"So" the girl in the mirror says, tilting her head at me,
"It seems we've learned something"

If you don't want to look beyond your bubble, you won't see at all
If you want to be in pain, your eyes will start to ache
If you want to wade in darkness, the ugly will fill your sight
If you want only to believe in good, the beauty will blind you

And if you want to see the truth?
Then you open your eyes to everything
And even if you don't like it, you will see what you seek

"So it seems we've learned something" the girl in the mirror sighs,
"You poor, pretty, broken soul
It seems you finally know
You're all beautiful, ugly, hurt and scarred
You are all all of these and you are nothing"

We are nothing other than what we choose to be
So it seems I've learned that we will see what we seek

**I choose to see you as who you are, and not as who I want you to be

Right now,
it smells like old, crumbling stories
from the bookshelves out in the hall
there's a Barbie cup on the desk where I sit
cradling pens that for years have gone unnoticed and unused
I'm surrounded by photos
of young people now old and old people now dead,
and across from me is that faulty router
that brought me up here in the first place

Sometimes there is nothing to write beyond the ordinary
no beauty to behold, no story to be told
and all that is left to capture is
life as it is
before it fades a  w   a    y

I love every bit of myself
down to the last crazy curl and tasty little flaw

But sometimes I get tired
I can't fight the poison I've been spoon-fed anymore
And I start to hate myself

Like when I spend a day watching shows I don't care about
I was overwhelmed, I couldn't figure out what to do first!
When it's 11pm and I still have everything left
The stress tears kick in and I'm kicking myself
I'm so weak, it's all my own fault
And I hate myself

When I take two cookies instead of one,
And it makes my teeth hurt and head ache
When no one's home and I rampage through the kitchen,
This is bad for you, you're killing yourself
But I just want more, more sugar, more
I'm so weak, why can't I control it?
And I hate myself

When I complain about my problems, though they are nothing
nothing
compared to how lucky I am
When I get a bad grade, and even though I know it doesn't define me
I let it
and I hate myself.

But there is one thing I hate myself for more than anything else

*I hate myself most when I wish I could be anyone or anywhere else.

Oh really?* interrogated her cunning eyes, Speak you the truth?
Doubt what you will, mine glowered in return, the ice melting to fragmented liquid between my fingers. **But truth and desire are the same thing, no?

Numbers are swirling in my head
I regret regression
But I have to graph instead
Of a gossip session.

Just when the self-hate and stress tears threaten to spill out

I hear the soft hooting of an owl outside my bedroom window

And all the sudden, I know Im going to be alright.

she follows me everywhere
does what I do
says what I say
brews what I brew

she wears what I wear
and eats what I eat
plays what I play
and meets who I meet

she cries when I cry
and talks how I talk
she drinks what I drink
and walks where I walk

but to think what i think
is not her cup of tea
her name is depression
and her target is me

is it stress?
is it life?
is it trauma?

aches, all over
hurt, all inside
pain, all over
heart, all but died

what's the source?
what's the plan?
what's the use?

But you said, she whispered, her voice laced with poison and smoke. *You said dragons don't exist.
I never said they didn't exist, I breathed, the snow melting beneath our twitching fingers. **I said I'd never seen one. Until now.

is where all the ropes swing free
from the willow branches
with no inhabitants to wish them
a steady tugging downwards into
the grass and magma flowing below