at the age of 8
i was diagnosed
with celiac disease
gluten left holes within
my stomach
ulcers grew on the walls
and wreaked havoc
within my body

now at the age of 21
i consume gluten
without a second thought
leaving the pains within
feeling like death

it is kind of funny
in a way
as i am getting older
i am realizing

i've been eating gluten
these past few years
as a way of killing myself
as a way of letting all
of the darkness win

as a way of letting
myself feel pain
if not emotionally
than physically

So many people these days
continue life in the gray area

we are too afraid
to use the voice we were born with
the voice that we have every right to
we are too afraid
to feel the emotions we were born with
the emotions that we have every right to

we sit in this gray area
and waste life away
watching life pass us by
as we become soulless corpses
too afraid to move or speak

but

why are we afraid
of using the two things
we were naturally born with
why are we afraid
to speak up
to feel emotions

use your voice
feel your emotions

tell your friend they hurt you
tell that boy or girl how you feel
tell that person you don't like that

as a human being on this earth
you are given every right
to your voice
and
your emotions

use them

i gave you
your two letters
two days ago

the letters
that explained
everything

how you
simply made me trust
how you
simply made me feel
how you
simply were genuine

and now i have
not heard a single word
from you

and i
am on my own

once again

when the ****
as a society
did we decide it was okay
to normalize and romanticize
being numb

i have done
more harm than good
by numbing my emotions
for the last 14 years

i have hurt friends and family
by numbing it all
but more importantly
i have hurt myself
by numbing it all

so as a society i say
we start saying this

**** the numbness

feel it all
feel every last bit of pain
feel every last bit of hurt
feel every last bit of anger
feel every last bit of happiness

you will flourish now darling

there was a time
in my life
where i would go
to these populated bars
where it was packed
like a can of sardines
looking for someone
to numb the pain

only
when you enter
these bars and clubs
do you realize how
empty it actually is

how empty these souls are
how everyone here
is numbing something
running from something

a few hundred people
in a bar and
all i feel is lonelier than ever
i see through the *****

we're all lonely here

one of my earliest memories
is the day my grandmother
taught me how to float in the pool
it took me a few tries
before she let go of my body
above the water

she let me go
all on my own
without me even realizing

i remember looking over at her
and seeing her
great big smile
she then said to me

my girl
this is a life lesson
never believe that you need
to hold onto someone
to get things done
know that all you have is yourself
and know you are strong enough
to hold yourself up all on your own

its funny you know
looking back
on where i was a year ago
lost
and
hurt
begging for you to return

now you have returned
and all i can wish is for you to leave
i am worth so much more than what you have given me
i am strong
i am beautiful
i am creative
i am me

and you will not change that

they say when you meet your soul mate
you will know instantly
but how do we decipher in that very moment
the difference between love and lust

in those few seconds our eyes meet
how are we suppose to know
if this is a devil in disguise

i want the pain i carry inside
to bleed from the pen
instead of my wrists
i want the pain i carry inside
to turn emotions into words

i want the pain i carry inside
to bleed from my mouth
and fill the broken souls
who read my creations

i want to bleed from the inside out

we live in a world
where the mans
voice outshines the woman's

but doesn't society realize
the women carries you
inside her womb for 9 months
she takes care of not only herself
but the child she bares

she feeds herself and you
she nurtures herself and you
through every foot pain
every bit of exhaustion
she carries you

the next time a man
tells you your voice
is not worth his time
or societies time

remind him
that the woman
is a warrior
she is a QUEEN

darkness
my old friend
turned lover
turned enemy

i have missed you
creeping up on me in the night
stealing my blankets

leaving me cold
in the middle of winter
where daylight savings
does not exist
and there is only you

darkness

in college i was asked
if i could compare myself to anything
but a human
what would i be

most of the class
said a tree
the ocean
a flower
the wind
but not me

i am an onion
hardened on the outside
but as you take your finger
and peel
and peel
and peel

you find that
the layers of my life
have left you in tears
happy
or sad

that choice is up to you

i hope one day
if not soon
you see that
her and i
do not have the same
hair color
skin color
eye color

my name is mine
and hers is hers
we are different sizes
we have different voices
my history is more than a few
textbooks you receive throughout high school
where hers is just a chapter

she is easy you see
and me
well i am complicated
i am the destruction left in the wake
of when a hurricane and tsunami meet

please stay
even though i am rough
but know
i am not her
i am me

i am locked within a cage
of my own making
my hands and feet are ******
from trying to climb these walls
made of my own bones and hatred

i am screaming please don't leave
but by the time the words
make their way up to my mouth
from this prison
only the word
leave
escapes my mouth

My name is Erin
and i was *****
at the age of 7

it has taken me
14 years of my life
for those 13 words to escape
my hollow mouth

the only questions i come to now
is why
why lock me in that room
why take everything from me
my innocence
my purity
my childhood

in that room
where my family trusted you
where i trusted you
the night terrors i have to this day
still haunt my mind

like a never ending
drive in movie that plays
over
and
over
only the moon in the night sky
isnt made to be found here
there is no light in these terrors

i cant sleep this time of year
because every time i do
its you
in that room
locking the door
shutting the windows
******* me
yelling at me
every single night
i close my eyes

it has taken me 14 years
to accept the fact that i was taken by you
i have been numb ever since
left in the dust
rotting away at the core
thinking i was nothing
thinking i deserved nothing
because you took everything

but not anymore
i will recover from this
i am strong enough
i believe in myself
i believe in my own happiness
and i promsie
that when i have children one day
i will never ever let them rot at the core
i will find happiness
the darkness will not take over this time

you are not who
everybody wants you to be

you are you
and that is far
more than enough

if you take advantage
of someone's weaknesses

that is
n o t
love

when you are a little girl
they tell you
how to act
how to talk
how to smile
to always be forgiving

but how do we forgive
the man who couldn't help
but force his own body onto us
without consent

how do we stay quiet
and not speak up
when his fist meets our throat
and the bruises look of a
red and purple painting
mashed together with pain on our skin


i want to be like a vibrant watercolor painting
u n f o r g i v i n g

for the first time
in 1,460 days
since i have laid eyes on you
i feel okay

i am standing on my own two feet
without you

i look around to find you
in the crowd
not out of excitement
but out of fear
of your fist finding my neck
once again

its like the weight of the world
has been lifted off my back
the weight of your world
has been lifted out of my life

i am free
never to be consumed by you

ever again

i want all of the hate
i have for my body
to seep out of every hole

until there is nothing left
but my hollow self
to fill with only

s e l f     l ov e

if i drench my body in coconut oil
will it cleanse my soul
of all the darkness
of all the pain

if i drench my body in coconut oil
will i be happier
will it fix the cracks within soul
and mend it all together

if i drench my body in coconut oil
will it erase the bruises you left on my body
will it erase the emotional ones too

you have showered my soul
with light
with love
with softness
with ease

always asking permission
always seeking to
make me laugh
to smile

and you do it every time
every **** time

you sit there knowing
i could have
thrown myself at any man
in the room
yet before i get a chance
you stop me

you stopped my numbness
this numbness i have had for years
thank you for making me feel
for showing me i am worth it
for showing me i can be soft
for showing me light
for showing me genuine true laughter

tonight i showed
my friend all the pieces
i have written

my past
my present
my future
all of them

i dont know if she liked them
and in all honesty
i dont care
if she truly does

because i do
these are MY words
this is MY story

and no one
not even you
can take that
from me

Do you have any idea

how you make me feel
how you make my soul feel
like it is finally home
after a long tiresome journey

a journey in which day felt like night
a journey where i was not sure
when i would reach the destination
or where the destination was exactly

but then you
oh you

the moment my soul felt yours
the moment our eyes met across the bar
i knew right then
right there

i was home

finally

what am i doing wrong
to have lost
who i thought was the
love of my life

if you are not
the love of my life
like i thought you were
how could i trust myself with anything?

i have learned nothing is set in stone
a person can wake up one day
and not love you anymore
hell
they may not have even loved
you at all

and now i am
rambling my feelings
because i am so
******* lost

you broke me
into a million little fragments
and im trying to glue myself back together
but each time i do
a gust of emotions
hits me like the wind
and sends the pieces
to the ground again

and i start over
every ******* time

im lost
and you broke me

i am lost
i am alone
i feel like im drowning
in a sea of emotions
yet i feel nothing

i watch as everyone around me
moves and bustles through life
while i stand here
time frozen
in this cold darkness

im trying to swim to the surface
every time i get close
i get dragged under
more
and more

im running out
of breathe now
i can feel my heart
beating fast
the pressure on my chest
is too much to bare


suddenly,
everything goes black

How am I to teach myself
that rage is not love
that abuse is not love
that hurt is not love
that forcefulness is not love
when that is all i have ever known

when you are gentle
you do not speak in anger
you never raise your voice
you always smile
you always make me laugh
only kindness ever leaves your mouth


i feel like a child again when i am with you
before all the badness took over my life

i am hard
rough around the edges

but you
oh my you

you are so soft
your edges aren't even edges at all
they're soft landings

like the way a dandelion falls
onto the grass so gracefully
in the middle of spring

you are my hope again

you are my new beginning

you turned my world upside down
you're the one who abused me
you're the one who took advantage of me
you're the one who taught me
to keep a stone cold heart

and now

now here i am
sitting at this computer
with nothing but my tears
and my stone cold heart is crumbling to pieces
ice is falling from my chest

while you sit there on your cruise
laughing in the sun
playing in the ocean
dancing to the beat of the rhythm of somone elses heartbeat
intoxicating your body to escape the memories of me
is it working?
does it not hurt for you?
how do you do it?

i spent months and months asking myself
why was i not enough for you

was i not thin enough?
was i not pretty enough?
did you want me to change my hair color?
did i laugh too  much?
was my voice too annoying?
were my thighs too big?
was i not smart enough?
was i not domestic enough?
was i not wild enough?
did i not drink enough?
did i not smoke enough?
was i not careless enough?

395 days of me waking up each morning
and having these questions flood my brain
until i fell into bed and everything went black
only when my eyes shut for a few hours
would these questions stop

it has been 395 days of pure hell inside my brain
but i am learning now that it is not that i was not enough
i was too much

i gave you too much love
too much laughter
too much adventure
too much of everything you wanted
that you took complete advantage of

i will be okay

i hope you're happy where ever you are now

They say yellow is the happiest color
yet all the arguments in our house
were always in our yellow kitchen

They say yellow is the happiest color
yet the bruises from the marks you left on my body
would turn yellow after a few days
and i could not bare the touch of anything
on them for weeks

They say yellow is the happiest color
yet the first time you ever ravished me in pain
the sun was setting across the deep blue ocean
after a dark storm had passed
and the whole sky turned yellow

They say yellow is the happiest color
yet when i now think of pain the first thing
that comes to mind is not you,
it is your favorite color that does,
yellow


                                             e.s.