I'm drinking
and
I'm crying over you.
Again.

Do you remember those nights we used to share,
when the sunrise was our reminder
that it was getting a little too late.
And when you'd look at me and tell me
"you have so much to live for. and I love you."
And how we would hold hands all the time,
like a thousand earthquakes
and the wrath of God himself couldn't separate us.
Do you remember how we'd sing songs in your car,
like the summer breeze was a melody,
and it was our mission to sing it,
and the way we would finish each other's sentences by accident?
How I would stay up late writing about the stars I found in your eyes,
and the heaven in your hands,
because nobody had a way with words like you did,
and whether you admit it or not you knew your way around the pen pretty **** well.
And those fights we got in,
those glorious fights,
when we'd swear to god we hated each other
but we both knew we only wanted to be loved just a little bit more.
And how we fell in love so young,
and it was like water into wine,
from daylight kisses to hands on thighs,
and they always warn me about it
but I’d just say ***** it,
we're young because teenagers have a way to find such beauty in naivety.
Do you remember that day I walked through the rain,
and although it felt like a ******* hurricane
your touch warmed me up like a cup of hot chocolate on a snowy day,
and we'd always joke how I couldn't run a mile
but when it was to see your face
we both knew I could walk a hundred.
And we can't forget the first time we saw Marina & the Diamonds,
and we sang every word,
and you seemed scared to sing along
but I’d look over and see how into it you were.
I knew that once you spread your wings there was no way to stop you,
and you came running back to me with the biggest smile on your face
and I knew it'd be one of those moments we'd never forget.
And then there was that day
when I messed up and the scars on my legs
bled worse than they ever have before,
and you could have left me out to sting
but you opened your arms and held me and said
"it's gonna be okay.”
And you just held me.
And I know I bring it up all the time,
but you can't tell me you've forgotten the night we fell in love,
and my nervous hands were shaking
It was one of those moments that people sing songs about
because it only happens once in a lifetime,
and I still remember.
We’d walk under the night sky together.
And when we laid down into the grass,
we didn't even exchange a look;
it was like the stars guided us into each other's arms
and when our eyes met we lowered our walls
and all those years we'd been beaten down from the inside out disappeared,
and there was threat of an invasion,
that was clear,
but it was worth the risk.
And the second our lips touched,
it was like we were thrown into sea together,
left to fend for ourselves.
Us against the world.
Together.
And I'll always remember how we had to run back to your mom's car,
because we'd lost track of time looking at the stars,
and that ride home was the best of our young lives.
And I know we drifted,
and I learned how to be a **** up,
but you've always been able to read in between my lines,
and on the nights where there's nothing separating me between sleeping and siren lights,
I know that I'm a phone call away from my first love.
And looking back someday,
I hope you remember me not as
"that girl you were with for 16 months"
or the girl who took your virginity,
but "that kid who loved you with her entire heart."
And who still does.

I think back to when everything was simple,
when he was alive and we were all whole
but then he broke us and we never fit back together.
Life used to be carefree
tentative smiles and excitement over coffee shops
and we all had so much potential
and drugs were the plastic bottles in our bathrooms,
taken with caution.
I think of how many friends I used to have,
and how everything has been superficial
since we all put ourselves in plastic boxes on unreachable shelves.
These days I have no motivation and I want to see the sun.
Happiness is as fleeting as the snow on the ground
before the wind sweeps it up high above the trees.
I used to be the snow, and I didn't care where I landed.
That's why I wasn't very surprised
when he took advantage of my innocence and unstable hold on reality.
But that doesn't mean that sometimes I don't still shudder
when people come near me,
or wonder if I look broken to them.
I remember his eyes,
innocent,
as they ask for forgiveness,
and I didn't have the heart to tell him
that he had taken the last thing that meant anything to me,
or that he was the last straw when I made that fateful decision last year,
or that I STILL wake up gasping from having nightmares starring him,
or that he causes me to stay up late into the night feeling completely alone.
That he stole my already feeble ability to say
"no."
But I'm wiser now,
so I forgave him even though his arms felt like needle ****** when he hugged me.
Recovery is long,
and some might say I'm not recovered at all.
It's been a year but I still think about death every day.
I'm in love, but I hate myself every second I'm not with him.
But none of that matters,
because now I know that I will always choose pain over oblivion.
I've found a delicate balance that can be destroyed by one gust of wind,
but I'm trying to be better,
and that's more than I've ever been able to say.
I don't want to say that a song saved my life
but the song is his voice when he tells me he loves me,
and the screams in my head when I don't want to continue,
because at least I know I'm alive.
Sometimes I miss the people who have left me and the girl I used to be,
but it's over now,
and it's best not to dwell on things that I can never change.
Because recovery isn't the number of days passed,
but allowing time to heal you.
It's allowing yourself to feel better,
because only you can give yourself that permission.
It's learning to love yourself,
and to accept everything in stride.
But most of all,
recovery is forgiveness.
Forgiving others for what they've done to you,
but more importantly yourself,
in any condition,
the way the shore forgives the tide
which leaves
but always comes back for more,
because the ocean loves the sand more than we can comprehend,
and that's how we should all love ourselves:
unconditionally and during all weather.

You.
You.
You.

He moseyed on over to me,                                 I
stammered a shy
hello,

He smiled sweetly as my gaze                           fell
to his hands and wrists
where promises might show.

There was something about him,                      in
his eyes I saw something
broken, something dying inside.

I ached to fix him, repair him,                          love
him back to life, bring the fire back
into his eyes, make him mine.

We whispered a promise of forever,                with
his little finger wrapped around
my own.

I meant it, and I never did take                        him
for a liar, so I’m living three hundred
miles away thinking I’m not alone.

Everyone talks about depression as if they know it.  
But what they don’t know
is that depression is a hooded figure standing just outside of a wooden doorway,
it’s feeling the blood dripping down your skin and having the sick thought of
“Oh, look how beautiful the red is”
Depression is lying on your bed for hours on end,
salt tracks lining your face like the scars on your ankles,
staring at your ceiling
tracing patterns in the paint and accepting death in life with this hole in your chest
because death is a reward,
an escape from this pain you deserve to feel.
Depression is writing sick poetry on skin and publishing it with scars,
cutting on ankles,
not wrists
because you’re scared you’ll get in trouble
but you so desperately need to be seen,
and never are.
Depression is writing the word “alone”
and seeing the word
“home”,
accepting the pain like a gift because you deserve it.
Depression is admitting suicidal thoughts to paper and not to people,
and loving the broken things,
hoping to tie them together,
thinking maybe things will get better,
but knowing that’s just wishful thinking.
Depression is hearing your mother call you monster and disgusting
through the too-thin walls of your door
when she thinks you can’t hear,
and then telling you to your face that you have no right to cry,
as if sadness is a privilege and you’re so pathetic that you don’t deserve it.
Depression is shutting yourself up in your room
and hearing your family laughing downstairs
because you feel like you can’t be a part of them
and learning at a young age to love family always
but that family isn’t always love
Depression is wanting to take
love and your heart
and break them into tiny little pieces and throw them into waves,
to throw them away
Depression is a foot when the shoe hasn’t been broken in yet,
is when you haven’t broken life in,
is seeing happy people and thinking they all look the same,
like the front covers of magazines
with smiles reaching their eyes when yours can’t.
Depression is wishing you could package your smiles
into tiny little piles and hand them to people more deserving of them
because you know you’re wasting them with half-assed lines of
“I’m fine.”
Depression is having to view your past
as if it wasn’t yours.
Depression is a hooded figure standing just outside
of a wooden doorway
and when you close the door out of fear
it keeps pounding,
possessive,
******,
and when you open the door out of anger you shout,
“I’M SCARED”
to thin air
but your voice comes out as a whisper.