me judgement,
But I have survived a world and brain designed to be my unbecoming
Not because I'm made of miracle or magic or prayers.
I survived because I'm made of attitude, resolve, resilience,
And a thirst to prove that I can.
Most importantly,
There always seems to be a flicker of something that promises me
That even in my worst moment, I should continue to live.

The tree is dancing and flickering
Like some computer glitch,
ANd the sound of fpptstops trail me,
Doors shutting,
Chairs scraping,
Dogs barking in an otherwise empty house.
I do not know how to sav myself from this
Remix of unreal and reality,
Just hiding blasting music
Trying to drown out the sound of someone trying to **** me.
The figurine of the pink power ranger rests under my pillow while I try to sleep,
Guardian, protector,
Save me.
I do not want to listen to my thoughts.
They hurt adn conjure things,
Enamored of death or a way out of this hell.
At night I dream
Of people stealing the earrings out of mye ears
And hundreds of people chanting my name.
No matter where I run, they call me.
Even hiding amongst the frogs brings no relief
As their Ribbits shout my name from behinf the bushes.
Save me from this hell, my mind.
I don't want to listen to it.
I don't want to die.