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

Everything about me dwindles down to this
broken body, mangled branches, rivers of blood
I am nothing more than true unbridled feeling
and sometimes that scares me

I'm used to breaking hearts
And glasses
And promises I said I would keep
I break eye contact
And routine
And once both my pinkies at the same time
I wish I could break mirrors
Then maybe my reflection would match how I feel inside
S  H  A  T  T  E  R  E  D

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?

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

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 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'm fearful for the day I lose all sense of self
and it's not like my worth is equated in belongings
but I'm losing mine now and that's something to grieve
realistically
I know
they are still there
just tucked away for a later date
but for now I lose the enrichment in my enclosure
and can't help but feel a void opening in this cavity I call a chest

Its heavy
Claustrophobic
A dry drowning
Each breath labouring and deliberate
And time moves slower
The metronome of my heartbeat just a little off
When I'm asked to explain I am choked by imaginary hands
There's a ghost over my shoulder clasping his hand over my mouth
Whispering in my ear that speaking wont help
So I keep quiet
More scared of your rejection than the possibility that I will be met with some understanding
But I'm telling you now it's heavy
And claustrophobic,
A dry drowning, each breath labouring and deliberate
And time moves slower, so much so that even the metronome of my heartbeat is just a little off.

I've said time and time again what my future will look like
simple ranch style house filled with animals
my pigs running around like cats or dogs
sleeping and feasting like kings
I always told myself this would be my reality
said it with such conviction to others that I believed that conviction alone could will it into existence

At the same time I spoke to others how I was going to be a teacher
from the age of seven certain that's what I would be doing with my life
Here I am
in college for the third time
aiming for a degree far away from my childhood dream
this time I'm hoping for insurance and security

I can't really see my ranch style house in my sights anymore
can't see these animals I would invite others to work with either
I can't see the dream I had always tried to speak into reality
the path ahead has gotten too foggy

My dreams are changing without me
my childhood whims are slipping from my grasp
Others telling me that I can still achieve them
but how can I achieve anything
if I can't even achieve my own happiness

I know I would be dead without my medication
a day off and I dream more than I could ever imagine
two days and I'm seizing on the floor
withdrawal so intense I'm dizzy and crying
and shaking, nauseous,
a phantom explosion in my head
I feel off
Three days and I'm hospitalized
I feel like an addict
but I have to tell myself that I am back to square one
back to the chemical imbalance I was before the
prescription healed me to be
This is normal
you are not an addict
you are sane

But that one day off I love
I sleep so deeply I feel dead to the world
comatose with lucid dreams
I dream so vividly I can feel them in my waking self
I know I can't fly yet my dreams say I can
I would spend days in this trance if I could
Last night I dreamed I was in Disney
My medication causing me true terror through amazement
yet this morning I felt off
and tired
and like I would ***** any minute
I wish these symptoms would stop
I wish I just felt normal without it
But the chemistry in my brain never adds up
I want to be trapped in the feeling of constant dreams
It's when I can truly live

I can just make out the blurry red of your shirt
They way colors blur is not new to me
My eyes have been blind for a long time
My life painted in water color without my glasses
But this isnt the same
My eyes are hot
Saltwater threatening to fall
My dam of emotions is breaking and all the hardware stores are closed
I cant repair this in time
By morning I won't need concrete anymore
I'll need a boat

   --God once hated his creations so much he wiped them out with a flood

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 hate my own company sometimes
My mind always running in marathons
And too still sometimes for the boredom to leave my bones
It is seeping into them
Executive dysfunction and dissociation are playing hopscotch in my brain
There is no winner here
Instead I lay in a standstill of movie- watching and trashed floors
Wondering when the energy will come back
Wondering when the motivation will return
Or if I ever had it in the first place
I've been friends with my mental so long it's hard to remember a life before them
Before they told me who I was and who I should be

I do not have a green thumb
I guess my color-blind eyes which have a
natural disagreement with blue and yellow
could never handle the mixture of the two.
Still, I try to be the green I cannot see
Home depot thought I was interesting
seven cacti bought on impulse
with the small hope I would be able to
keep them alive in a cat infested house
with my soul a lover of dark rooms
I once read that plants died even with
immaculate care because the curses
others were placing on you were being
absorbed by the living plant instead.
So to those who curse me, please stop.
I impulsively bought seven cacti and I can’t
go back to home depot three weeks from now
hanging my head in shame.

     --Envy, greed, wrath, sloth, pride, gluttony, lust

She was like smoke:
Interesting to look at.
Moving so intricately in her dance,
she entranced all those who watched.
She encapsulated the depth of a soul.
She was the personification of darkness,
and the bringer of light to destroy it.
She flowed so freely like the wind.
Nothing could hold her to this world.
Touching her was useless.
She fell right through any fingers reaching for her.
I remember finding that odd,
as she had touched every heart to
come in contact with her.
I once asked her why she had to go.
her response was a whisper in my ear
and laughter like bells.
I never got a response.
I suppose she had other places to be.
She was always transforming,
changing,
flowing,
running.
She never stayed in one place for long-
always choosing to follow the beauty
that intrigued her,
and never noticing that she, herself,
held that same beauty.
But then again,
She was like smoke.

  --My sister had a friend who died at 16

I fell last week.
Hard and fast
Abruptly
My foot slipped out from under me in a way I know my ankle will never be the same thirty years from now
Strange how a human can endure intense operations and fully recover
But an ankle will never be the same if it's twisted once
I guess I'm similar that way

How is it when in the dark of the night
in the silence that it holds
it the stillness of the air
that I can see the clearest
can breathe the easiest
can think the loudest
How I, who used to have two nightlights in my room,
can be so fond of the darkness and the quiet
that used to strap me into bed like a teacher's glare

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

We saw therapy dogs today and it reminded me of the future I want
of animals
and kindness
and an open home on some land
with a koi pond
and gentle sounds of teenagers that aren't mine down the hall
from a library stacked with books
and a cold, long-forgotten tea on the table
I want a future I likely won't see for many reasons
the biggest obstacle is me

I think I missed something
I think I was supposed to have a hiccup in my aging where I partied and went crazy
college right?
high school?
my 20's?
I think I missed it.
I think I went straight from being a child to
a 65 year old lady who goes to bed early
with bad eyesight and who wears cardigans in
90 degree heat beause you're always cold when you're old
I think I missed it

I'm happy that you're happier than me
I really am
I'm not one of those people that wishes my life on others
I'm glad you have such a loving support system
That you are doing so well for yourself
Even if it means that you are alone
Even if it means that I am alone
I'm happy for you

When I was younger and self-harmed
I often found myself becoming disappointed
that my scars were fading
I didn't want to see the most
interesting thing about me disappear....

You called me envy, sloth
I called you wrath, pride
These names which will forever haunt me
I must be blind to my envy
I don't see myself as such
Wanting to be what others are
I want to be what I am not
My sloth I understand
My laziness and trepidation in doing
what needs to be done
I see wrath in you
your road rage, lack-of patience self
You laugh at my calling you pride
yet you buy designer clothes and
care too much what others think
of your appearance and mind
these our our sins
and we must learn to live with them

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 breathe in the calamity
the scent of chaos overwhelming my senses
and I sit in this musk
this odor of turmoil
this crawling feeling that comes tandem with disarray
my mind is never calm
in this moment I find myself agitated
eager to move to a motionless mindset
where everything makes sense
and nothing is clouded in a fog of uncertainty
but here I sit paralyzed physically by a mental block
in time it will pass
in time it will pass

It's been hard to find my muse since you left
You were the source of so many of my poems even though I tried so hard to deny it time after time
I realized when you were around I was drinking profusely
and my drunken brain finds poetry to be great company
just personal enough to offer comfort but just distant enough from physical contact
poetry doesn't look me in the eye shaking my shoulder until I snap out of it
poetry lets me sit in this shallow puddle in-between of swirling emotions the English language never bothered to name
So my muse hasn't been here much since you haven't
but my depression hasn't been here much either
nor my anxiety
I stayed constant without you here
its kinda funny, huh? I have you to thank for the rise of me
but I also have you to thank for my downfall
I'm finding my muse again--
this time without you
and this poetry will be that much more beautiful
watch out
she has risen from her ashes

A part of me longs to be alone
A part of me fears to be sitting in my suffering
Clawing my hands through dirt
Nails ***** and filled with grime
I'm trying to reach the clay
I think if I dig far enough
Past all the heavily packed imperfections
I can break it up and move it enough to find the one thing that I can form and hold to my will
I can change myself into what I truly want to be
I'll spin the wheel and make something beautiful
When you use it please think of me

I'm suffocating
My body is shaking
Panting even
Why cant I get any air
Should I go outside?
Outside of this body
This prison of mine
Trapping me with it's human needs and desires
I want outside so badly
I can almost see it
I can see the trees
I hope they come for me
Air will soon follow

Some things take way more energy when the chemicals in your brain dont add up to equal happy
Like sitting up to read instead of lying down
Or shaving your legs when you haven't been bothered to in months
You never really cared about my cactus legs though
You're from the desert after all

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

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 dont like confrontation.
In fact I will do almost anything to avoid it if I can
Thats probably what makes me a good manager-- because I'm able to diffuse a situation before it becomes one
That's also probably why I let the trash pile up on the patio for weeks until we recieved an eviction notice
Because I'm scared of confrontation

I'm scared to tell you it hurts me that I've done the dishes the last 3 times because you wont put in a maintenance request to fix the dishwasher but I can't because you want to be here when someone comes.
I'm scared to tell you I hate that I'm the only one who takes out the trash because you ***** and gag if you touch a trash bag
Well I'm gagging too, but it has to be done because we're adults.
I'm always so happy when I come home and find the trash to be gone only to open the pantry and find the bags there. Only to open the balcony door and find the trash there.
Now that I think about it, you always complain that you'll throw up if you do it and I think that's a form of gaslighting.
I'm scared to tell you that instead of buying supplies to make cobbler when we had no food in the house, you should have bought basic materials to eat or god forbid a plunger because your toilets been clogged for 3 weeks and you have to use mine.

I'm scared to tell you I hate your rabbit and the fact that it chewed up 4 of my phone chargers, my echo plug, my laptop cord, vaccum, and is now tearing up my carpet. Oh also the fact that it's YOUR rabbit and I had to buy you hay when you were running low, but you could buy another fish tank we dont have room for.

I'm scared to tell you these habits of yours are bothering me because you're no longer lucid and I think you're slightly addicted---but everytime your boyfriend brings that up you complain.

I'm scared of confrontation. So tonight I made 4 trips to the dumpster at 2am filling my car up with garbage bag after garbage bag because I was embarrassed of how much trash we had and I didn't want the neighbors to hear or see.

I told you I was doing it at that time expecting your help, but instead you told our guest you'd waited all day for me to do it and took a trazodone and fell asleep.

Tomorrow I can already tell I'll have to wear my braces and use my cane.

Tomorrow I'll wake with baggy eyes from a sleepless night of anger of frustration of worry of tears from the fear that comes with the confrontation of the text I sent you asking you to please take out the last of the 3 trash bags by the door.

I'm waiting for the excuses.

I wish I was someone who took risks instead of calculated safe
I wish I could be spontaneous money worthless
Instead I'm careful and blunt
I am selfish to those who don't know me well
Resting ***** face is my second name
If you invite her she will back out
we're not worth her time
my time is instead spent lying on my bed reading a book I've read a hundred times over
because leaving and doing something takes so much out of me
I can't live wrecklessly
I can't be adventerous
I am too much impulse control
here take some of mine
I don't need it
I don't want it
I don't want this

Its here again tonight like a cinder brick on my chest
In this grave I call a bed I'll surely die from no rest
The air is too thick milkshake through a narrow straw
And no matter how I gasp air will not provide my lungs
with what they need to survive

And I'm sweating and I'm turning
Well at least I am in my mind because I'm stuck in too warm sheets and the heat they trap inside
I can hear my heart beat like a bomb counting to my doom
And it keeps on beating faster and I dont know what to do

--Lately I can't sleep with the thought that I will die

broken conversation
awkward and too overly formal for both our tastes
I tried to hide my anger and pain behind politeness
feigned interest about your day and life
when really the only thing I wanted to know was how you were doing without me
you expected to do better without me
I dont think you're doing better without me
I won't say it though,
trying to give you some semblance of pride in the mess you created
in our short conversation I tried to make you feel something again for me
not love, no--
maybe something along the lines of regret and jealousy
I am doing better
I am doing fine without you
My world is moving on just like how you said yours would
I think your world is moving too
only yours is in a slow reverse
and mine is in a steady, forward pace

There was a time I was drowning--
screaming--
air filled bubbles rising to the surface
until the darkness took over;
after awhile I found a cave,
an underwater haven where I could breathe
alone:
hidden

I managed some days to float--
aimlessly--
there in the dark;
it was cold,
and lonely;
the saltwater mixed with the tears
I didn't know I was crying;
I managed to dredge back to the cave

I was always waiting for something--
change,
light,
a hand,
but there was nothing but more darkness as far as I could see:
no way out,
the water too deep

I decided one day to take a chance--
to swim--
further than I ever had before;
up to the surface I was sure was there,
and if I drowned in the process, well
--I had already been drowning--

I was soon running out of air--
my chest burning--
I thought that:
surely this was the end

Then, a hand grabbed mine

a sudden pull

I was ****** to the surface


I saw the light for the first time in years,
and I breathed clean air into my lungs;
I stood on stable land;
I learned to walk again without the flow of water pushing against my chest

This was new--unfamiliar--
fear mixed with anticipation:
the promise that I could breathe easy again,
walk among the light,
float without sinking

It's still new--
still frightening--
but I am trying,
and I am healing,
the pruning of my fingers slowly dying down--
the salt in my chest no longer as coarse--
the darkness not nearly as daunting

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

I cut my finger on a can opener last night and now I'm constantly reminded of how sensitive I am

I wish my heart was calloused so I wouldn't ache everytime another meaningless occurrence reminds me of you
But hearts are not hard
They cant become calloused
And even though they are surrounded by bone, ribs are meant to be flexible

This finger will heal
It will scar and callouse with repeated use
My heart instead grows only softer and weaker with time
I dont know how much abuse it can take.

Be concerned if I'm talking
If I'm outgoing
If I'm smiling in a room full of people
because I promise you those are the times I am lying
Don't worry if I'm quiet
or alone
My mind is racing
My ideas are competing for best screenplay
They're writing a novel that the world will never see
Winning old arguments
Visiting new places
So please don't worry about me if I'm quiet
My mind is loud enough

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

Sometimes I believe that if I
care for these animals that
it will prove I can
somehow take care of myself

I'm painting myself
Dipping the brush in neons of yellows and pinks
The greens swirling with the oranges
Gemometric streets lining my arms
Rolling hills winding up and down my stomach
Dots placed where I want on my face
Stripes and stars and hearts over blemishes
This is beauty
This is forgiveness to the harshness of my own opinions
I'm reclaiming my, me, mine
This body is a body that does good works and grows and moves me from place to place
It can run and jump and hold others tightly
It can make music and drive and sing and dance
And now even with the lights off
I will shine in the blacklight of my mind
I'm bringing these colors to my skin
I'm reclaiming what's mine again

I'm rocking, I'm rocking, I'm rocking
back-and-forth
and my senses are being overwhelmed
and my hands won't stop shaking
and my heart is beating loud and fast
my skin is crawling
back
forth
back
forth
I try to hum
to cancel out the quiet ringing
back
forth
my hair is touching me
my clothes suddenly feel like walls closing in back
forth
back
forth
the gentle constant motion steady
my breathing tries to mimic it
I'm rocking, I'm rocking, I'm rocking
back-and-forth

A part of me feels tilted on an axis
a mobius strips, no end, no beginning,
but twisted all the while
and I try to straighten it--
try to gain some semblance of normalcy
but these feelings come in waves,
abruptly crashing to shore;
always slow to pull back

there's a time and a place for changes,
but I am never prepared for mine--
routine interrupted by chemicals I try desperately to tame

abrupt changes in motion
I drag myself to skid
the ground is hard
it's unwelcoming--cold and damp,
gravel pressing into my back

It was fine at first--
unnoticeable, or rather better hidden
but it became something deliberate and somewhat cold
a curling ball of something akin to shame tucked beneath my rib cage
I find I do not pity you

as days turned to weeks turned to months of petty not-words
passive aggressive shoulder keeping me at a distance
friendship unneeded and clearly not wanted

I owe to you the tenseness of my shoulders
the quieting of my voice,
the diminishment of my presence

and I thought; or more so rather hoped, that my talking to you would have changed things for the better
instead, I find us back where we started--strangers with no intent of being more than

I work with you when scheduled,
but your name brings a foul taste to my mouth--
it hurts to know I am the odd one out
square one
like a child alone again on the playground

I will sit on the swings
awaiting the push

And I asked that you love me more than I hate myself
That's a tall order
A request that one may think is impossible
But you looked me in my eyes
With a fierceness that could set out forest fires
And through your parted lips
You whispered
I already do.