There's food here
and they remind me to eat
I don't remember the last time I had consistant meals like this
food and I have a unique relationship
textures, smells, colors
too many senses to take in at once
it's overwhelming sometimes
food is a battle
one I really never know how to combat
my weapons once vehemently familiar metal talons and serrated edges
were replaced by supervised plastic and paper
I have to ask for everything here
I would find it demeaning,
but instead I find comfort in being cared for
it's been a while since I felt so safe and secure

-- hear my greatest threat is me

When she tells me that it's bad
I want to laugh in her face
she calls me pessimistic, stubborn
I call it realism.
I can change all I want
I can choke down all the pills
I can write in journals until my fingers cramp and the edges of my palm and pinky are stained with black with ink
it doesn't change the fact that when I leave I will go home to an empty apartment
one that I pay for but can't truly call "mine"
one that encases me in the safety of its walls and tempts me with the subductiveness of my bed
it doesn't change the fact that I am nothing, will go down in history as nothing,
and will be remembered as another case file on her desk and a prescription for medications given out like candy

--I'll still be me when I leave I'm struggling with that

After vitals have been taken
Before I really wake up with
Cloudiness still fogging my brain, I remember
Depression brought me here; the light
Eases its way through the closed blinds
Fully sealed windows
Galvanized metal toilets
Handrails not fully formed
In case anyone gets any ideas; ideation
Jumps to action quicker than you'd believe
Knowledge of this fact binds us--
Little me would not be proud--
My mind is swimming
No one is really listening
Once I'd like someone to understand
Progress is pointless without a destination
Quiet, winding roads still call to me
Reaching scenery I've never
Seen before and may never see again
This is freedom
Under open skies
Venturing further than I thought myself able
Wading through still waters
Xylophone tones from the nature all around
Zoned out, free, finally calm and content and
     alone

I think it says a lot that I was relieved we weren't allowed visitors
I struggle with the idea of you caring when in the past you've done little to understand
I'm here for me
I know somehow you'll make it about you
I can make it about you all the same

How you'll never be satisfied with me
much less proud
this time spent will be marked in your memory in embarrassment or anger
you never like to show me off anyways
why else would your favorite picture of me be in black and grey?

It's a prison-- but it isn't
--although I imagine the toilets are the same and probably shares many features
here I use paper spoons
here I use pens that are just an ink reservoir here I'm supposed to get better

I'm here to get better
my concept of the term loose and evolving "better" is never achievable
only not as bad
I am trying to be honest
this is my best

I'm sitting in a waiting room
TV on for distraction
and it still hasn't hit me fully yet that I am here
in the waiting room
my next step
the passage way to a better tomorrow
and I know it's only been a few minutes
hours have yet to pass
and although I've never been here
the waiting seems intimately familiar

---I haven't been in this room before
the waiting is the same

I used to think you had to be worse to go in patient
and then my three days turned to ten
and everyone else had come and gone four times over
and nursing students were assigned to me to be thier case study
I didnt realize they weren't assigned to everyone
I'm in outpatient now
and the social worker is telling me that I was in patient for a long time
this I have had to come and accept
I was a lot worse than I thought

and people wonder how you get to that place
to neglecting yourself to the point of decaying
I can't explain it to you
I wouldn't want anyone to understand
if you do, then you should be here too.

I hung up my clothes today
separated them into donate and keep
folded the ones that didn't need to take up vertical space
and when I was done I spent the rest of the day on the verge of a panic attack
unable to complete the rest of my work
unable to do anything worthy of contribution at my job
I took more breaks today than I ever have
hid in the office for a few hours occupying myself with paperwork
hiding from guests
and coworkers
and responsibility
and stimuli
I sat out on the receiving dock
where others go to some cigarettes
I found myself sitting on the concrete steps still slightly damp from rain earlier that day and resisting the impulse to knock my head against the brick wall of the building.

I did a simple task and I could not function
this is what I mean when I say I need help.

I could breathe again in your arms
my ear directly over the mocking of your heart beat
it's fake
        it's fake
               it's fake
yet I stayed

--hindsight says I should have trusted my intinct

When I was younger and still toeing the line between joining creative writing club --
I remember one meeting being asked to write about love
and I had been romanticizing since I was a little girl who spoke to trees around the neighborhood so they wouldn't get lonely

a little girl who carried a ziploc of cat treats to make sure the strays knew that they were loved

I played mermaids in chlorine and it didn't affect my gills

in my dreams and my childish whims I had a soulmate

believed everyone had a soulmate
someone destined for them
someone to have such undiluted devotion for then and in return

ride or die

Bonnie and Clyde

I thought I knew what love was

I didnt know until I met you and in the first 12 hours we had met I was already claimed.
you made my spirit settle
I've been looking for that peace ever since you left
I think you've been searching too--
in walmart versions of me in the city we both moved to for separate reasons

the excuses we make to talk now are just that:
excuses
I never had to have one of those before with you
pick up my phone to listen to you breathe
and in the nights where we were apart sleeping to the lullabies I'd sing
you'd request skinny love every time

but I think it turned into something like we hear in stories
when you have it you don't notice it
and you don't notice it until it's gone

I think you and me were a lot like that

I still find myself thinking of you and it's been 5 years
that amount of time seems so small and yet so daunting

five years ago I was 18
five years from now I'll be 28

I'm scared to see when these next five will take me

I still think of my life as a failure. I'm kind of in a standstill and have been since you left
I guess I'm still trying to cope with the fact that my dreams, while staying the same, don't feel right without you

you are still an intrical part in my dreamscape
still a trauma my friends hear about
still a trauma I am learning to accept


I guess this is to all say I love you
and I hate that I'm not the one you share your home with
I dreamed childishly before of soulmates
I realize now they don't exsist
for if they do you are mine
but one I'll never have again

I am crying through the dishes
and I'm struggling so hard to get through them
you do not see my war
you percieve laziness
procrastination
this---
I tell you
-----is not laziness
this-----
I tell you
-----is sitting on my bathroom floor at 3am exhausted but unable to go to sleep until I do the dishes
this is not showering for two weeks because the place I go to get clean is murky with filth I can't bring myself to touch
this is disgust at myself and my brain for letting it get this bad again
this is crying while I scrubb with a deep anxious pressure on my chest---

doing the dishes makes me feel like I'm being held at gunpoint
the anxiety so real and heavy and demanding

I put it off
and I sit
and I wait
while it grows
and practices
and sculpts
and perfects
and becomes more menacing by the minute
and I cower

this is not as simple as doing the dishes
not as simple as getting it done
not as simple as just pushing through it
this is                   wrong

doing the dishes is wrong in a way I cannot describe
and I feel nothing but absolute fear and terror and shame

and shame

I know that better days are coming
I haven't seen them in years
every time I think I'm better
or that life has delt me a good hand
the gamblers curse returns
and I'm in worse debt than before
this dealer is good
he knows just how to deal to make me play
gives me a enough wins to think I'm ahead
but the house always wins
and the dealer for my life always steals back more than he gives

---I've tried to quit before, but addiction is prevelant and I can't seem to stop playing this game called life.

I know it looks like I'm okay
but I only advertise the parts of me to the world I want others to see
you don't see me in my desperation
in my sweat riddled bed I can barely lay on--
so much is taken up by depression my body doesn't fit
I haven't showered in two weeks
there are dishes in my bath tub soaking
they've been there for weeks
I tell myself I'm going to clean them
so I can clean myself
instead I'm in my bed riddled with crumbs and empty wine bottles
ashes have painted the pink sheets black
I'm self medicating and it isn't helping
but it's the only thing I can bring myself to do
I'm not okay
I don't know how to tell you that
or how to make you understand

I am a ****** friend
a ****** person
I blow off plans I make with others
I blow off plans I make with myself
and I sit
and I dwell
and I sleep
and I miss out on people
and places
and life

I am a sitty friend
self admitted
knowledge is not enough to spark change
I want to change
I haven't changed
and I still don't have a therapist
and I still can't hold relationships
and I still want
and wait

I am a ****** friend
and person
but I'm a model employee
married to my job
chained to my bills
caged by my own mental health

I don't like letting people down
I always seem to let people down
I'm tired of letting people down
I'm tired of letting myself down
I'm tired

I am a ****** friend
and I know this
knowledge of a fact is not enough to spark change

I watched as she became a stranger to me--
one that I knew very well

I watched and I wanted and I ached

I still ache

    ---no one warns you about this part

My entire life I've been trapped in a glass box--
glass walls;
there's a barrier between myself and my emotions--
a barrier between myself and the rest of the world

I ache

I thought I saw things and understood clearly what my life was and meant--
I thought I saw clearly who were my friends--
but I didn't,
I couldn't,
still can't,
my hands have been reaching for touch:
acceptance;
someone to see me clearly too

but I've placed my hands on this barrier so many times that handprints and the sworls of my fingertips marr the glass with smudges
the vision is blurred

I'm reaching out

trying to touch

just making the visibility worse with every attempt


       --I don't think I'll ever see the glass clearly again

I like this feeling
this depleted state of consciousness
a place I can relax and forget
that being human is painful and not very rewarding
I wake in with a clear mind in the morning
and go to work for money I wont see but my landlord will
I wake and I recieve nothing that is truly my own
so I let this feeling take over
this depleted state of well being
self nurture is sometimes self torture
I'm beginning to see that

I heard just what you said
empty promises on your breath
A cup of coffee in between
I'm meeting your eyes through the steam
But it's like when I talk
I'm a coprse not a human being
Because I'm sure you heard what I said
But I can tell you don't really see me

And like you
The coffee is bitter on my tongue
I hope next time you shoot your shot
That you're the one who gets stung

I know you by the state of your hands
Calloused palms and split nail beds
Your voice can grow flowers and root seeds your hands can never touch

I make my brain fade every night into oblivion because it's better than facing the truth that I am nothing
That I will amount to nothing
I will forever be nothing
And I will die nothing

You told me once you read my poetry to check in on me
Does  reading it sting you the ways writing it burns me?
It's been months
I haven't spoken to you in over a year now
I moved planets for you
You used my friendship for yourself
I've discovered I'm easy to use

I've been cheated on now three different times by three different guys
The two people I considered my best friends never saw me the same way
I was convenient
A scapegoat

I have trust issues now
Codependency comes quickly to me
And I'm jealous watching the people I now talk to talk to others
It's selfish
And stupid
But this is the damage you gave me

I throw money at people and things so they won't leave me
I mirror behaviors scared if I'm too different I'll be abandoned once again
I want love so badly but I'm scared to fall again and not be able to get back up this time

I met a girl named Megan
She was my best friend
Placed herself into my life and was unapologetic in everything she did
I admired her for that until I didn't

She lives in a one bedroom with my ex boyfriend
I have to go to work hearing him talk about the cats that once were mine that he now calls his
Those nights at 3am when I woke up with the bed empty next to me and finding him with you in the living room make sense
I was never the one people really wanted

I'm still recovering financially from what you did to me
I'll be recovering mentally for much longer
I'm realizing I don't have a best friend
I don't think I ever did

I used to miss you
I used to reach for my phone to call you and tell you about the miniscule events of my day
I used to bring you up in every conversation
Now I wish I could forget

He brings you around
And I'm not bitter at him anymore
I think I always knew we wouldn't work out
But I'm bitter towards you, no matter how much I try to forgive myself for what happened
Your name is taboo
A curse
A forbidden word that causes me to spiral down into painic attacks

I always knew that meeting you would change my life
I now wish I never did
I hope you're happy with this
I'll be having nightmares filled with you again

She sang to me in a strange language
One that I had tried and failed so many times to learn
Self care is foreign to me

I'm afraid my loudness was too much for you
My openess in my happiness that you provided me
Looks screaming at eachother so loudly from across the room people felt like they were witnessing something they shouldn't
I guess now It will only be me looking at you that way
I guess now....
I will love you quietly
From the sidelines
Aching silently
Waiting

I thought it would be harder
And maybe it's because I've been waking in panic attacks from nightmares
Shaking from anxiety
Battling my irrational thoughts with slightly less irrational but still not nearly as logical ones for weeks now
I wanted communication
I got what I asked for
This outcome is bittersweet

--I'll watch from a distance
More alone than I've ever been

There are 3 cigatette butts on my patio
Relics of talking and tears and hard decisions I wish we didnt have to make
I said --and I meant it, still do-- that I would support you as a friend
I want there to be more
You say you need to do this alone so that we can be more
I know realistically holding out for hope that you will come back to me is probably foolish
Taking a break is never just taking a break
And it hurts because I love you and I know you love me too
We talked last night about marriage and our future together
Of the life we would and wanted to build
In your exhales of nicotine we agreed
But when you left leaving only your butts on my porch as a reminder you were there
You and I disagreed on what to do

---I can't bring myself to throw them away because it's like an admission of throwing us away too.

The withdrawal is nicotine induced but im the cigarette being stomped to the ground

I am cobblestone cracking in the heat
Terrified of becoming inconsequential under your feet
Once a beautiful stone carefully layed now weathered and worn

----I keep thinking I am breaking

Young, hunched over, under covers,
Hous after lights out--
Bedtime forgotten;
Book in hand;
Fake sleeping when parents checked;
A secret moment in the world just for me
               It's a wonder how my flashlight never ran out

We can watch the stars play off the water
Until we're certain enough to know that we can't tell the difference between the surface and the night sky
A nostalgia tangled grip of your hand in mine
The only truth I can hold on to
I still have trouble telling apart my left and my right,
But I can always find my way back to you


--You smiled and I felt it in the beat of your heart

She sought refuge in the inhales of a panic attack
Rapid breaths as loud as the waves of a roaring ocean
She could hear promises in the threats they made
Loud, fierce
Rapid and strong
Reassurances that she was allowed to live

I always knew you would change my life for good
How foolish I was to believe it would be for the better

I think
There is a morbid beauty in the way we rust
Water and oxygen and minerals
Color out of steel
Weakness out of strength
The things which give us life
Slowly breaking us apart

     --She is always smiling
          But teaches me nothing

I gasped my way through the drought
Course, dusty particles abusing my lungs
Gulping down whatever little water was given--no matter how stale.

I was digging my hands through the cracked ground for so long---
Searching for a well, a spring, even clay I could use to build shelter from the scorching heat--
Head down;
I didnt notice the storm clouds brewing overhead
I mistook their darkness for the routine calm of night

The flood is here now and I thought I would have been more ready
Instead I had been ****** dry for so long that I had forgotten how to swim

Boxes are piling up around me
Memories packed away from happier times
A part if me finding this purge therapeutic
A part of me finding it painful

It's raining right now
A tepid song against the window
Reminding me that first you must rain
First you must drown
To understand the love of air
Or the sun

And this rain
Will cause me to root
Will cause me to grow
Will cause me to bloom

I was waiting for the other foot to drop


It stomped.

The funny thing about most toxins
Is that you can have them in small amounts without any consequence
It's only when
You sit in it long enough,
Injest it so many times--
That you get sick

I wrote this instead of sleeping
Because everytime I close my eyes I think of you
And I'm still unsure if it counts as a nightmare
If you wake up more longing than scared

I lowered my guard when you held me and swore that you'd stay
You'd stay
You'd stay
In your arms I heard someone laugh
And I think it was myself

       ---Ask anyone what the greatest love story is, and they'll give you a tragedy

It's rejection

And loss

The slow realization that everyone who meets me expects me to change


I find myself alone

Guarded

Knowing that every time I open up to someone

They eventually leave


And in losing everyone else

I'm slowly losing myself



--and my mind

And for years I dreamed of recognition
Of acceptance from my peers
But you showed me that I shouldnt worry about all the stars in the night sky
When I had the love of the full moon

I told you loved you
And you said it back
I've never felt relief
Such as that

I thought you must have been God's favorite to have made you in all the ways I thought I needed you to be
and that should have scared me all the same
because even the devil himself was once God's favorite
and look how far he fell

You taught me that perfection is impossible
And I'm still learning to accept that

I could compare you to the moon
And how she looks down lovingly at me so full of bright eyed fondness, sometimes squinting with smile lines--tender

I could compare you to the ocean
Constantly coming back to kiss the sands
Always eager to reach them, always reluctant to pull away

I could compare you to the wind
Fierce some days, but quietly caressing on others
Unapologetic in the way she dances with swirling and abrupt movements--impulsive

But I will compare you to the sun
Burning and blinding
If I stand in your presence too long I'm in pain
I tried drowning you out in liquor
Instead with your heat and intensity and my lips seeking the cool feel neck of the bottle
I grew dehydrated; shade seeking: the black spots in my eyes growing bigger

You taught me compromise and sacrifice are different
I'm still trying to accept that

I coughed and I choked up sea water
My feelings for you bursting through my throat so quickly my nostrils and lungs were full
It burned
This love, this salt is rough and course and tears through my chest
You taught me love can be painful
I'm still learning to accept that

It sent shivers through his body;
he sought warmth in the sharp tang of the whiskey
no matter how much he drank though, he was still cold--
the only burning in the back of his throat,
in his stomach,
as he tried to not *****.
strange too, was the burning of his hands, of his forehead;
ghosts of her soft touches from earlier in the day
they calmed him then
why weren’t they calming him now?

I poured so much of my time into you
into us
that I overflowed onto the table
a circular stain marring it for eternity

everytime I look at that table
use it to eat off, draw on, play cards with friends
I am reminded of us again

Watermarks are not enough reason for new furnishings
Coffee stains are a fact of life
I don't need to throw out the table we built together
even though looking at it hurts everytime

Recently I found some paint
and I decided that I can reclaim this again
I will reclaim this again

--With new memories and stains
    that were never meant for you.

If loving him was a cool shower,
falling for you is a warm scented bath.

---For so long I was stuck in that stagnant place between freezing and boiling

I have fallen in love, out of love, and everything in between
lately I don't know what I've been feeling
and I don't know what that means

They told me stay true to myself
never change
and I'm nodding along
like i'm paying attention
hoping they won't see how much I already have