Scared of the silence that presses
Clinging to you like my too tight fitting jeans
Suffocation isn't a possibility
It's a reality
Left gasping and grasping for air that will never come back
Trying to speak the truth
But the language has abandoned me
I'm not writing
I am thinking
Trying to think away the silence
I am drowning

Hear me scream
The walls listen with curious ears
One by one, my thoughts flow into the stream
For years that stream has killed me with fears

Overcrowded, the thoughts clash together, like waves
Roars, deafen the ears, as the thoughts seem to find speakers
They foresee the days where the only thing to do is to dig the graves
They become such harsh beaters

Creeping into my eyes, burning memories make themselves known
Tearing me apart, muscle by muscle, sense by sense
Raise a shaky hand to my face, touch bone
Feel the stream verge on hurricane, every muscle tense

One single tear falls from the hollow bone where eyes once resided
A flurry of thoughts, burning memories, rush to the surface
Scream out in terror as my body, and mind divided
Feelings ripple, and washes away my only purpose

I am worthless

What is this feeling in my chest
I really wish it didn’t exist
It’s heavy. It’s sinking. It’s so **** destructive.
I wish it didn’t exist
Breathing despair
Cursing myself as misery taps me on my shoulder
Did they just rip a piece of me off?
But they aren’t gone yet
So why is grief breathing down my neck

Tonight, Venus sits next to the moon
But tomorrow the moon will sit alone

I struggle to pick myself off the ground
I have melded with my worst fears
Reality crashes into me like a brick
But I never say ****
Hearing myself sob in my head
While I just silently nod
Rocking ever so slightly in my rolling chair of despair
I’d rather not be here
My body suddenly wishes to be somewhere
Anywhere that’s not here
In this city of light pollution
The stars have always calmed me
I always seek them out when I cannot breathe
But today as I fall into despair
I feel only the rhythm of empty music
And see the polluted Chicago air
I just want to see the stars
And to be anywhere that’s away from here

Iced hands
Drip, dripping with icicles
Light a fire
Dip, dipping them in gasoline
Stick a hand in, one at a time,
Into the fireplace
Smile
Scorched hands, are happy hands
Crackling in time with the flickering flames
The shadows cast, dance the tango around the room
Skin melting off the bone
Drip, dripping down my arms

Wrap the skeleton hands
Around the door handle
Pull hard
Open with a cracked rib

Lips cut and bleeding
Nose broken and in needing
See the truth
With an eye of death

Look towards the exposed
For guiding and teaching
Run a bony, bloodied, hand
Across the ribcage

Hushed singing surrounds me
Rhythmic waves of sunsets and campfires in the form of notes
A small blue blanket is wrapped around my tiny, fragile body
Watching as the whiskey scented breath, escapes my father
While he rocks me, singing,
“Hush little baby, don’t say a word
Papa’s gonna buy you a mockingbird
And if that mockingbird won’t sing,
Papa’s gonna buy you a diamond ring”
A deep smile rests on his gentle face
Proud of the child in his arms
I close my eyes, as I drift to sleep
Secure, and protected in the warm colors of honey and citrus fruit

When I wake
14 years later
My father sings a different song,
His breath sober, and clean after years of addiction
but his words are sharp, and jagged
Red fires, and black holes now make up the notes
He sings to me while I defend,
“It’s criminal,
There ought to be a law,
Criminal”
He twists the lyrics to fit his meaning
He fights to fit what he’s feeling
My identity left him screaming at me to leave
I close my eyes,
Afraid, and broken in a pit of flames and dark ideas

When I wake,
My voice is hoarse, and gray
My father started drinking again after 10 years of sobriety
All because of my identity
I sing softly to myself,
“Hush little baby, don’t say a word
Papa’s gonna buy you a mockingbird
And if that mockingbird won’t sing
Papa’s gonna buy you a diamond ring”
I wrap a blanket of cold air and tears around my body
Swirls of broken mirrors and empty bottles surround my head
As the memories of when my father used to drink come to mind
The reality hits
the past has become the present
And I close my eyes once again

Strip me bare of my insecurities
Lay a breath of cold air upon the chest I hide from all
Stripped of my shield
I sit vulnerable and scared
The galaxies and black holes,
That makes up my mind,
Widen with each word

Hopeful feelings lay in spots on my stomach and arms
Spots that have healed
But not left me
Dreams of acceptance and confidence
Have since become the shattered pieces of my bathroom mirror
The same mirror that makes me remember
All the ways my identity is fractured

Like the black holes in my eyes
There is a mystery to me
I believe that I am bad
I believe that who I am is disastrous to those around me
Yet what is an identity without such beliefs
Perhaps a good one

Colorful feelings, followed by dark and grey
That’s what you see when you strip everything away
Bones cracking from the pressure of being so conflicted
Signs of ripping as the heart tries to follow what it desires
The head, bleeding, as the pain of resisting grows

Cannot be me,
Give me back my insecurities
Give me back the bindings
Give me back my shield
Give me back my dark feelings and let me bleed
I can hold up fine
It is only my identity I am hiding
But we all know this is just a lie