I did not beg to be loved by you
Your affection itch every ounce of me
I'll do well knowing that I'm not yours
Gracious omen it would spell for me

You will do well to keep your distance
I do not wish to come across your footprints
Even if it's the only way in the world
I rather stay here and burn cold like ghost

I don't see us sharing the same fate
There is nothing in the future you propose
I see me standing alone, there is no you, no us
Just the distance between us and the fog ahead

If "increasing knowledge increases sorrow,"
depression culminates from seeing clearly.

I'm 13 the first time a boy in my class tells a **** joke.
I'm only 13, but it's been 2 years since I learned the seriousness of the thing him and his friends are now laughing at.
2 years since I had my favorite night shirt ripped from my back.
2 years since nails carved scars in my thighs my mother still thinks are from self harm.
2 months since I started blocking it out.

I'm 13 when a girl takes my backpack while I m putting my books in my locker,
Playfully yells over her shoulder,
"***** you".
I laugh.
I don't dare tell her what it's like to remake your bed at 4 in the morning,
Or what it's like to fight back tears when you ask your grandmother for new sheets for Christmas.
To only ever associate the summer heat with what it felt like that night between your legs.

About a year ago I watched the chronicles of Narnia for the first time with my dad.
It was one of my favorites growing up.
He says, "someone should **** that *****" when the witch kills Aslan,
And I stop myself from screaming at him that he had "the talk" with me a little too late,
That I lost my virginity to a man his age when there were still stuffed animals on my bed.
I don't tell him that I still shake when i have to be alone with him even though I know he would never hurt me,
Or that sometimes I still think I deserved it.

I sweat through my shirt everytime I try to write about it.
My best friend says she doesn't care who her first time is, that she just wants to lose it already,
But I wish I could make that choice.
I have lost control of my hands from the shaking when boys have asked me if I was a ****** over text message,
And have locked myself in bathrooms to sob because my sister said boys don't love girls who aren't pure.
I have heard girls called ***** who haven't gone as far as me,
And it feels like arsenic is in my veins everytime someone asks me how I know so much about *** if I haven't had it yet.
Or how my best friend told me she wants to hear about my first time because people still assume that triggers are only on guns,
And that every ******* romance movie is the perfect depiction of what losing your virginity is like.

We don't all get the soft music and the whispered names.
Sometimes you get hands over your mouth and years of ptsd,
Sometimes the I love yous get replaced with "don't wake your parents".
Sometimes I still feel like no boy should ever have to subject themselves to touching me,
For fear they might leave with their hands tainted.

You will never understand fear until you're looking at the boy across the room and thinking about what he'd look like without his clothes on,
Never understand depression until the tile of the bathroom floor is warmer than your thoughts.

I was 13 the first time I heard a **** joke,
And 18 the first time I told someone it wasn't funny.
Because for every second you laugh, I have spent years picking up the shattered pieces of my innocence.
Because it took me 7 years to realize that 20 minutes of not having control will never destroy the 3,681,641 minutes I have spent taking care of myself since it happened.
That the only person who will ever own this body is me.
That no amount of cheap laughs can undo the progress I have made.
So keep laughing.

First year of college
I took a side class
on a topic I've always liked.
It was with a lively, genuine, wise teacher;
it was the happiness of psych.

Before college, for many years
I suffered from anxiety.
I would try to be mindful,
understanding why,
but it always got the best of me.

This teacher, spoke many words
but there was one statement
that I deeply heard.

She said:
The only thing you can have full control over
is how you  react to things out of your control.

And in that moment
I had an epiphany.
I had control over
how  everything affected me.
And since that day,
how grateful I have been
to finally live my life
anxiety free.

I used think
Of suicide
All the time

How
When
Where

But really,
Suicide
Sounds like a lot
Of work

What I really wish
Is that death
Would just take me
And I wouldn't have to come
To it

That I would fall from great heights
But not on purpose

That a bear would eat me
Without prompting

That water would take me
Without my help

That I would just die
But not on purpose

Or even better
But truly impossible,

I wish I had never been born

That I had never disgraced
This world
With my presence

That I never
Met you
So you wouldn't have to pretend
To be my friend

That I never
Forced my
Ugly words
On people

I honestly wish I had never been born

So no,
I do not
Want to commit suicide

But yes,
I do want to die
Or have never been alive