I was at home.
My dad was just across the hall.
My brother was home his music blasting through my wall.
My thighs were cemented closed.
He used his hands as pry bars.
I said no.
I pushed him off me over and over again.
I said no.
He pinned me down.
I SAID NO.
I cried.
He choked me to silence my screams.
I tried to kick.
I tried to get away.
I eventually stopped fighting.
I let him finish.
I cried in the bathroom.
I said no.
I said no.
I said no...

I wasn't born to be loved by anyone but myself. There's no soulmate waiting for the day we run into each other at a coffee shop. I'm not going to spend my life with anyone besides myself. The woman who brought me into this world didnt truly love me and neither has anyone else. Every love I've had has been built on lies and hurt, I spent 6 years loving a girl who everytime she decided she was lonely enough to love me back promised me a future and talked about weddings but the second someone else walked by those dreams went up in smoke. I have spent years giving my all to friends who weren't there when I drowned in the cold abyss of the dark nights. Me finding love isnt going to change the world. Falling asleep in someone's arms isnt going to make this a better place when we wake.

When the tarot reader told me I'd never find conventional love I thought that meant that when the stars erupted and created the atoms that build my heart that those same atoms spread to create the hearts of others. That I was supposed to love everyone around me. I realize now that that's not the case. That I cant hand pieces of my heart at anyone who will take it or else I'll just end up empty time and time again. I thought I could build my heart with pieces of love from those I loved and it worked for a while, but what do you do when they take those pieces back? What am I supposed to do when slowly my makeshift heart gets taken back piece by piece, when with every piece that's taken the emptiness in my chest grows larger until I'm left empty again? My heart is an empty gas stop change jar because everyone takes from me but so rarely do they come back and return what I once gave them.

This time was the last time though, when this boy smiled at me and filled the emptiness of my heart with his own. We spent 3 years growing a forest of love with a family of animals. He swept me off my feet and showed me a love I thought only existed in fairy tales. Then the morning after my birthday I found the messages on his phone. Found out that he was unfaithful since 3 weeks into our relationship. Our forest burned but for some reason I tried to stay and rebuild the ashes while he kept playing with matches. For another year this boy used easy words and empty promises to keep me trying but in the end my lungs were so coated with smoke from the forest fire in my heart that I couldn't keep begging him to love me and just walked away.

Now the cold tile of my bathtub soothes the burns and the tears clear my eyes. I beg strange men to hurt me in bed and I can no longer tell if the bruises they leave are self harm or self care.

Charlie was my pet rat.
She died in my arms this morning.
Her birthday was a week away and even though I knew she was old and frail nothing could have prepared me for it.
My boyfriend found her leaning against the side of her cage confused.
I had no idea how long she had been like that.
I held her for hours while I waited for my mom to take us to the vet to say goodbye.
She had a stroke so half of her body didn't work, she didn't have control of her tongue or left eye.
After a few minutes she seemed less confused as she recognized my scent and heartbeat.
Since her eyelids didn't work anymore I had to help her blink.
Her tongue didn't work so I slowly let water and yogurt run down her throat so she wouldn't be dehydrated or hungry.
This was the first time we ever cuddled, she never slowed down enough to be held for longer than a couple minutes
She was the reason a group of rats are called mischief
If there was trouble.to get into you know she'd be leading everyone else to it.
She would be your best friend if you shared your food and would still love you when you didn't
She loved her chin scratched and tried to eat my **** a few times.
Even at the end of her life she'd still chitter her teeth and boggle every time I'd put my lips to her little forehead.
Even in death her beautiful soul and pure love lit up the room
She passed a couple seconds after my mom walked through my front door.
After I took her to the vet to get her paw prints he promised me she went peacefully.
That she felt no pain and the DMT in her brain made sure she was happy.
At least she wasn't alone.
I hiked into the mountains walking down the river with my best friend in a box till I found the spot her old friends were buried.
As I write this that spot and moment feels so far away.
Like it was some ghost of myself that held her through the seizures and that covered her body in dirt.
I feel like my spirit left with hers.
Her love, like all animals was pure.
She never loved because of what I gave to her, she loved me for me.

She was my Charlie, my Char char, my charbean, my little ragdoll, my food ***, my little derp, and occasionally my little *******. She was my optimism and the silver lining to every bad day. But most importantly she was my baby and I promised to love her forever and even though she is gone I will always keep my promise.

Dear Chloe,
‎I don't know if I ever felt truly loved before you.
‎Every love I've ever has felt like a performance, hiding the parts of myself that felt undesirable so others could love me.
Who knew a sweet little rat would be the one to really see me.
‎You came from ruin like me. our lives were cowering from the predators all around us, it was looking over your shoulder and making yourself as small as possible for fear of being the next victim.
‎
So ‎when you first crawled into my sweater and fell asleep to the sound of my heart beating I knew I would never let you go. That I had to keep living so the metronome of my heart could always be your lullaby.
You will never know how you saved me.

Sometimes I wonder what you must think of me. We will always have a language divide, what do you think of my tears? The big wet drops that fall from my eyes and onto your head as my body trembles and I hold you so tight.
Do you get scared for me when I hiccup like I do you?
When I feel you for bumps and lumps do you know I do it out of love?

You have grown so much, you have gone from a shy child hiding behind her mother to loud and proud. You're not afraid to yell or fight even with those closest to you, asking for love has always been easy. There's so much I have learned from you .

You make me whole. You make my days so much brighter. So when I found the blood the month of your first birthday everything went dark. The shadows you had evaporated in the back of my brain crept through my body and froze my soul.

I rushed you to the vet to be poked and prodded. For two weeks after I spoiled you and gave you medicine, I swear you thought it was poison until surgery.
I remember waiting for the call, my leg bouncing for six hours while I stared at my screen like some twisted Schrodinger's box where you were both alive and dead on the operating table.

I finally let myself cry for the first time in weeks when I was told I could take you home.

That night I had a nightmare your incision opened up and guts came tumbling out into my hand. So when I woke and saw you chewed it part way open I ran you back to the vet. They put you back together and I dedicated all my time to you. I slept every night for a  week with my hands in your cage holding you. And the other two with you asleep on my pillow.

I know you'll never understand this letter  I hope that you know just how much I love you. I don't know how I'll ever cope with the shortness of your life but I will make sure everyday you feel loved. Though your light burns bright as fast I will never forget the love you have showed me.

Dear Suicide,
*******. I will not forgive you for the havoc you have wrecked on my life, I will no longer hold you like a parent, or lover. You are no longer my Friend, you are not the comforting bed I can sink into when the world is too heavy for my concave chest.

You have always been there, ever since I was born. You were there when I was a few months old and my mother tried to end our lives together so she wouldn't leave me alone. You were there six months later in the ***** hotel room holding my mother's drug filled arms to lift the bottle of pills to the trembling lips calling out for her children, her husband, someone so she wouldn't be alone. You fed her the pills and promised she wasn't alone, she had you after all. Sometimes I wonder if you'd always been there for her too.

I remember you creeping around corners my whole life, I wonder if you cursed my name the nights I'd insist on sleeping in my dad's bed because before I even knew what suicide was I knew your vice like hands held his heart after you crushed my mother's.

After you saw my father wouldn't be the next victim, you wouldn't rip this family apart that way you settled for me. I was 10 when you crept back into our home, you came to me as a fleeting shadow in the corner of my eye when the classmates teased me. Slowly you crept into my tears and the more I cried the more you possessed my mind. In middle school you taught me that you'd give me peace if I let the blood seep, that the deeper the blade dragged into my skin the closer to you I'd be.

Slowly I began to worship you, made alters in my closest out of rope I'd pray to be strong enough to fall into. I wanted to be a sacrifice to you. All my waking thoughts were of you, you were a comfort nothing else could offer me, an off button. If I wanted I could turn it all off, I could finally meet the woman I had no memory of.

As time went on I tried to forget you, I'd plunge myself into life and into creating a better end for myself. You wouldn't let me go though, Everytime I missed a question on my test or burnt a meal I'd hear your voice offering me an out. Over time you got obsessive and violent screaming that'd I'd end up like my mother anyway so why fight the inevitable, it's better to leave on a high note than after everyone left me.

I never let you win though. I fought to eradicate you from my life, I refused to let you win. I still won't let you control my thought anymore. When I get knocked down by life, when all the odds are against me I no longer wish I was dead, I thank the universe for the opportunity to get up again, to change things and be a stronger person than I was yesterday.

Sincerely,
The person you tried to destroy.

There is always that one constant in your life,
that person or thing that is always there,
never late,
that never grows tired of soaking up your tears during the late nights when everything seems to go wrong.
My rock solid anchor is James.
He is my best friend of two years and boyfriend of six months.
He never fails to pick up the phone,
never hesitates to wrap his arms around me when my atoms start falling apart and making combustions in my own brain,
he always texts me in the morning,
never shows up late and always makes sure I am okay.
He is my 100 year old willow tree,
sturdy and safe,
branches that shade my head from the rain and hold me high in the sky when the sun is out from behind the clouds.

Needless to say he never fails me.
Over time I grew used to having James around,
to him replying to all of my texts and always picking up the phone.
One day he didn’t pick up.
Didn’t respond to my ‘good morning’ text,
or my ‘sneaking away at lunch to tell you I love you’ message
and when he hadn’t got back to me by the end of the school day I knew something was wrong.
Every hour I called him,
every 30 minutes I texted him........twice.
At eight o’clock I had given up,
decided he was ignoring me and turned my phone off.
As though he was reading my mind I heard the phone in my dorm ringing so I went up to it and saw James number flashing on the I.D.
I picked it up freezing my vocal chords,
preparing the ice queen voice I’ve been practicing my entire life.
I took a deep breath and right as I was about to say something I know I would regret
I heard a shaken voice say my name.

Any semblance of anger or hurt dissipated from my body as I told the man,
whose voice I never heard so much as shiver,
that I was there.
I sat silently in the suddenly too hard chair as I heard him struggle to spit out the words I realize he has spent all day practicing
and finally I heard in a voice more tears than sustenance say



“Alex, I might have cancer.”




I never knew how fast your world could turn upside down.

Now I am not a weak person,
I have lived through more than most of my friends,
I survived a mother’s suicide,
a father’s absence,
and a stepmother’s abuse
and more destructive bonds than I can count.
But in that moment I felt my stomach sink like I ate a thousand pieces of osmium.
I didn’t know what to say,
so I didn't say anything.
I just sat there. Listening,
hearing James tell me he might be dying of testicular cancer
and hearing him break down for the first time in years.
I remember knowing I had to be strong,
having to accept the role of the calm optimistic girlfriend as I sat there assuring him he was okay,
that the doctor would just say it’s just a bump,
not a tumor,
not a deadly thing that could rip my best friend away.

For the next few days I was in a daze
simply floating through classes and waiting until I got to talk to him next,
waiting until he got the results back.
He was a wreck and so was I
but I never let him know how scared I was,
I just sat there and promised him I’d be there no matter what
no matter what the test results said.
I never let my voice quiver when we were on the phone,
but right when the call would end
I’d walk empty to my room and let the tears slide down my face.
I’d stay there for a couple minutes,
fix my makeup,
then go back and text him
and eat
and act normal with friends.
I love him too much to show how scared I was
I knew it’d scare him.
A week before I got the call James and I were talking about words,
when he asked me what word I despise,
I said
‘Almost’
and when he asked why
I explained to him that
almost means that us humans came to the brink of something amazing but fell short just so many times that we made a word for it.
The day I got that call I officially changed my least favorite word to malignant.
Malignant is the reason my sister died three days before my birth,
malignant is the reason my mother killed herself,
malignant is the reason I own my uncles Rv,
malignant is the reason I dyed my hair pink for a 12 year old girl
and the reason Sierra stopped attending school
Malignant is the reason my stepmother doesn’t have a daughter.
Malignant means I spent three weeks vomiting every morning while I waited for the doctor to finally get the results back from the tumor that sprouted over the summer
as I worried at age 13 if I would end up inheriting my families genes,
ones with holes where being healthy is supposed to be.
Malignant is the cause of almost,
because every cancer patient I’ve known has come so close to something beautiful but just fell too short.

A few days later I learned that almost can be a beautiful word
when I heard in a voice more sunshine than sorrow
“It was almost bad,
I’m okay though,
it’s not cancer,
it’s just a weird blood vessel.
I don’t even need surgery, I’m not going to die.”
and I remember laughing like the joker
as every feeling of
fear and
doubt was ripped from my body in an instant,
and I remember him laughing along.
I learned a lesson that day,
that no matter how strong someone is and how much they care for you
there will still be times when they need you to be strong for them.
When you have to shove aside your feelings and simply tell them that
everything will be okay,
because in the end sometimes that’s all someone needs to hear.

I'm the black of the night sky and you are the stars.
Without me you wouldn't shine so bright,
But without you, oh I'd be so empty.