Dear Self,
The steps I take towards finding out who you are,
Are a little shakey.
I cannot figure out what it is that is dragging me to the depths of hell that I call,
My thoughts.
Sometimes in the middle of the night, I question when your soul would evacuate its home and soar through the sky.
Self, you're so fragile, it tears me apart looking at you.
Self, how can I save you?
How is it that you're so numb to almost everything?
How am I supposed to feel when you're so caught up in your own world to notice the one beneath your feet?
Self, I am losing you and I can't figure out how to bring you back.
Maybe this is how I become my real self;
The unforgiving,
Doesn't give a flying ****,
Resting ***** face,
Self.
I think I'd like that,
But then again,
I think I'd rather stay true to who I really am,
Than become a stereotypical woman that basis her life on the hate she perserved.

I wrote a poem about the highest of highs and trippiest of lows.
I wrote a poem about inhaling the ashes of a burned lover and how all that was left, were the charred remains of a once lit flame.
I wrote a poem about your eyes and the wormhole I drowned in.
How the walls grew hands and pulled at my shirt, my arms,
How my skin is now marked by your fingertips,
Your hands, the only ones that fit accordingly to my body.
I wrote a poem about how heartbreak has stitched itself into unfamiliar places
I wrote a poem about how I am hard to Love,
About how my heart beats abnormally, taking a pause between beats- Lub...d-dub-
I wrote a poem about how my ex lovers have settled into my body,
Their words continue to resonate in my mind.
I wrote a poem about how I trip over my appearance and how the world is beautiful, but we're poisoned apples, rotting slowly with worms eating holes out of us.
I wrote a poem and no matter the words that poured out of me, I was still full of  emotions that continue to abandon me, wake me up in a sweat and in tears

Heartbreak and sadness meet me by the end of my bed.
They hold hands and smile at me, the scene before them, almost artistic.
I have become nothing, but a painting described as innocent and free of any emotion that doesn't resemble one of a woman.
I have become something filled with anger, resentment, and hostility.
I have become the end of the world, my fires burning my body, your fingerprints finally falling off with my melted skin.
I have become an art piece placed in a gallery, waiting to be critic-ed.
I have become a lost memory, forgotten like a message in a bottle, thrown away into the middle of the pacific ocean.

Never, have I ever
Thought I’d be the one, to bring out the stress in a relationship, the mistress in distress.
Never, have i ever
Loved to the point of comfort.
Never, have I ever
Swam into the depths of words
Until I forgot all the ink that marked pages
Never, have I ever
Drowned.
Drowned in emptiness that doesn’t resemble dark holes and abandoned homes,
With creaking floorboards and moldy corners.
Never, have I ever
Felt a dent in the chambers of my heart.
I have, though
Always swayed to the emotions that fill my soul and ignite the fire that boils beneath my skin.
Never, have I ever
Thought that burning my skin with a lit cigarette could cause a stain within my memories, that I can’t seem to shake off.
Every time I close my eyes, his voice lingers,
It resonates within my bones, and plays symphonies of a time where my home was filled with light,
Instead of this eternal darkness that continues to pull me every night.

I colored her into a canvas and called it my greatest art piece,
letting them know that only the hands of a(n) artist is capable of making something that has always been beautiful,
Into beauty that is now defined.
The brush strokes speak of heartbreak and anger,
Of love and pleasure,
They mimic the energy vibrating throughout her body and begin to imprint a different story within those who stand before her and ponder.

One, thinks that her movements are portrayed as tough, yet the world is slowly weighing down on her, crushing every sense of hope
The other, believes that she sways to the beats of Love. She stares, questioningly, at how the canvas embodied Love.
Little did she know,
The contents of the art piece is in fact,
Love.
A man and a woman stand before my significant piece,
Their hands interlocking, eyes wide open, mesmerized
This is what the art work stands for —
Lips interlocking, eyes gleaming, hungry minds, desperate hands, drum-like hearts.
A family walks by, the kids unaware of the beauty surrounding them.
The mother stands in the center and clasps her hands. Her thoughts buzz.
This is how she feels.
These swirls of color,
Mixing and staining the white, is a representation of all that is within her —
A mess that continues to haunt her.
Is this what she wanted?
But of course, she is madly in love,
Is it with her husband?
The father stares at his wife in awe.
Regardless of all the litter in the world, she remains the only sensible thing of beauty.
As more people begin to file in,
A sense of accomplishment washes over me.
The painting connected to so many people, that they’re most probably going to think of it over the next couple of days, weeks, maybe even months or years.

I take the painting down.
I storm out of the gallery.

I project the painting onto a larger canvas, a larger wall.
The people realize that there are seatings, in which they each begin to take one.
I yell out, ‘what do you see?’ ‘What does she speak to you?’ ‘What are you filled with?’ ‘What thoughts creep out of the shadows and talk to you, when you look at her?’
The audience stares at me with disbelief, as if I have become a madman, losing my sanity.
But I’ve already lost it to her.
‘Comfort’, one yells.
‘Loneliness’, follows.
‘Patience’ ‘intelligence’ ‘abandonment’ ‘happiness’ ‘carefree’ ‘anger’ ‘pain’ ‘suffering’

There are no words to describe the person I love,
But she embodies everything I see.
I tried containing her within a painting,
But she lived in every person that was granted a look by her.
And I am,
Forever,
Grateful
That I get to see beauty, in everything she is and everything she does.

I’m sorry
I’m sorry you weren’t courageous enough to fight the war against my thoughts
I’m sorry
I’m sorry my ship sunk faster than it could sail
It seems that my heart is flailing and the numbness has yet to reach my finger tips, but it’ll surely give in any second now
And I hate the way the stars aligned against us,
But what I hate more is how I thought you wanted every part of me only to realize you wanted the diamonds that came to being because of the overwhelming fire that continues to burn within me.
I’ve built walls to keep galactic beings like you out, because I knew the black sky would never look the same.
The moon was mine and now, it no longer is;
The moon hangs across my night sky, rotating in my solar system, existing within my galaxy, and fills my universe
The moon is no longer mine
And it hurts.
It’s like a needle pricked my skin and I’m watching the blood ooze out but I’m hoping my skin refuses to clot because then all I’ll be reminded of is the pain
And it’s always better to feel something rather than this void that eats me up for breakfast and leaves me drained for lunch until I’m starving for dinner.
I’m sorry
I’m sorry
I’m sorry I showed you parts of me you didn’t truly want to see
sorry these words are all I have as a form of honesty
The world continues to light match sticks and spark my house on fire
I’m unfortunate enough to realize that I’ll never own a home, most importantly not one within you.

Dear Mason,
I've given you my words and now, I'm left with nothing but another piece of my heart.
The only one remaining I presume.
I've etched your name in to me, drew you into every dream and struck you out of every nightmare.
The sky contains you again and the moon and stars now light my once dark night.
My hands have known comfort in yours and they haven't found home anywhere else.
My heart spoke different languages when it came to loving you,
But the moment we parted ways it became deaf, mute, blind.
It became nothing.
My emotions jumped off a cliff and we called it emotional suicide,
Where the only thing I wanted to feel was Time,
But all I felt was the loneliness.
It's as if I were sitting at a bus stop, waiting for your arrival but you never showed up; no matter how many days, weeks, months passed.
Your pretty words, like a tongue gracing a neck, seeped through my skin, and I wanted you to take all of me, right then and there.
Your eyes always found their way into the depths of my soul and I want to jump into the deepest dark whole because you are everything I want to possess.
See, I know I've hurt you.
I know I added a few more scars to your heart and it may beat differently because of it,
I know you might heave at times but I want you to know a love like yours,
A love like the one you've drugged me with, remains in my veins, blood, body.
My thoughts contain you.
Every pair of eyes I look into resemble yours,
And my words, I've lost them since I thought I lost you.
But as you extend your arm and your hands caress mine and our fingers tangle, my words call back to me.
Your love -
I've been dying for your love
Now,
I'm willing to live for it.
My words, are yours,
Whatever left of my heart is yours
It never was mine, anyway.

Yours,
Now, then, forever, always,
M.S

A never ending well
You fall
And you fall and fall and fall,
Yet you never plummet

It’s sad and terrifying, yet reassuring,
All at the same time.
Some may attack this part of me, calling it an illness, and at times where my fear strikes and I begin to feel the fingers of everyone I love, detach, I see it as such - an illness - too.

Overthinking has, in some way, crippled my ability to just be,
To live in the moment.
Some nights, it is my only companion, tucking me into bed, playing with my hair, letting me know I’m not alone, never, not entirely.

Sometimes, when the world aims its’ horrendous acts of violence, like heartbreak and disappointment,
Overthinking wraps it’s arms around my stomach and disables me from thinking straight and in some ****** up way, it might be asking me to stop, turn back, and walk the furthest away from them as possible.
In some ****** up way, it’s helping me see things clearly
But I never listen.
I don’t think it works that way for me.
No matter how many warning signs, red flags appear in front of me,
Sometimes all I want to do is wither the storm and hope I come out of it alive.
Maybe in some ****** up way, I believe this would make me stronger, even though that has caused me to break into even smaller pieces than imaginable.

Dear Anxiety,
Thank you for the sleepless nights
Tired eyes
Thank you for the unbearable beats that **** near stopped my heart
Thank you for the faucet of tears that continues to pour
Thank you for the pang of pain that keeps punching against my chest whenever someone mentions anything close to abandoning me
Thank you for being my worst nightmare, for stealing the light out of my eyes
Thank you for reminding me that I cannot enjoy a single moment with those I love because of the constant nag of every single thing that could go wrong
Thank you for reminding me that I am at a constant loss for words

Dear Anxiety,
Thank you for letting me know that you will always be hiding underneath my skin, ready to perk up in response whenever anything peaks my interest.

Dear Anxiety,
Thank you so much for every single whisper that traveled through me on the quietest of nights
Thank you for reminding me I am alone
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.

Dear Anxiety,
I am a little wanderer searching for myself within the maze you created to trap my lost soul.

I’ll find her someday.
I’ll find myself
And you won’t be so lucky when I do,
Because you’ll burn,
And all I’ll do, is watch you turn to ashes.

Thank you, for making me,
Me
I no longer need you

I never did.

Never Yours,
Malak

Dear Nial (Numb),
Distance and I walked hand in hand and I lost her at the end of the street.
All the words filled the vacant cities that roamed my body but none of them were enough to keep her. None of them were enough to make it feel like home and none of them were enough to fight her demons.
I asked you to leave and lock the gates of Hell after you but you were unwilling to do so.
You let me know that you would continue to haunt my body, going from bar to bar, hoping that the liquor would satisfy my thirst.
The numbness began to spread and I couldn’t do anything but take a step back and watch.
I wanted to carve you out of her.
I wanted to stop you from creating graveyards within her chest but she wouldn’t allow me close enough to help her,
And so I watched, from a distance,
Hoping my words traveled to her through sound bites.
Nial,
I don’t think she knows it,
But she owns my words.
She owns them and she owns the stars and no matter how many times I’ve called onto the galaxies so they’d shine for her,
She always missed them, and it’s all because of you,
Nial.
A constant reminder,
You hold her hostage,
In the mental prison of thoughts and emptiness.
Let me hold her hands,
Please let me walk with her.
Let us watch the sunset after a long day of pouring rain, that sinks and drowns the brightest of flowers until they’re one with the soil.
Let her welcome me with open arms and lungs willing to breathe and I’ll be the air that inflates her with life.
She’s so much on her own.
She’s so ******* much that I’m afraid the world is still not ready for the wonder that is She.
She’s so much and yet I’d like to be standing next to her staring at all that she is in awe at how lucky I am to call her mine.

Sometimes the thoughts threaten to haunt parts of me that have seen the sun in all its glory
Sometimes the thoughts threaten to hang me
Sometimes the thoughts question the love I have for my body, and all I’m left with are a couple of hmm’s and Ahh’s that don’t put much of the broken, I feel, together.
Sometimes I want to hand my heart out to strangers,
Hoping they’d love me far better than any of you ever could
Sometimes the world scares me and it takes great courage for me not to hide behind closed doors
Sometimes I want to speak poetry that breaks hearts and fuels the ache
But I’m usually left with a couple of words like,
“I’m sorry I have nothing to write,
I gave you all the words that formed my body, and now I am nonexistent.”
Sometimes the thorns wrapped around my heart force blood out of my mouth and it takes me awhile to remind myself that I don’t have to drown in my own sorrows
Sometimes all I’m left with are a couple of papers that are filled with excuses of why I can’t reach the stars
Sometimes it hurts to try
Sometimes it becomes too much as if the world is weighing on me
Sometimes it’s hard to make out the words that lace people’s tongues because all I’m used to is bitter promises
Sometimes I reach my limit, and I’m standing at the edge of a cliff hoping that the dive crushes all the demons that continue to shadow me
Sometimes I remind myself that it’s all about the pains,
How we perceive them
Make something of them
Create with them
Most times the world’s a little dim but I have to see the light, because what’s there to live for, if not that?

There’s a feeling in my chest
It mostly makes no sense
I lie, wipe and weep
I cry out for a voice to hear
The cracking of the floor boards, located where I breathe
My heart no longer beats
It is found no more
Instead you find cobwebs of all the memories they left me
I couldn’t save one or two
So now I lost three, and all of them meant something to me
It’s just now, I tied their death to me
How does one learn to breathe when their soul no longer feels,
Everything is just numb,
When I’m high, my body sinks and I ask God if this is what it feels to slowly be buried 6ft deep
Do they feel the weight pressing into their ribs, do they feel lonely; no one to hold or kiss?
Do they blame me for not reaching in and pulling them out?
I’m sorry I’m crying when it’s been 7 yrs , or 8
I’m sorry I forgot the sound of his voice and smile, with a twitch when he smirks in peace
I’m sorry I forgot the safety I felt when he’d hold me and tell me everything would be alright
I’m sorry I lost a brother and forgot him that night
I’m sorry I let my friends waste away
They were 2 months apart
And they sold their souls to the drugs, instead
They had so much life ahead, but were troubled with the worlds biggest regrets
They loved me when I gave myself away to the devil and loved me back when I slammed hard, disheveled, out of place, forgotten
im sorry I couldn’t save them
I’m sorry I no longer call them
My heart no longer belongs to any part of this body
It’s slowly withering and all I do is beg God to take my wasteful soul in exchange for theirs or for a day with them, maybe a week or month
And I’m sorry I’m so selfish that I want them to stay
They were truly a blessing and we’re all nothing but a curse; we’re in a void in outer space, floating in search for something great or anything that helps us find the light again.
These breakdowns are slowly settling in, creating riptides in the center of my chest, no edges fit, and all I fear is that I remain broken, my friends
Unable to be fixed
Bound to never exist