I feel like i’m going through a bad breakup with all my friends.
Maybe it’s just the rain
maybe its cause i’m emotional
maybe it’s cause I haven’t showered in 3 days
maybe it’s cause i spend more time on social media than I do living
maybe it’s cause i don’t really eat anymore
maybe it’s because i’ve hit a creative high and everything is coming to the surface
maybe its cause i’m home alone
maybe it’s cause my sleep schedule is STILL messed up
maybe its cause i dream about you
maybe it’s because waking up hurts
maybe its because there’s a hole in my chest
maybe its cause i expect too much
maybe it’s cause life happens, life gets busy, life forgets to care
maybe it’s cause I forgot to care
Maybe its cause trying hurts
maybe its cause bitterness just tastes so **** good
maybe it’s cause i’m passive aggressive sometimes
maybe its cause the world consists of more than I
maybe it’s cause I tried to hold on, I fought, i thought
Maybe it’s cause they don’t answer my calls or texts anymore
maybe it’s cause for every “definitely tomorrow” there never was one
maybe its cause this is growing up
maybe it’s cause this is just how it is now
I feel like i’m going through a bad breakup with my friends
we talk only three sentences at a time
and it hurts
so I hope you’re happy
tell adulthood I said hi.

Structure

Chaos

Society way.

Bars

Shackles

Time taken away.

Heart beat

Don't breathe.

Steady hands

Shaking feet.

Conform, conform, conform, repeat.

Comfort

Ignorance

Keep us enslaved.

Unaware

Unquestioning

We weren't born this way.

Face made of stone

Eyes made of glass

Hearts made of plastic

Mind made of brass.

Opinions

Creativity

Individuality

Wash it all away.

Conform, conform, conform, repeat.

Will I be a robot one day?



Watch

Don't talk.

Read

Don't speak.

Walls built tall

Privacy in breech.

Complacency

Security

Uniformity

Preach.

Don't chip the marble

Originality is inside.

Don't break the bottle

Thats where everyones feelings hide.

Inside, Inside, Inside, Internalize.

Destroying humanity

One insecurity at a time.

I'm driving down the interstate
i've got an hour and a half till I reach home
it's 10:30 pm and ......I'm alone.
and i don't know if its because i'm alone or because its night or because its both that I start sinking
Down into my thoughts
an uncomfortable disease but a comfortable numbness
to the girl who feels to much.

As I was driving I began thinking about how things ended up like this?
How you started putting up thick glass walls with a closed curtain wherever I used to be able to enter in
a concussion waiting to happen
because I used to not have to ask for permission
and when i ask you will gouge out my eyes
because you can't hide the guilt
of overgrown insides coming out of your face.

How the one time I poured out dripping paint bottles of every color till they were empty down the stream
in an attempt to make a watercolor I made muddy water filthy
and you mocked me.
You the cleansing rain who was pure enough for any man
You the garden whose soil could birth life from any death
You the lovers
You the adventures
You the foreigners
to the girl who feels too much.

How does one get to the scene of a car wreck
when there is traffic, distance, and impatience in-between
where you need to be
and where you were six months ago.


I started thinking,
wondering,
If I was getting bad again
and
what the heck that meant.
and if the numbness of the night is just an aesthetic
giving drugged consent to the monsters
so that they can wreck havoc
without me experiencing any of the consequences
at least
not until morning.

I started thinking about the future
and
what the heck that meant
and how it feels more like the present
except its not gift wrapped
its a broken duck taped
cardboard box.
When I pick it up it feels like nothing
When I shake it it sounds like
people telling me to
go back to school
people telling me
to get a job
people asking me
"what are you doing?"
and "when?"
and "how?"
which are all things I don't have the answer to.

People say I have time
but there's only an hour left on this highway
and I am miles behind
watching every tail light pass.

But as I notice the taillights I notice the headlights
and remember that when I was little I used to squint my eyes at them
tilt my head from side to side
and make them dance.
Then I began to think about hope
and how it is nowhere and everywhere
in nothing
and in everything
the difference
is up to you.
How just as the waves never grow tired of kissing the shore
The stars never grow tired of shining into the night
No matter how dark and how hard it may be sometimes
They shine.
and if a speck of burning exploding gas can fight and sacrifice itself to be a dot of light in a dark world
Then I will poke holes with this pencil into my consuming darkness
and explode into my own night sky
leaving those who take the time to notice in breathless awe.
Because darkness might be the blanket you sleep under
but hope is the pillow under your head, the person you're sleeping next to, the stuffed animal you've cuddled with since you were five.

And If there is hope in the stars
then there is hope in the streetlights
and the headlights
and the city lights
for they would serve no purpose without their dark.
So I too will strike a match of purpose against my dark
and even when they go out
I will strike
I will strike
and I will strike
because sometimes hope is work
but it's in endless supply
and sometimes just like the lights on a cell tower
hope blinks.

Maybe I am bound to be the girl who feels too much
with the car wreck life
and the cardboard box
and veins that will always half expect to be put to sleep
but as I pull into my driveway
I notice
I never did have an empty passenger seat.

Do you ever meet someone who has a messy room
clothes scattered everywhere knickknacks empty food wrappers piled so high you can't even see or find the floor because it's buried under miles of a mess
and when you ask the person why they don't clean it up they say
I know where everything is
I like it this way
it's comfortable
I'm used to it
comfortable messes
we make those a lot in our lives maybe not in our rooms but certainly in our minds
we the ones that feel too much
Misunderstood
rejected
Neglected
Ignored
spending our whole life fighting for just a scrap of attention
that falls from the table of the normal ones
the holy gods
who know what love without doubt reflection without disgust
friendship without fear
life without a façade feel like
because they aren't being constantly traumatized by their thoughts.
I am on a first name basis with depression and anxiety
They come over nightly and are the first ones that greet me in the morning. Trash talking me to sleep and warping my perception when I wake. Apologizing with every inhale cursing me with every exhale but at least they hold me and say "I'm here" an abusive comfort but it's comfort none the less since nothing else offered it's hand when I asked
Its front door is my ribcage
its favorite place is my cheeks.
I became a home
letting sadness fill the vacancy tragedy put in my chest
and I guess being needed was nice when I didn't think anyone else did.
I was unaware of renovation they had in mind
Replacing my passions with paralysis
My deity with doubt
My social scene with solitude
My self esteem with sharp objects
And the persuasive whisper that it will feel good I promise replaced my cry for help and turned me into an addict with the pink flesh to prove it.
I even get to wear short sleeves cause nobody notices
Cue the incessant bullying of being an attention seeker
Because I didn't pull down the curtain of long sleeves over my struggle
I was honest and you said I was weak
But you're right
I am not sick
I do not need a doctor
I am a circus act
And the ringmaster is suicide.
I did all I could
I asked and you denied
I verbalized and you said it was an illusion
Well how about a disappearing act
Where I will hear the applause of my consistent companions depression and anxiety and all the boys and girls who mocked me and even you who kept going even though I said no
You took my worth by the roots and planted deception in its place and deception became truth because worth had already withered away
I am standing in a room and I cannot find the floor
It is a mess but I am used to it
This is how I was raised
Drowning in the sorrow and it's comfortable.



But you'd miss the colors wouldn't you?
The green of the grass
The blue of the water
The pink of bubblegum
The red of roses
You'd miss the sunsets wouldn't you?
For every time you went on a walk at dusk and said "this can't be the last one I see"
And you'd miss the future wouldn't you even though it seems incredibly dim right now and the pointlessness is the point to a pen of grief with which you'd scratch out every what if and possibility
But the pens not in your hand
And the right king can put Humpty Dumpty back together again
Your life doesn't always have to be held together by a safety pin
It will take time but there is always the option of a needle and thread
So once more will you extend you hand if I told you that hope is willing to reach back
And it has scars just like you
Misunderstood
Rejected
Abandoned
And bullied too
Hope isn't ashamed to associate with you it
It's favorite sound is your voice
So you have a choice  
Will you let the reasons win or will you let hope in?
You can still be a home
You have a garden inside you but you now have a gardener that knows how to let worth grow
And it's only renovation plan is to evict the
Unwanted
Unneeded
Unloved
Unimportant
Identity you've been
Living in
Because you may be on a first name basis with depression and anxiety but they are not your friends
Because they never fed you love they made you overweight with lies instead
But hope has a scarlet thread and it knit a sweater for your heart because it is fragile and hope never wants to tear it apart and I promise you that redemptive love says you're enough
And it washes over you like the euphoria of a kid going to Disney for the first time
Acceptance without alteration
Kindness overthrows isolation
You are so much more than the stress that got to you, that's why Hope died on a cross, to say I love you.
I am standing in a room
It's a mess that's im used to
But I'm finally uncomfortable
I'm willing to risk starting again
I'm on a first name basis with Jesus
And as he clears it all away
The weight of freedom falls
My sadness doesn't own me anymore
I can finally see the floor.

Cover me in the black sheet.
Flood me with taunts of the stars
Let them shoot at me.
I'll take a nova right to the chest,
Absorb its dying breath
A bursting beautiful chaotic mess.
Stardust, its existence, now ash.
I don't know why it gets harder at night
My chemicals collide, they kiss all night, but their love is my fight and I can't **** them every time because it is so passionate
like Romeo and Juliet, young and dumb, they'll sacrifice me so their love can live on.
Why am I the vessel of the lonely panging flesh.
Inhaling sharply taking wounds from someone else with each breath.
But I'm unaware of all the gaping holes in me because I'm a werewolf and by morning i have no recollection of bleeding.
But the holes are starved at night and they seep through my clothes soaking my mind.
I lie in pools of letting my insides roam but every day I swear that this will no longer be my home.
From the belly of the beast I'm now at it's nashing teeth,
it swallowed me once but after walking through guts I've finally reached
an opportunity, but the PM comes and the black ***** me back down the esophagus i have fought and fought leaving red scratches down it as my fingers claw.
I thought maybe if I loved enough it would ***** me up.
Maybe if I was content I'd be able to call this games bluff.
But the black sheet comes for me and I can hear the crickets sing
and when the dawn comes I'll be out again
but the sheet of night will come and take me right back in.

Do you think one day he'll look at me?
Do you think one day I'll be more important than a screen? There are treasures to plunder, worlds to explore, battles to fight, people to be.
He spends his time escaping from reality and I spend my time wishing he would notice me.
Is it a wasted wish? A futile matter of want pulled by the marionette strings of my parched heart?
There is no void for him to fill in me for I'm not half a person I'm fully complete. I just want someone to see me and think I'm more important than a gameboy or TV.
Am I worth anyone's while?
Is he a man or still a child?
Do I even like who he is or just the words he's written?
We are strangers, I am too shy and have no right to be smitten.
Who was I to think our palms were made to fit?
When my fingers are broken glass
Cracking shards no one wants to risk
touching for fear of infection
Held up by my arms that are vines I am twisted and limp with skewed perception.
That there is not beauty in this patchwork organism. Disfigured irrelevant objects sewn together. I am the antonym of humanity because my beating heart requires attention and we'd rather offer that commitment to things pixelated. Cyber connection no flesh relation.
Distant. Uninvolved.
Short attention spans because we don't want our hands in the soil of struggle we want them pristine in the waters of victory. When was the last time you felt mud between your feet? Your skin thirsts for the drink of the sun but instead you feed it wifi lethargy.
Binging every day
Looking for a reason to stay
Alive to stay connected networked together the new social interaction when no ones really saying anything we just throw ourselves out there with such little respect for transparency
We've forgotten how to laugh and how to live without our phones on our hips.
Love documented in texts and dating apps. We don't love anymore with phone calls or physical contact.
We are armadillos, turtles, and porcupines with our defenses up ready to strike or hide at any moment if you get close enough. But I want to be a comb jelly, all my insides you can see. I have no hard exoskeleton and no tentacles that sting just a rainbow illusion that propels me.
Then maybe I will be I intriguing enough. For you to put down your controller and start coming undone. I am vulnerable, I'd like to unravel you one thread at a time, I am fragile but we can make a three stranded rope that will be unbreakable overtime. And occasionally you can run back to your inviting adventure world of virtuality but please promise me that I'll always be more important than a screen.

140

She just needed to grow a little taller to be a little thinner to stare into the mirror she stood in front of in her mind. Disproportionate in one area, it's a joke that your late to bloom, but really you should try and fix that cause you don't have a lot of room. We love the way you smile just not the way you look. Applauded for her performance ability but heckled for her body imagery. At 10 years old she didn't look like the rest but it didn't bother her cause in a few years she would be the best.

158

"Excuse me can I ask you something?" Stopped by a group on the stairs, "sure" "are you pregnant?" "No" she was only a freshmen there. She fit the desk at school just fine, she exercised she ate kind of right, so why was her tummy just not the right size? Sticking out just a little past her breast and thighs. It started to get to her just a little bit more, as self consciousness got amplified she tried to ignore. Not fat just broad she told herself everyday but the doctor said overweight for your age and the little hope she had died that day.

155

So came the doctors appointment and the looking for clues, so came working out for months with no results, what else was she supposed to do? 7 diets, only one prevailed, a victorious week but the scales still failed. Yet a sliver lining was to be found at the bottom of the well, as thyroid gland was the culprit here causing fat to cling to her frame in fear. But still it did not go away, not for 6 whole months. And that dear friends is when the Junior now had finally had enough.

152

"Well if this is where I'm at it's not so bad, I've tried my best so I should really be glad. The bikini look won't ever be for me, I'll never be a model but both those things I don't want to be. I should simply accept me for me cause it's just a body and it's not the worst it could be." Finally the girl accepted her stomach for what it was, she still ate right and took her pills but now it was out of love. She stopped looking at the sizes and getting on the scales, she danced her little heart out and her insecurities stopped making her frail.

It took a year and she didn't even notice until a relative said "you're looking great" she stepped on the scale in disbelief as that 152 was now a 138.