⚠️Trigger Warning: The following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm, suicide, and involuntary psychiatric hospitalization⚠️
______________­____

Tenth grade:

I am standing in the foyer
with my friends
before the bell rings.

From my sailor's mouth:
a bluster of salt and curse words.

My friends are so used
to hearing me swear,
that I believe they have become
desensitized to the variations of "****"
that whistle through my teeth.

Today, I use a
word
I have never said in front of them before.

Their eyes flash
with holier-than-thou
disapproval.

I understand how my language
may be construed as being offensive.

And, truly, I mean no harm.

But truly,
does that make me less than?

(Maybe it does.)

I've never been like them.

I am not pristine.

I am all edge.

Cut from sea glass,
composed of atoms having split
and drowned in their
self-perpetuated monsoons.  

My voice is not a siren song.

It is the stuff
of brine and hurricane.

I ask:
are you mad at me?

"I mean--I don't like hearing it..."

(Yes.)

"It's just sort of disrespectful."

(So you are mad at me.)

This type of shame
can only be alleviated
through means of punishment.

During English class,
I go to the bathroom.

Into my left forearm,
I carve the word
*****,
its lines written
in barbed-wire cursive.
Like a trigger-happy Etch A Sketch,
I create haphazardly.

When I get home that evening,
my parents, having received a phone call
from the school that afternoon,
tell me we are going to the hospital.

(Clarification:
I am going to the hospital,
they are only taking me there.)

Post phone call,
my father had contacted
Alberta Health Services.
The representative he had spoken to
told him that it was necessary
that I go to the hospital
and that if I didn't comply,
he should call 911,
wherein the paramedics
would take me by force.

I am in awe that
this stranger has the power
to tell me where I must go
before I am even aware
of their existence.

After screaming
and sobbing
and swearing--
one of the words being
the cuss that initiated
this series of events
in the first place--
I finally surrender.

On the ride to the hospital,
I listen to "A Car, a Torch, a Death"
by Twenty One Pilots.

"The air begins to feel a little thin
As I start the car, and then I begin
To add the miles piled up behind me
I barely feel a smile deep inside me
And I begin to envy the headlights driving south
I want to crack the door so I can just fall out"


I cinch the vinyl of the seatbelt
between my fingers the entire way there.
Because, in this instance,
the seatbelt is my enemy
so I keep her closer
to me than my own skin.

(But I am not sure
if I really did this
or if my emotion
exploits my memory.)

We arrive.

Still hysterical,
I grab a fistful of snow
before we pass through the doors.

A guffaw verging on maniacal
escapes from my chapped lips:

What if this is my
last chance
to touch snow,
to inhale the crispness of November
before I am locked up?

(What if they lock me up?)

I step out of the queue
and into the nurse's station.
My parents explain
what I've done to myself
and the nurse asks me how I feel.

"Angry,"
I say.

"Why are you angry?"

"Because I've been brought here against my will."

When the ER doctor
has finished her interrogation,
she says that a psychologist
will be with me shortly.

"I'm going to do homework while I wait,"
I tell her, defiance tugging at my vocal cords,
"Because I AM going to school tomorrow."

I ******* my way through
the rest of my assessment
with the psychologist,
try to sound the least suicidal as possible
while also making it exponentially clear
that admitting me involuntarily--
isolating me from the rest of society--
would only intensify my depression.

They let me go.

One of the doctors--
or maybe it was a nurse--
makes a comment
that I can't fully remember.

All I know is that I reply:
"No, I'm still pretty ******,"
to which the doctor (nurse?)
tells me that my parents did the right thing
and that my anger is unwarranted.

And I am just so ******* exhausted
with these people who treat me
like I'm some backward,
music box ballerina.

I figure eight in the direction
opposite of the world
spinning on its axis.

They do not like
this backward girl--
this warped record
whose lyrics seem unfathomable.

So they close
the top of the music box
and I no longer play
the leading role of my own life--
I am just some small, porcelain thing
collecting dust in the fissures of her
silence.

P  o  e  t  r  y

                ↓

                religion

The night
breathes down the back of my neck
in tendrils of air that reek
of Mexican cigars
and something like copper
(something like blood).

Cold bedsheets cling to
the perspiration on my body,
stick to me like a band-aid.
Come morning,
it will hurt
to peel them off--
it will hurt to get out of bed
(perpetual exhaustion
will do that
to a girl).

A clock prowls in the
corner of the room,
pondering the hours
of sleep that have evaded me
with every hopeless tick
of its gnarled hands.

Lost time adheres to
the skin beneath my eyes–
black as the darkness
that threatens to devour me.

From somewhere
within the abysmal black
she glares at me menacingly,
her red eyes smouldering
in the opaqueness,
yellow fangs bearing down on me
like the bars of a prison cell.
for I am her captive–
I am a slave of The Night.

***** stheno.
Bossy stheno.
Too loud stheno.
Confrontational stheno.
No wonder she can’t hold down a relationship stheno.
Hormonal stheno.
Did you know Medusa had a sister—stheno?

-
Forgot her name immediately after writing this poem.

(stheno)

-
Thought her name was spelled stethno.

“Do you ever think about dying?”

“All the time, Barbie.
and I think I’m starting
to get bad again.”

Every step I take
is catatonic,
an acute contrast to
the way my thoughts
bolt about the
convoluted labyrinth
of my psyche.

I couldn't stop crying this morning,  
so I took an extra Cipralex*
in the hopes that
my mind would slow down,
even though it has
only been twelve hours
since I last took one,
even though it is
a once-a-day type of thing.  

When I go to brush my teeth,
I stare, bemused,
at the bristles,
how it appears as though
they have been passed under
a fisheye lens.

I feel like I am framed
in a Margaret Keane painting.
Every object or face
I happen to fixate on
seems so comically magnified
that it's actually quite sad.

For I simply haven't the room
in this heart of mine
to house something so
colossal.

I am a broken home.

I try to cover up
the blemishes
the thumbtacks have
left in the walls with
glow-in-the-dark stickers
and photographs of
Audrey Hepburn.
But the stickers have begun
to bubble and peel,
the photographs never
resting flat against the surface.

Your typical bandaid solution--
but bandaids don't heal scars,
they only cover them.

When it is dark out,
the scars look like tree branches,
the type that scritch-tap
against the window pane
only to startle you awake
as the world approaches
the pinnacle of night.

I've strung up
fairy lights round
the perimeter of each room,
in the hopes that the scars
won't appear so ghastly
amongst the shadows.

Sometimes,
I plug too many
lights in at once,
the circuits overload,
and then--
blackout.

This dollhouse has shattered;
up until now,
the other girls and boys
loved to play with me,
though they never did play nice.

They pried my doors
from their hinges,
stole away the secrets
nailed beneath the floorboards
only to shun me
when it came to
their own indiscretions.

Atop the satin bedsheets
their tear stains,
some clear dollops,
some mascara-winged streaks
across the pillowcases.

But when I would cry?

The corridors would
ring with silence--
with the echoes of
nobody.

Empty.

Forgotten.

In my mutilated aftermath,
the little boys and girls
no longer had any use for me--
rarely does anyone wish
to entertain the broken.
A cruelly ironic situation
considering they were the ones
who tore me apart in the first place
(but god forbid
they ever take responsibility
for their transgressions).

So they hid me away
in their attics.
at the back of their closets.
underneath their beds
amongst the lost socks;
the dust bunnies;
the monsters.

This is what it looks
like to be continuously
taken advantage of
without ever quite
mustering the courage
to stand up for yourself.

I am the marionette girl.

Eyes a porcelain glaze,
I watch you leave.
I try to look away,
but the strings
protruding from my scalp
pull me upright.

There is no liberation
for the betrayed.

There is only sadness
for the betrayal,
only pills to stymie
the sadness.

But like these strings,
this sadness remains
tethered-to-me

(always).

~

"Why do you want to **** yourself, Jade? So people will miss you? Is that it?"

"I want to **** myself because I know they wouldn't."

Without the navigation
of a bookmark
a dog eared corner
or a memory of where I left off,

I turn to the correct page
on the first try--

these words know
my fingerprints well.

⚠Trigger Warning; the following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm⚠
~
Over the years,
I have cultivated
many an intriguing
hiding spot for my sorrows--
concealed inside of
my phone case;
pressed between
the mattress and the box spring;
wrapped in paper towel
and tucked trepidatiously
beneath my bra strap.

But of them all,
my favourite
was the book--
some fantasy novel
whose name I can't recall,
hollowed out with
a pair of scissors
and a ballpoint pen
to make room
for the razor blade.

It was a secret
that had authored
an entirely new meaning
of paper cuts.

In that moment,
I couldn't have felt
more like a tortured artist.

I couldn't have felt
more like a
poet.

Call me hysterical all you want.

Some of the greatest artists were
[are] hysterical women.

What do ya say, Kid?

Do you have another poem in you?

I don’t know if it’s possible
to be delicate when the serpents
survive solely on insecurities &
intrusive thoughts.

It's hard to write a poem
when you've got Benzo-Brain.
But I mustn't worry;
the amphetamine shall kick
my brain in soon.

I’m confident that if all the King’s Men
were women, Humpty Dumpty
would have survived.

But I’m genuinely curious.

If I’m just a poet.

Or if I’m just sad.

****.

“It’s you and me, Kid.”

{internal monologue}

Hi, Atus

I am a pretzel

knotted hunch in my back

one salty *******

For the record:

no, not everyone has a “little bit of OCD”
nor can you “almost” have OCD.

You either ******* have it or you don't.

Really, it’s blasphemous--

to use the sacred art of poetry
to gatekeep an illness you are
fortunate you don't have
all for the sake of clout.

He told me:
“You should really smile more.”
So I grinned as wide as a Baracuda.

He said:
“You are so much more attractive when you smile”
so I showed him my fangs before sinking them
into the supple, tantalizing flesh
of his ego like a shipwreck.

Sometimes,
I fear
there will come a day
when he will use my
secrets
against me.

But then I remember:

I know all of his
secrets,
too.

{Try me, Darlin'}

I’d write a Haiku
but I’ve got too much to say
(it’s irony, kid).

The term “ghosting” is inaccurate.

Ghosts actually care enough to stick around
because that’s the only way
they can haunt you.

To say a guy “ghosts” you when he doesn’t text you back is an insult to real ghosts

(see, real ghosts are actually
capable of commitment).

⚠️Trigger Warning: The following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm, suicide, and voluntary psychiatric hospitalization⚠️
~

This is not my first heartbreak.

I've had many,
and I've certainly had worse.

Although,
at the time,
my heart would have plead
irreparable.

(If only I knew
what was to come
two years later--

but there's a poem
for another day.

In fact,
I believe
you've read it.)

This is the first heartbreak
I feel everywhere--
a cataclysmic aching
that I am certain  
will reduce my pulse to  
flatlines.  

This is my first anxiety attack.

My fingernails scrape violently
at my collarbone
as if they are looking to fulfill
some distant, unadulterated urge
to tear myself apart.

(They are digging
for what whispers beneath--

a dying thing.)

But I cannot
escape
this Incarceration;

I cannot
escape
the shuddering confines
of my own body.

So
I tear away
my clothes
until I am left
in just my underwear.
rocking myself back and forth
like the mad girls
do in the movies.

(Is it true?

Have I gone mad?)


I run the shower
even though I don't have
any intention of showering.

I do this only so my mum
doesn't hear me sobbing,
the sounds of which
are concealed by
the water's blaze.

The room fogs over--

and all the world
is a mist.

and suddenly,
I don't know
what to do with myself.

and suddenly,
I don't give
an absolute ****
about what happens to me
anymore.

For this simple reason, I decide to go to the hospital.

Take away my  
dignity.

Take away my
independence.

Just promise-
******* promise me--
you'll take away the
pain too.

You don't
(of course).

"Please don't tell me you're here because of a boy."

This is one of the first things--
perhaps even the first thing--
the doctor says to me.

"What? Did you think the two of you would ride off into the sunset and live out the rest of your days on some faraway island?"

(Something to this extent,
yet still not an exaggeration.)

See,
to doctors,
broken hearts
are a ridiculous waste of time.

They prefer to deal
in broken things
they can easily
cast and bandage
in fluorescent colours
upon which all the people
you know can then sign,

"Get well soon."

But there is no one to sign
get well soon
across the
war-torn
latitude of my chest.

Because no one truly believes
there is anything for me
to recover from--

they can't see it,
so it mustn't be real

(right?)

Thanks
for cutting a girl down
when she's already bleeding,

(literally,
and I've got the scars
to prove it.)

Doc,
don't ya know
it was never about
just a boy?

It was about
yet another instance of
rejection
I was forced to add
to my repertoire
of not-good-enoughs,
yet another loss
magnified
by my ailing brain.

(what came first--
the plague,
or the boy?

Do I even have to
provide a ******* answer
to such an obvious question?)


Doc--
I know what
type of person you are:

an egotistical *** hat
who thinks mental illness
is inferior
to Physical Illness

cuz

it's all in my head
it's all in my head
it's all in my head

right?

Doc,
what if I told ya
"It"
is always trying to **** me?

What if I told you
"It"
wants nothing more
than to reduce my pulse--
my broken heart--
to flatlines?

Would you take back what you said?

(probably not).

The other day,
I unblocked you from
Instagram.

Not because I miss you.

Not because I am inviting you
back into my life
after a year and a half--

Because I refuse
to remain in hiding.

*
Olly Olly Oxen Free,
Darlin'.

You're playing my game now.

**** shaming women
is a form of ****** harassment.

⚠Trigger Warning: the following poem contains religious allusions that some might find offensive⚠

Memories belittled by dust,
preserved, taxidermal fashion
inside an anthology
of vintage photographs.

Though,
I am aware that  
"vintage"
is only a euphemism  
for a possession
that was once beautiful.  

Your treason
has turned all the photographs
ugly,  
their corners curling up  
like the spiral of a chameleon's tail.  

Vivacious colours devolve
into lacklustre,  
sepia tones,
blending in with  
the palette of my
surrounding melancholy.  

Ensnared in a dilemma:  


Do I miss you?  


or  


Do I hate you?  


(perhaps a bit of both,

but never

I love you--


not anymore.)  


Apertures mewl,
bruising the gallery walls
with tears.  

I frame your
betrayals
with gold and
garlands of daisies
in an attempt to soften  
our past  


(it never works).  


These
vacant
hallways
trap your phantom footprints
beneath the cobblestone.  

Was it really  
such a guiltless task  
to walk away from me?

Embedded  
across the rungs of my spine
are the scuff marks  
from where you wiped the dirt  
off your boots only after
wrenching the welcome mat
from underneath me.  

I have accepted that
our friendship was
merely transactional
to you;  

I served up  
all the love I had to  
give
like John the Baptist's head
was served up upon a silver platter.  


You feasted  


while


I starved.  


Yet,
full is this menagerie
of lost things.  

I know
I should burn  
the polaroids
in the name of closure.  

Perhaps
I am just afraid there will be no art--
no poetry--
left to sculpt
from the cinders that
remain.

⚠Trigger Warning; the following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm ⚠
~

"These violent delights have violent ends."
~William Shakespeare

~

When the crevices
on my wrists
solder themselves together
and the rich, crimson stanzas
become illegible,
I unsheathe my quill--

melancholy's scribe.

The ink clots,
driblets of red
bleeding through these pages

but I keep writing

until
this parchment lies
sweetly torn

and

I smile.

Now,
that's what I call

poetry.

**
How violently delightful.

It is not that oil paint and tears do not mix,
my dear Frida; it is that society feels threatened
by the candour of women who create
art from their sadness.

To be a women is to choose between
being a thot or having thoughts.

I bite rabbit holes
into my tongue
before my confrontations
have the opportunity
to race past my teeth
and infuriate your
superiority complex
upon impact.

These confrontations
stick to the roof of my mouth
like burned marshmallows
dandruffed in black shavings
that taste of regret and fire

(I swallow them anyway).

Turns out
I was so preoccupied with
these suppressed campfire stories
that I did not notice
when my own lips caught flame,
kindled by all the words.
I've never had the courage to speak aloud.

Of course,
things are different now.

ADHD forgets to feed the fish
and when she finally remembers,
it is dead at the bottom of the tank.

Well, I suppose dead is an understatement:

a mossy film embalms the body
(at least what is left of it)
its suction-cup maw putrefied
as it suckles the sickle of death.

Half of the body is there.

Half of it has disintegrated.

Imagine existing nowhere and everywhere
all at once; microscopic remnants
defile every particle of water long after
the rest of you has vanished.

To any girl who should come to love him after me: this is my cautionary tale.
___________________
li­stening to the same song on repeat until you hate it / butterfly wings pinned to cork / empty bandaid boxes / hungover mornings / broken glass beneath feet / panic attacks / swallowing pool water / paper cuts / seeing your mother cry / cold bed sheets in the winter / slamming on the brakes / starless skies / scabby knuckles / lipstick on your teeth  / bruised eyelids / unanswered text messages relapsing / pills that don't wash down the right way / hospital waiting rooms / cliffhangers / wine stained linens / splinters under fingernails / second best / cracked snow globes / writer's block / bit tongues / trigger warnings / pipe dreams  / names carved into flesh / dissolved forevers / chipped sand dollars / misplaced secrets / loose compass needles / aeroplanes in want of shooting stars / hunger in want of beauty / heartbreak in want of love / staying in want of leaving / goodbye / this poem / he  / will / never /  read/  it

⚠Trigger Warning; the following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm⚠

~

I can't remember
whether or not
I was getting my
eyebrows waxed or
my ****** waxed that day,
just that the esthetician
noticed the scars peeking out
from beneath the hem of my shorts.

"What are those from?"
she asked me.

"Oh,"
came my reply,
"They're just from a long time ago."--

A line I had rehearsed
in anticipation of moments like this.

Despite the brutal awkwardness
of the conversation,
I've gotta say
she really is great
at waxing eyebrows
(and vaginas).

⚠Trigger Warning; the following poem contains subject matter pertaining to suicidal ideation and self-harm ⚠
~
A note to any friends who read this post: while this poem is written in the present tense, please be aware that it is merely a memory I write of--not a present circumstance.

~
They say

cut

d
o
w
n

the

road

if

you

wanna

off

yourself

not across the street

but
  

         I
                          
                      j walk,  slashing
                                                 ­    d
                                                        i
     ­                                                     a
          ­                                                  g
             ­                                                 o
              ­                                                  n        
     ­                                                              a
                                                                ­      l
                                                         ­             

onto thighs like lightning bolts

                     caught in the storm
                                   of this limbo
                                                           ­     cuz
                                                        ­              i don't wanna live
                     but
                            i don't wanna die


either.

⚠Trigger Warning; the following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm ⚠
~

I would make tally marks
on my wrists
in ballpoint pen
every time something
unfortunate happened.

Got a bad grade?

|

Said the wrong thing?

||

Mistreated by a friend?

|||

Loved someone too hard
(but not be loved back)?

||||

And It was only
under the cover of
privacy
in a washroom stall during class
or under the scalding pour of the shower
or after midnight atop white bed sheets

that I would trace the ink
with a razor blade.

卌

**
"What are those marks," he asked her.

"Oh," she whispered, "Just reminders for something I need to do later."

⚠Trigger Warning; the following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm ⚠

~

One afternoon
in the tenth grade,
I am sent home from school for
cutting myself.

When I walk through the front door,
I crouch down to pet my dog.
She burrows her nose
against my thighs,
sniffs at them
in gentle bursts of air.

I know she can smell the blood
that has so
stubbornly
fused my nylons
to the lacerations on my flesh.

She stares up at me
with her spacious brown eyes.

In this moment,
she is the only one
who comprehends my sadness
without judgment--

there is only
love.

I don’t want to carry bear spray
because I’m afraid of being
attacked by a bear; I want to
carry bear spray because I’m afraid
of being attacked by a man.

⚠️Trigger Warning: The following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm ⚠️
~

The inconquerable crusade
of the razor

plucking at my nerves
like they are violin strings.

My fingers go numb.

I promise myself
this is a song
I will never sing again

(but, oh, how I love the music).

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is
crying when the shelf your father
has just ******* into your bedroom wall is

c r
o
o
k   e
         d.

⚠Trigger Warning; the following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm ⚠

~

I am sitting in
ninth grade English class
(or maybe it was Social Studies?)

My fingers creep
beneath the desk,
past a mausoleum
of stale chewing gum
until they grasp at
something frigid and metal.

Kilt pin unhooked,
plaid parted,
I reach for mid-thigh.

Pulse hammering in my veins,
and my countenance an
exhibition of nonchalance,
I probe-gouge-drag
it across my skin.

From my mouth,
a quiet yelp.

The girl next to me asks,
"are you okay?"

⚠️Trigger Warning: The following poem contains subject matter pertaining to ****** harassment ⚠️

~
Wearing mirrored sunglasses
is not a fashion statement
but a statement of
*******.

Did you think
they would bury
your sinful leer?

That I would not
catch you staring at me
as I walked
through the parking lot?

That I would happen upon
my own fearfully contorted
reflection
instead of your
girl-hungry glare?

That I would be silent?

For silence is a language
I discarded long ago.

Later,
after blowing me
an array of kisses
through yellowing teeth,
you yell from
your car window
and accuse me of
staring first

when we both know
I just stared back,
my eyes arranged into dog fights.

Lick your lips
at me
like I am prey
and you will
unveil both the She-Beast
and her bite.

I will not be stalked--

Instead,
I stalk away,
spitting the word
"creep"
over my shoulder.

Behind me,
comes the snicker
of a hyena--

but I know
that hyenas
snicker even when they
have been wounded.

I ensnare you
in these words
like the animal
you are.

Remember--

my poetry cuts deeper
than the teeth
of any carnivore.

The poem is
Mightier than the

pervert.

⚠Trigger Warning; the following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm ⚠

~

Even when we have Phys Ed outside,
and it is 30 degrees,
I wear a long-sleeved shirt
to class to
bury
the truth of my flesh.

I wonder if this is
what it means to hide
something
in plain sight.

Bumble, I find it quite ironic
that your mascot is a Bee.

Not only have you chosen a mascot
who belongs to a dying species
(good men are also a dying species,
I'm afraid) but you have chosen a mascot
who is known to sting.

Tell me, Bumble, if I am the one
who is being stung does that mean
he will drop dead immediately
after stinging me?

Or is he just a No-Good-Wasp
that will never be held
accountable for his
mistreatment of women?

If I had to choose between being
alone in a forest with a bear
or being alone in a forest
with a man, I would choose
the bear. See, you can reason
with a hungry bear; you cannot
reason with a hungry man.

Little Miss Muffet
sat on a tuffet,
eating her curds and whey.

Along came a spider
who sat down beside her,
and yet she does not stray.

Though an arachnid–
preferable sidekick,
better than being slain.

For, vacant across the room:
“A stool?” No! a tomb!
where he-wolf lies in wait.

⚠️Trigger Warning: The following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm⚠️

~


In the beginning,

I used Bic pen caps
safety pins
jagged remnants of plastic
salvaged from a broken mechanical pencil
the serrated edge
of a paper towel dispenser--

gateways to razors
and Exacto knives.

Objects that were too dull
to split skin
but were still sharp enough
to leave their mark--
puffy, red scratches
accompanied by the
occasional pearl of blood,
dark rarities
that blossomed in rosy drops
upon the dominion of my flesh.

At the time,
I deemed my attempts
at self-harming
pathetic substitutions,
euphemisms in lieu of
the real thing:

deep lacerations from which
reservoirs of Crismon
were birthed.

Sometimes,
I still believe this,
even though it is
terribly unkind
to abbreviate my experience.

If my ninth grade
guidance counsellor
were to read this,
she would tell me that
it's not about the
depth of the wound,
or the means by which
the wound was acquired, but
rather
the existence of the wound

(the existence of the
hurting).

Really, there’s no need to put the word
“alleged” before the words “****** Assault.”

Mama says it’s time to get out of the tub
cuz I’ve been in there too long.

Better to just listen

[I don’t want to]

than try to explain I’ve been thinking
about dying again

[I want to]

Do you see my sadness, too?

Twenty-three-year-old female
found dead in the bathtub.