I walked to buy some Marlboro Reds
the kind I always used to smoke when I lived at home
with my parents
"Cowboy Killers"
"Coffin Nails"
My mom would relentlessly criticize my choices.
I tried to drown myself most nights,
but my parents broke the lock on my bathroom door
and stopped me, taking to a country hospital in-patient
facility.
I felt alone, and my shoes were stripped of laces.
But I drew a picture in an art therapy session
of my car driving over a bridge
like the one I'm crossing now,
that spans a creek I don't notice for the first time.
It was a clear day, in my picture, but I had been stripped
of my car keys, as well.

It is a clear day today, too, but it is still Nebraska
and the wind is blowing
and I still want to swerve into traffic, on foot.

My family liked my picture, and made allusions
to helping me cross this metaphorical bridge.
No one asked me about the way I imagined the bridge ending,
how I would fall over the edge and die.
But I successfully crossed the overpass, alone,
my shoes permanently tied.

When I got to the counter, the cashier made me aware
that the prices had gone up since 2006.
I had expected this, but they were already expensive
before
for my body, for my lungs.
I was thirty
pounds overweight back then
and ate mostly fast food, and cheese tortillas,
but the body I carry now seems heavier.

I wear earplugs to combat
the unrelenting flow of traffic
and people going to their houses, families.
I try to fabricate a reason to tell my parents
I won't be there
for Thanksgiving.
But I can't,
I just won't go.

I walk harder now.
The trouble I had breathing
as a fat schmuck
remains
as a skinny schmuck
and I go back inside
to ask for matches at the counter.

I just want to smell the sulfur strike
it reminds me of the chemicals my father used at work
and it is extinguished by the Fall wind, like I knew it would.
But still, I stood behind the gray gas station
the red trim.
I find this oddly exhilarating
this moment,
this fading scent,
from failed matches,
reminds me of when I got a friend to buy me cigarettes
in middle school
and I hid them in my room, until my parents went away.

I took them and the matches, to my parents' porch
and smoked one, imagining my neighbors saw me
imagining they cared.
The crinkle of the foil, the match strike--
these were the experiences I wanted.
And the nicotine.
But I did not want the coffin nails
for the dead cowboys.

I had a lighter with me, though.
I knew I'd have to light one.
I pull it from my pocket and inhale.

I had removed my ear plugs to ask for the matches
and all I hear is wind and vehicles.
I start to walk across the bridge a second time
I spit on the dying grass
that hangs in the dry chill
between the cracking sidewalk
in front of a gas station employee
getting off
her shift.
Her shadow races mine, and I am going to win.

I don't feel the nicotine yet, but I expect it to
kick in
as I listen
for a sign of life, not drowned out by thoughtless travel
for a moment,
I hear some young birds, sqwuaking under the overpass
spanning a creek
no one takes time to look
but I do.
All that collects there is trash.
There was a torn, Tar Heels hat on a rock, in the water, once.

I start to think again. It's working.
I'm open
Enlivened by the sound of hatchlings,

I hear young birds!
But I can not see
an anachronistic Spring
in my step, I am sure
for the first time in weeks.
I imagine having hope
and stride, watching my shadow crash
against the concrete ditch, relentlessly.

Suddenly, I realize,
what I thought were baby chicks
bound to freeze
were clanging coins
in my pocket which
I couldn't distinguish
until I'd passed into a parking lot, away from cars.

My momentum faltered.
The ******* my knee-support lost its velcro hold
and before I knew it
I was under the leaf-less trees
where red berries dangled
and no squirrel felt brave enough to ****** them.
I thought of reaching up and grabbing one,
but I knew no one else would think this seemed brave.

I smoked the cigarette until it burnt my finger,
then put the **** in the receptacle beneath my stairs
and went inside.
Enabled by the substance, inside my body just ten minutes,
to write again
19 times.

Can't breathe
Can't see
Can't Speak
I'm drowning
The harder I try the further down I fall
My air is running out
my lifelines are calling in a rain check when I need them the most
Everything around me is getting dark
Slowly getting darker and darker
All the words that I want to say get stuck in my through waiting to tumble out at any give moment
but stuck together
They'll never suspect a drowning
Accidental or intentional
I've been fighting for so long
With on one else on my side
beaten and worn
My oxygen levels are falling
Heart rate slowing
maybe then I'll find some peace of mind
Can't breathe
Can't see
Can't speak
Slowly drowning
just tired of it all
No one will ever suspect a drowning.

It’s not pre-show jitters or first day butterflies, it’s a different kind of fear.

I close my eyes, I am 11 years old again, my mother yells that we have to leave in 10 minutes. And so it begins. I start shaking, I run to the bathroom with a stomach ache that was nonexistent less than a minute ago. I walk into the living room, sit on the couch and let the flood gates open, screaming, crying anything to try to excorsize the demon taking over my body, tearing me open from the inside out.

They say everyone has their demons, mine, an anxiety disorder.

I am twelve and the panic attacks don’t let up. My anxiety like torrential rain, threatening to flood the city. I have stopped seeing my friends, and leaving my house unless forced. I contemplated suicide often, seeing it as my only escape. My mother brings me to the doctor and I am put on medication and sent to a therapist.

To the outside world I am getting better, Maybe this was just a phase.

I am 13, and off the medication. I had survived my first year of school and even started hanging out with a few people who are now my closest friends. Life was looking up, I could see the light, but that didn’t mean I was out of the tunnel.

But I’m not better. My eyes are dull and my smile is faker than barbie.

I am 14, school is harder, and so is spending time with my “friends.” One girl,  I thought we were equals. It started with a joke, harmless. She would poke me in the back, joking that I would get kidney failure. Then she hit harder, still “joking”. That is when the  rumors started. All because I wore a guy’s shirt and a rainbow bracelet one day. I started to get nervous to go to school, scared that I would have to face her again.

Have you ever tried screaming underwater? And no one can hear you and those who can pretend they don’t? That’s what it’s like, screaming and nobody can hear me.

I am fifteen, sitting on the bus, an already stressful situation. A girl sits with me, as people do. She forces me to either move in or be crushed. I slide against the cold metal of the bus, creating the most amount of space between me and her. But it’s not enough, I start getting a feeling that I knew all too well. I was having a panic attack. My sympathetic nervous system triggers my fight or flight response, my adrenaline levels raise, my body preparing for a war, a battle that will never come, at least not physically. I can’t breath, I can’t speak, I can’t even think. The voices of the people around me blur into indistinguishable mumbles, every light is too bright, every noise too loud.  

All I want to do I go home and drown in a sea of loud music and blankets, warm and safe in my own space. But I have to do what I do every day, and push through the next seven hours pretending to be okay.

And now my mind is not my own. My thoughts fall in to this never ending void of what ifs and could this-es. Spiraling out of control, my own personal self destruct button. I claw at the edges, desperately trying to escape. But how can you escape your own mind? Your own thoughts?

If I have the freedom of speech, why do I feel imprisoned by my words?

This is my life now, I live in constant fear that someday my anxiety will take over my life and never relinquish control. I am scared to look towards the future, because the guess and check method doesn’t work for life.

I have lived my whole life with irrational fear, but now I am truly afraid.

You can achieve and be great
Just try a little harder
Fill your world with knowledge
Make your brain sharper
The opportunity is there
Be sure to have self motivation
Have a strong will to be successful
Along with determination

I'd like to think
That just the taste of your lips
Could wash out every name
That's been on my tongue
I'd like to think
That mine could do the same
For you
But the truth is
I am not whole enough
To be able to fill your vacancy
The truth is
You deserve greater
And so much more
Than what I have to offer
You deserve a girl who won't cry
The first time you make love to her
Someone who isn't broken
Who isn't tainted by past
Someone who isn't scraped from rough hands
Who isn't built of memories and nightmares
You deserve someone who can love without fear
And give you everything
But I am not that someone
I will tremble in your arms no matter how honest they are
At night I will be restless and inconsolable
When the weight of the world is too heavy
I will collapse underneath it
I am not strong
I sometimes struggle in keeping myself intact
And I am filled to the rim with emptiness
You deserve so much more
Than what I can give
But I am capable of loving
Harder than most
I will pour out every last part of myself
Just to give you something to hold
I may not be
What you deserve
But I can try
My best.

Hands are shaking, loud, always loud and in my face
Something is gripping at my heart, hard to breathe, to look them in the face
Tears
I'm crying
Shaking harder, louder, always louder at the tears
Try to make them stop won't you?
It never really works.