If family would turn you away and friends leave you to die
If the world fleece you down and colleagues wring you dry
Find peace and pleasure within yourself, find the strength to try
To be your own family,  friend, and work mate with no help from outside.

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True self-sufficiency is needing yourself alone
But interacting with others regardless
To ease the heavy loads of life.

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Remember that life is important in the now
But never in the later or a larger scale.
You are what you make of the present
Despite your past and to shape your future.

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There is no purpose to life besides what you give it
There is no way to waste time, you're young as **** until you die.

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Rather than worry what others might think of what you do
Worry instead what you will think of yourself
When you have done everything or nothing at all.

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This is not a road to sprint or run upon
This is not a marathon or an endurance race
This is simply meandering in the way you choose
You set your own duration and pace.

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When you can do nothing at all and the world lies on your shoulders
Breathe.
It is all you will ever be required to do.

You don't love me, do you?
I wonder constantly. I know it.
Your love is immature and selfish.
I remember thinking love would be bliss.

You wouldn't mourn me, would you?
I watch as you do nothing as I die of stress.
Do my eyes look angry, accusing?
You don't help because you want to do less.

I'd be far too inconvenient, wouldn't I?
You watch me drown in my efforts.
I fully expect you not to reach out a hand.
I wonder if I could possibly think of you worse.

You wouldn't spit on me if I was burning.

I hate you when you are smiling, lately.
I'm having premature heart attack symptoms
Anxiety, stress, and PTSD are killing me
I'll rip the smile off your face and the air from your lungs.

I don't care that you're frustrated, lately.
Or did you think empty platitudes would calm me?
Tell me everything you plan to do
And will I believe you? Probably not, we'll see.

I'm tired of feeling like a glory hole, lately.
I'll pay for your comfort and deal with your lust
Nice to meet you, I contain a brain, wow!
And I'll use that brain to leave you if I must.

It's disconcerting to me that you make promises you break so easily.

Do you read my poetry anymore? I doubt it.
I'll wait to post this just in case.
Just how you gave me no warning that you don't care for me.
I'll give you none when we part ways.

I never quite understood the worth of tact
Say the words that you mean and don't take them back.
I spoke my mind when I saw it fit to be told
And I may not have been rude but I was always bold.

But here I am biting the tip of my tongue off
Wondering, if I speak, will your laughter stop?
I regret my words and I regret my silence equally
I wonder if you've had enough, are your sick of me?

I never considered that I maybe go too far
I teased too much, laughed a little too hard.
I remember how happy you used to be
I see how that's changed in my company.

I'd like to apologize for being too serious
It's not odd to me, I've always been a mess.
I am sorry for forcing you to be part of a team
I never intended to hurt you despite how it may seem.

I am a nuisance, forgive me this, I tried to hide it
I am shrill and annoying, more than you should put up with.
I am a child masquerading as an adult; I know I'm failing
I am disloyal and filthy- ****, really- I've thought of bailing.

I'm sorry. I hate this. I hate me. I'm not quite sure what I'm living for. I miss being sad for reasons I could understand and fix. I miss October of 2014. If I could go back, I'd have more courage. I'm a **** for thinking that. I'm sorry you met me, I will ******* up. I'm sorry. I'm honestly the worst. So conceited and self interested and superficial and petty and spiteful and ******. I hope you don't hate me in the end. I hope you. I don't know. I hope.

I feel my heart buckling under pressure I beg it to bear
I screamed quietly last night and my brain snapped in half
How strong, how prideful, how immortal I was
How conceited, how terribly much I thought of myself in the past.

Allow me to state that I am weak. Allow me to say that I am done.
When night falls I tremble with fear of something on the horizon
I feel my own body rip itself to shreds in some effort to save me
I truly wish I had savored my irresponsibility now that it's hard won.

Home. Only a year ago I cursed it. How conceited, how idiotic.
Your children will curse you to hell and regret when youth passes.
The mind I prided myself on having has deteriorated, I cannot think.
The sentences meld into unintelligible paragraphs of thoughts as slow as molasses.

I would sleep for an eternity if given the chance but my sweet, foolish, pride...
I would find peace and revel in it if not for the guilt of the method.
I futilely push away thoughts that constrict and wrap around me.
I must be stronger, do more, cannot bear to forgive myself should I do as I please.

Others have done what I am choosing to do and succeeded; my failure won't be justified
I must stand tall until my back breaks, I must smile until my lips quake
I must try harder until my body bleeds, I must give more until there's nothing left of me.
And if I fail, at least I know I jumped, even if I was far too late.

My dreams no longer consist of impossibilities that I will drag into being.
When I sleep, I am plagued by the sight of my own death in a multitude of ways.
When I wake, I miss the simplicity of the horror of the same dreams I ran from.
All the thoughts I used to have now only come after careful contemplation over many days.

I am unsure of who I am. I feel, sometimes, that I am merely watching a play.
That I am just a spectator to a caricature of myself, crudely pretending to be me.
And I would believe in that wholeheartedly if I was unaware of life's inane ways.

If things truly do get better, I wonder if they will do so in time to save me.

How conceited, how foolish, how narcissistic, how self-important, how desperate, how crazed, how terribly, terribly deluded I've grown to be.
How idiotic, this new view of myself and life that I've misnamed maturity.

I am far too petty not to block you out (I could easily speak)
I will lick my wounds in peace and learn in silence (I will learn what you never intended to teach)
I will never beg for reciprocation, for the same I am willing to give (for the same I will lose the will to give)

I will hold that want to my chest and fold it into the pile of other thoughts I have certainly never pondered (because I am not ****, am mature, would never begin to think...)

When bitten, I am bitter and sour and sweet like rotting fruit (I am vulnerable and still tending old wounds)
When pushed, I am prideful and insecure and hurt like a child (I am willing to listen if there are words to hear)
When tested, I am cold uncaring and invulnerable like stone (I will grow impossibly detached if only given the chance)

I will (hopefully) never be the last to you because (even if I want to), as an adult, I (am trying to) address my problems rather than doing my best to hurt them (I am furious and I will be more angry when I force myself to be calm).

I don't trust you with it
I want to rip the infested pieces of you away from it
Scourge you out from every nook and cranny
Rip the oldest remnant of you from the deepest crag in it
And place you in a thick glass jar

I want to observe you from every angle and know you inside out
And only then will I know if I'd prefer to wrap you up
Or tear you down
But whichever I chose I would never, never let you out

I would keep you from it but know you both so well
Not even your mother could boast to know more
I would rend you from each other and stitch you back together
And bind you both to me that way my mind screams at me to do

But

First I must reach out and you must grasp my hand
I would love to hear all about you
If you'd open up and let me see who you are
I will accept every filthy and clean part of you
All I require is your every thought
Every breath
Every heartbeat
I ask so little of you
You ask so much of me

You ask me to be a friend in the sense
That you are not entirely unequivocally mine
I refuse
You ask me to be a confidant as though I am not aware of who needs to hear the words you will say
I refuse
You ask me to believe you because you are honest
As though I don't know who you were and are
I refuse
You ask me to care to listen to hear you and I can do all that and more but you have done nothing for me

Slit your throat for me.
Show me you truly need only me to care
Reach down into your chest and present your heart to me
Open your skull and give me your brain
Prove that you trust me enough to check its every secret
Empty out your arteries for me. Show me you trust I'll put you back together
Give me your organs and know that I'll hold you to life

I will accept then
I will listen then
I will care then
You've no clue the extent to which I love those who give me all of them
I will love until heaven and hell and earth and the universe itself wither away
Eternally
Unwaveringly
If I have all of you
You will have me.