I don’t want to leave him
what I mean is
I can make it the 216 hours
till we both go
I fake love until we don’t have to create it
but what if  one day the roles change
I the one who gets lead on instead of love
will I wish the trust over the comfortable lust

I remember the supervised showers
The crushed ice
The cries at night
The feeling of losing control
The idea that earbuds with the right twist and ties could make me die
The sewn on pillowcases
The weapon in scissors, mirrors, handles, sheets, bedposts, bags, shampoo, straps, glass, pens
The misdemeanor
The boy who’s anorexia was his slow suicide
The girl with two siblings that killed themselves
How everyone wanted to **** themself
The 7-year-old that only cried
The lime green hallways that haunt my mind

And when the only toxic thing left is you
Do you cut it out like they say to
The way you’ve been doing to them
Excusing bluntness in the name of self advocacy
Hiding your self hatred with self care
No face mask can remedy your thoughtlessness
Girl
you used to be liked
used to be genuine
Girl

Who are you

you never gossiped like this
this isn’t confidence
You all denial and defensiveness
This isn’t the change you want to make

I repeat it. I repeat it. I repeat it. I repeat it.
I mean repetition prevents shock.
Repeat
I mean repetition prevents
What
So if I say I’m sad I’m sad I’m sad I’m sad I’m sad will I stop being surprised or ashamed
So ashamed
I mean repetition doesn’t prevent shock it creates boredom or expectancy in what you repeat
right?
So if my voice repeats my cries, my sadness,
Will I stop being surprised... I meant can I find a way for my family
Can I find a way for my family
Can I hide away from my family
Can I find a way for my family to expect that my suffering will never end?

She asks if I want to play a game
So i give her my blade
Since it's the only game i know
Sinking my sorrow in stinging skin
See how far i can cut without
Stars striking me out of reality

These four walls don't fit my baggage
I show up to the house a trademark of my home on their porch
Hoping that this means it will be something like it
I am wrong
Instead of making the inmates feel welcome they're trapped
The woman opens her door and she is smiling
I don't know if she'd be smiling if I were black if I were a refugee
if I had my sexuality printed on my forehead ready for her to judge
But I smile back
Does this mean I'm accepting what she assumes of me
Behind her is a girl
Her mind closed off from the world her mother with the key
Homeschooled  to protect her from *** Ed and other awful things
I realize this is where I will have to sleep
We talk  until she says that God will never like gays
That you have to realize that you are a Sin before you can truly live as a person
Response with dropped jaw wide eyes knowing I can't cry
So we continue talking abortions **** victims and I don't sleep
I talked to her about these “issues” like I was not one like I was not gay like this isn't a part of me that I am not a sin for I have never experienced prejudice
I'm a white girl with all the privilege
All I know is acceptance
This girl is flipping my world with just a word
This girl is telling me I am not enough
5 days in this house and I feel like I am hiding
how can a person do this for more than 5 days
I've never understood what it's like and I won't
Dinners hands clapped  together religion the glue
Praying something so new to me that I don't even know what to do
Conversations and card games so comfortable with each other on Friday
She calls me a friend and I feel like a traitor like I Betrayed my family just with Association
I know that this is not something I should feel but I still do
The morning of we say Bye
Suitcases Packed ready to leave
I grabbed one to take with me
Forgetting we have the same suitcase
I open it up and accidentally I see her baggage
It's heavier than mine

He is my three week summer
He is the story I’ve never read
He is in the whisper of my friends ear
He is the question my sexuality still hasn’t answered
He is the flush of roses rising from cheeks


He is the new crush
He is the story I just started
He is the reassurance that it’s not just me
He is the ummmm of the future
He is the blossom of beginnings

He is the text I have to answer
He is the story I couldn’t finish
He is the drone of conversation coming to an end
He is the answer I never asked for
He is the flowers given in
Expecting something more

I didn’t hide it this time
I didn’t bundle up my mess
I didn’t  disguise it in cloth
I did leave it there
Open in the trash for people to see
Knowing the twisted necks and judging faces that will follow  
I did acknowledge how women it is to be ashamed
But I remind myself
not all blood comes from wounds

Is it really survivors guilt if
I haven’t survived yet

I want to write a poem for the lies I did not tell.
I want to write a poem for the tears I did not cry.
I want to write a poem for my unharmed body, the mistakes that I did not punish myself for making, the food I didn't have to earn before eating, the love I didn't force myself to accept, the pain I let myself feel, the burden I did not let myself become.

I wish I could write a poem about the good things I could be without adding the unnecessary.

I am undoing myself again
The string once held now yanked from its place
Uprooting more then it’s existence
Unraveling each thing
I thought saved me

The remnants
Not even balled up on the floor
But sprawled across each crevice
The light invasively seeping in with authority
Subtly forcing each fiber into compliancy

But not permanently

I saw her today
I mean I never saw her face
But having spent a trimester
Memorizing every centimeter
I could see of her
I knew it was her

I’d called her my first
Girlfriend, Crush, Truth, Almost-Love, Shame, End, Pretend, Lie, Over the night
We never went on a date
I skipped held hands
We went straight to being ashamed
The way my pupils would inflate
I remember how I just couldn’t be
close enough to her
Even if our bodies were pressed together
Honestly I miss her
We were like
Best Friends Forever

It is 10 pm and I’m shrinking again. the familiar shame that is causing me to concave, But I don’t want to die, just wanted to.

I am just tired of light feeling like cheating. I am tired of nutrients becoming a nuisance, Do you hear it snap and curl and twist inside you? or does your leaves get baptized with your healthy? can you grow without thinking about the darkness of your shadow? no? you mean you oxidize each exhale as if it was your own?

I knew what I was getting into
My mom knew too
She didn’t ask if I was willing to go
just assumed
So here I am again
The ER room
What did I expect
A welcome home
I saw her face
She was fine
Her wrists were sealed unlike mine

Pain is the only healer I can befriend
Her unconventionality is my only sin
The bait and bleed
Then relief

Some puzzle pieces fit together but don’t belong together

It is 10 pm and I’m crying again
Tears a stream that is so familiar to me
But I’m not crying because I want to die
I am crying because I wanted to
I am crying for that 12-year-old girl
Who twirled
with suicide every night
I am crying because if the pills would have worked
the way I wished they would
I wouldn’t be here
No
I just wouldn't feel this way

She cared more about annoying you than hurting me

As I wake
I mistake the sirens as my name
The wail telling me to come
That I’ve got lost again and I need to follow them home
Home as in the straight jacket hospital
Home as in you belong here
Home as in basically GSA
Your mind is the only sharp thing in sight
And the rope once noose tying you down

Oh I think it was a Tuesday
You were sleeping
In almost the highest spot in the building
Your ghosts never disturbing
The seams of your dreams
Oh what a day to ignore the mourning

I awake since Monday
Stitch my jeans for they keep
Falling apart by the knees
I try to hide the pink and purples
Of each thing pretend I don’t need

Then out of something I can’t dream
I see this red all around me
maybe I should gather my things
But instead I throw them out on the street

I burn in the building
Just to slip out of sighting you
So I start to
Transform in my dorm
Catch the flame and let it
Cool me
Oh how I used to be boiling
Steaming I see the leaves and grass
Oh I think you would call this crass

Now you are just so worried
That all this ash might
Color your back
So you speak your to forest of agrees
Until you see the fire of me

I so welted so red
So sore so losing
So much breath
I think you cheated
But you just took the steps

So I let the piece of me be last
thing you feel of me
I make you choke
then you speak
About how I
Hurt you

But somewhere
maybe a kitchen maybe the stairs
There were pages written by you
Pilled up but there’s only one
You wrote it mostly for fun

See it was so late
So late
That I would calll it Mourning
you were writing
By the light of the candle
Because electricity is just so boring

So at 4:49am on Tuesday
Maybe morning
You
Left the stair
Left the light and the pages there
Then when to sleep
Without a single worry

His kiss was the second serving I was to embarrassed to ask for

i tie myself to her every blue move
then try to pull out,
unspool,
the knot in myself
so i
follow you both home
then bruise in the black
hide in the bush
you’ve been beating around
write my petty poems
swallow my love
feel the cold creep
the glossy warmth
you hold i now
cradle memory to my
red cheeks
so i
unlatch my tongue
from my loyal teeth
and
let the blood run
into someone else’s mouth
you know I’ve always seen in green

How disappointing it is when a betrayal  isn’t surprising
And the boys are still laughing

I reincarnate my past every time I meet someone new
I feel the need to bleed out my imperfections as a preface of what I might do, could do, want to
Is it a lie to push down the thing that once made us whole?
Even if that thing doesn’t live in us anymore?

I think she was always sad
I know this from the way she shut herself in.
Called me her home.
Never acknowledge how we were a part of a bigger hole.

I think she was always different
I know this from the way she pruned her imperfections.
Called me her cage.
Never said what made her hide herself away.

I think she once loved her brother
I know this from the way once came inside.
Called him in.
Never described him with distaste.

I know she will one day be okay
I think this because I can't take away the thing I once caged.
Called her human.
Never will be able to take away her pain.

I am in love with the way you avoid me
It reminds me of myself

Grasping for words but only chunks of skin are willing
thought it would stop burning
forgot how much pain it was
Didn’t foresee the way schooling comes back to me

See before it was different
Before I was younger before
I didn’t think about those things before
I hadn’t gone through recovery before
Didn’t know about self sooth, self-love, self reliance,
But I’m back in Square, One
So before I’m gone
Did I do well?

I want to kiss broken people
Even if our half’s are different
Just to feel whole

You are like ice but I don’t have enough fire to melt you

It’s easier to save you than it is to befriend you.

before you i thought love and lost was the same

I would set my body aflame if it meant I would feel
warmth from you

You say I caused the end too
But I never remember choosing someone over you

you once drew me with your hand around my neck
told me weeks after with embarrassment and regret
a year later and now
if I saw that on her pinterest board
it would fit

What if my only progress has been my progression of regression