you know those scenes in the movies where everything kinda slows down and you don't hear voices but music, and it's probably acoustic, but also happy too and everything is gold because of the sun and the people's smiles and you stare at the screen and just feel that maybe life is gonna be okay ?
that's how I feel about you.
yeah life gets crazy sometimes and I get anxious and moody and frustrated, but then I look at you and life feels better, and everything sorta turns gold.

why, what's wrong?*

sometimes everything, sometimes nothing, sometimes i don't even know.  

depression shows up uninvited and makes a home in my chest.

Mom says it's teenage hormones. Dad says I'm over-dramatic about it.

But I'm getting worse, not better. I'm anxious constantly, suffering from attacks ranging from small to so severe I grow ill. Thinking I could end my life should any of my fears become real was my only comfort, but even that has abandoned me. For I am a coward who cannot take her own life for fear of the unknown. A craven, afraid of deaths pain but still longing for his freeing slumber.

Apparently this is something all teenagers go through. Wanting to stay in bed all day playing dead and pretending the world can't hurt me when it can break through my windows and torture me to death whenever it pleases. Apparently every teenager sits around, wanting to die but too afraid to end it. We all cry from our pure terror of things we are too afraid to speak of, too afraid to make real with words, too afraid to even think of for too long.

I've been practicing this breathing exercise. I do it in sets of 3, sometimes sets of 5. It's funny, because usually when I do things in sets, it must be 4 or 14 or 24. Move my fingers from pinky to thumb 14 times on both hands in synch. Things like that. I don't like 3, and 5 is iffy. But the breathing exercises that distract me from wanting to rip my own flesh off must be done in 3s or 5s, apparently.

My mind is not my best friend, but sometimes, it pretends to be. It tries to convince me that mother is right. That I'll outgrow suicidal thoughts spanning as long as I can remember and severe anxiety and depression so intense it eats me alive and makes me want to gnaw my skin off, but it makes me want to float to the bottom of the ocean or fly off a cliff and be free in much quieter ways.

Falling from a cliff wouldn't be quiet. It would be messy and the wind would be in my hair and I'd make a splat as I hit the ground. But I imagine drifting down like a feather, my soul leaving my body before the destruction and my body dissolving like dust, scattered to the wind.

I am thinking of flying and vainly wishing my parents are right, that I will outgrow mental illness and that I'm over-dramatizing it somehow, because my feelings and thoughts are overdramatic and counselors and therapists are liars, since according to father they're wrong when they say they're afraid I'm becoming a danger to myself, because mom and dad say they're wrong, mom and dad say I'm not dangerous to myself I'm just stupid and senseless and an attention ***** who is too scared to die, while other, much more vibrant and amazing people are dying and deserve the air in my lungs and aren't getting it.  

This is turning into a mess, like the one I'd make if I threw myself off a cliff. So I'll stop here and wonder if my heart can stop from the empty hopelessness choking it, as well.

We are critical.

We find flaws in
everything we see
because nobody
wants to write
about perfection,
even though sometimes
we wish we could just stay
staring into that
unblemished surface.

2. We are never satisfied.

We live our lives upon
mountains of
scrunched up
bits of refill and
ideas we gave up
trying to
express.

3. We never forget.

We write words about
eye contact made
three months ago
that we replay over
and over in our minds
even though it
stopped
being relevant.

4. We are fickle.**

Our emotions flash
from one
to the other
like strobe lighting that
disorientates us
until we feel as if
the world
will never be still.

5. We are exposed.

We don't know how
to keep our feelings
to ourselves so
we'll write them
down for
you to find
'accidentally'.

6. We are vulnerable.

We wear our
hearts on our sleeves
and won't lift a
muscle to fight back
if somebody tries
to break it
because we thrive
from the pain.

7. We will never stop.

We will never stop
feeling and
we will never stop
hurting,
we will never stop
breaking and
bleeding and
loving
even though the cycle
is endless
and we know what's
coming next.


We are addicted
to agony,
but we agonise
for the art.

"I don't feel anymore."
"I really envy that."

I turned on my side, the sun was peering through the window and laying ribbons of its light across her bare body. "You shouldn't envy that, Reno."

"Why shouldn't I?"
"Okay. Well, why do you?"

Her hand waved a lock of blond from obstructing her icy-blue sight. I could see the shadows of birds dance across her torso and past her face. "I'm afraid," her words spiraling from her mouth, "and I don't want to be."

"Afaid of what?"
"Everything. The world. Hunger. Bleach stains. Failure. ****** knuckles and the look of the person as they clench their nose, teary eyes and all. This. My father finding me. Dying before I get to do everything I want to do. Validation. I'm afraid of everything and I'm too young to be afraid of everything. I need two to four more years, tops."

Ten, twenty, and fifty seconds rained down the window. It felt like the wall of an aquarium, and us the aqua-blue evolution.

Rolling to her side, her hand blossomed around the curvature of my face, as I didn't know what to say. "Josh," her breath evaporating into syllables, "I'm too young for the world, so help me forget, okay?" My eyes followed her soft fingertips capped by lily fingernails, as her index and ******* walked from my stomach to between my legs.


After we made love, the water lowered on top of our heads and bodies as the steam rose. My hair was flattened against my skull, and her's gripping her back. Soap slid across her *******; lathering her abdomen, I asked her if I could see the soap. Reno scrubbed my chest and leaned into kiss me before placing it into my hand.


"When you're famous, who do you think you'll sleep with," she asked while stirring her coffee. Placing the muddy spoon on the table, she looked and added, "Who's your celebrity crush?"

"I'm not sure," I sipped my coffee before placing it next to my bagel,"I don't know."

"It's okay, buck. I know you'll forget about me when you become big, so just say."

I couldn't believe it.

"Okay, well, what's your wish, Reno?"

"What do you mean?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"Say who you'd sleep with."

"Well, after I carelessly throw you to the side, I'll probably sleep with Parker Posey. Then, I'll go on a date with Emma Watson and hope that goes well," I regretted the way I spoke. "Like, I can understand the question, but what's up with the second part about me leaving you?"

Reno flicked the side of her coffee cup, and then drummed. "I don't know."

"I can't do the whole you feeling like you're not good enough for me. You are. You just are. I don't want it to happen because I really like you, but I won't allow myself to go farther if you insist on the... I mean, what's wrong?"

"I don't know," she she flicked her coffee cup harder, "I don't know."

"You know, Reno. You can tell me."

Tears sat at her eyes and they disappeared in the glare, as she looked out the cafe window. "It's not easy, you know."

"What isn't?"

"Loving you," she began to rip at the skin around her thumbnail,"it's not easy because I'm afraid. I'm afraid because it might be real."

Her eyes shifted towards me, the way her hair broke the echo of sunlight. Cancer cells.

"I'm dying, Josh. Whether you love me too or not, for one year to ten to never, you'll be with other girls because I'm dying. And that's that."

will we remember each other in the future, love?
will we keep in contact, or the days will separate us?
will we cross each other minds as we used to?
will we cross paths one day?


                                                              ­                                                will we meet again?