you fall down, you have no choice but to get back up.
when you get back up, you lose something; a piece of your strength, energy, will... something. keeping on is not free.

you spent the day in bed. too exhausted to get up. you're so sick of bed. your body feels angry for being so still. you just didn't have it in you to move around today. this is fatigue. it isn't fair. in fact, it's cruel.

there is no feeling good anymore. there are what some poor souls refer to as "good pain days" which is just another way of saying
"I know what it's like to be in such bad pain that you want to die, and I'm just thankful today's pain was at least not the worst it has ever been"

you're on no kind of schedule. it'd be a blessing just to eat and sleep at normal times, with some regularity. you feel like crap all the time. you gain weight and lose muscle. you feel weak and heavy.

lie in bed. peace of bedtime is a foreign concept,  your body aches to be comfortable, and you may doze off for 3 seconds before jerking awake by inconsiderate muscles that don't really care that you haven't had a solid hour of rest in 2 days.

pills are a blessing and a curse. relief and side effects. they allow you to rest and they mess with your brain. you'll get so sick of taking pills and you'll begin to hate them for needing them.

the very best you see in your future is surviving. that's what fibromyalgia is. your job is getting through the days of pain and exhaustion, the physical and mental detriments that come with it. your life is a fight, and you are so, so, so, so tired of fighting. you always, always, always feel you have no more fight left in you.



you're 21 years old and you fondly and bitterly remember a time (not too long ago) when you thought some things in life would just be givens; career, family, adventure, accomplishments.... health.

you're 21 years old and you learn that you get none of the above. you're too tired, you hurt too much, and this disease seems to only get worse... it seems to have taken everything from you

and then it takes some more.

**** everyone who hurt you.
They were never worth your heart.
**** everyone who turned on you.
Everyone who left after they promised they would stay.
**** all your so-called "friends"
who wanted nothing more than to see you fall.
**** everyone who changed.
Everyone who swore they were different from
everyone else.
**** all the people who lied.
And those that did it behind your back, continuously?
Goes double for those backstabbers.
**** anyone who ignores you.
You aren't worth their time?
They aren't worth one more thought.
**** heroes, you don't need them.
You can be your own.

she understands my heart
she is forgiving
she is kind
she holds me when I don't know why I'm crying
she listens while I try my best to explain why I'm scared, or why I'm anxious, or why I'm sad, or why something means so much to me
and then she never forgets to say, "I'm always here, if you want to talk more"
she has the best taste in music
she got me in the habit of taking my medicine every day
she takes care of me, and pretty much everything else
she cleans the litter box when I'm in too much pain, even though she hates dealing with ****
she even deals with my crazy family

I love her because
she encouraged me to go to all the doctors when I was scared and in denial that I was getting sick
and now
she drives me to every appointment, she sits with me,
waits with me,
and then sometimes she speaks for me because she knows what it sounds like when articulation fails me, and my words get all caught up in my brain, confused on which order to come out

I love her because
she's my good feeling
she makes my stomach flip
she's my favorite smell
she kisses me with soft lips and care
she has little ears and freckles and the best **** smile you've ever seen

I love her because
when I was awful, she loved me
when I was lost in the darkest nights, she made my mind a better place

I love her because I used to spend weeks in storms of dark, listening to sad music and writing sad poetry

and now I write things like this
and listen to ridiculous happy fun music with her and we sing like fools
and she says "thanks for doing life with me"
and I have never been more at peace

All that I need, all I've wanted for years, and even during the lost times, you were pressed under my skin like pure, warm aching. Had to go through it, we say now, had to lose each other entirely then to be heavenly entangled now.
Such great heights only after sunken deep lows.
Let me tell you, angel, I am certain you were made for me, and goodness, believe me, I could never leave.
We stood the test of time.
We endured the distance.
We have conquered demons.
You and I fought a ****** war, and hell if we didn't win it.

you call out
"god help us"
in the quietest voice,
and I hear in it a desperation to be heard.
it's the way a mother would die for her child, as if it were no choice at all.
and the same sort of love that it takes
to stand between bullets
and your sister.
it's how a husband will do anything and everything to protect his wife.
it's what matters.
it's the way it should be.
you would lie down your heart to save what it beats for.
and at the the end of the day,
at the end of time,
it will be what saves us all.

you are a stupid girl with a loaded gun in your chest

you never sleep, you never rest.

i swear you know the way home

and you swear you don’t

everything broke right before your eyes

your smile fell and so did you,

but i didn’t want to fight.

you handed me your heart and said

hold it to the light

they stole many pieces of me.

i thought of what a sight you must have been

young and innocent and whole.

i cried for you, i cried so hard

for what you used to be,

i'm sitting alone in the dark again,

because you never cried for me.

Relationship to relationship
You know how you tie a song to a person
I lost so many songs
Movies and memories
Because you lose the person and the music hurts
But then i met you
And every lyric I ever heard was about you

I'm stuck.
I can't find beautiful sentences to fit these feelings into,
I can't think of an arrangement of colors to describe the way I feel like I am about to explode.
I keep searching for a string of words to fit perfectly like all the ones I read cause I swear I could've written them.
Why don't I ever find the perfect thing to say?
All these things are trapped inside of me and I can't, for the life of me, figure out a safe way to let them out.
They build and build and I feel I am forever looking for my own way to release them,
I just haven't found it yet.
Words call out to me
but never fall out of me.
Never the right ones.

*6.21.13

did i ever tell you how
i fell in love with the moon?
yeah,
she lit up my dark world with her infinite beauty,
so i spent my life following her.
i wore myself down running after her.
sometimes i felt she was drawing closer,
but then she was distant as ever,
so maybe i was just going mad.
sometimes i felt i was giving up all i had.
but the moon was all i ever wanted.
so i stripped myself of the earthly things weighing me down.
i knew i had to learn to fly.
and to learn, i had to fall, so i fell.
but there's no way in hell
i'm giving up my chance at heaven.

Must have been something I did, right?
Or have I just convinced myself of that because I am still completely sure you're flawless?
It's funny, but it's really not, how quickly you changed.
Is it the boy? Come on. Boys are silly. You told me that.
Was it because so many adore you, that it simply wasn't fair?
Or did you get ******* over too many times by those who swore allegiance to you?
Maybe you're just too busy. Yeah, that's the one I tell myself the most. I hope it's that one.
Or did you realize you don't have to care anymore?
You never really did have to. But I thought the world of you when you did.
Why would such an amazing person spend minutes and hours
trying
telling me how to survive
improving me
just to leave?
Maybe this is a test that I'm just barely passing by not saying anything.
Trust me, I am d y i n g to say something. Everything.
But it really does seem like you're gone. I don't care what they say.
They never really knew you.
Maybe I didn't either.
Maybe I am mistaken for thinking you cared.
Maybe you were just being nice. You were so nice.
I won't be angry, though. I can't be. Because you still helped.
Your words saved my life. You told me to be still and suddenly the world was clear.
What did I do? Did I ask for help too many times
without following through?
I tried, I swear to god, I tried so many times to just.. listen.
To stay in one place with one solid thought,
and I tried to make myself better.
Maybe you gave up. That's okay. You wouldn't be the first.
But no matter how many times I say that I am over it, and that I don't need you,
I'm lying. Lying to myself and anyone else who dares mention you to me.
I'm sorry if this is just me clinging to you because you saved me once.
I'm sorry if it's pathetic.
But I'm also really sorry if all the things I think are true.
Because if you really have changed,
if it's not just me,
if you lost that incredible person that you used to be... well,
that's something everyone should be sorry for.

I had a dream that I could
Fly out of your reach
And you could never find me
I had a dream I was free
                     You had a dream that I was always in reach and
I would always return to you
And that you were all I knew    

While you were dreaming, I was leaving.
Because this wasn't love,
It was a jail for the worst.
And maybe your dream would've come true,        
If I hadn't woken up first.

They do not tell you how awful sadness is.
When they romanticize heartbreak and romanticize depression,
they just forgot to mention that it is actually really, really terrible.
And all the little girls grow up wanting to fall
and fall and fall until they spend their nights crying and lonely
because the movies and the books,
they all made it look so meaningful and pretty
and grown up.
They do not tell you how it just sits like a knot in your stomach
and sometimes makes you feel sick
and sometimes feels like all the fallen tears took your soul with them.
They just show you it happens and they tell you it’s supposed to.
All the little girls grew up and fell
and got their hearts broken for it
and found out it’s pointless and ugly
and juvenile
and it hurts.
They find out how awful it is and they do very much wonder why nobody ever told them. They wonder if they just didn’t listen. They wonder if it’s their fault
and they feel stupid.

why do you have to be sad before you appreciate happy? why does that burning inspiration only come when you are in darkness? why do I fill pages while a knot of sadness sits in my stomach? why do the urges to pour out feelings no longer come while I am enjoying my time, myself, my love? why does happiness stomp out creativity like a cigarette in an ashtray and sadness lights it back up with some addictive flame? yes… the sadness might make you sink low, low, low, but that’s where the passion is. when you are low and you don’t understand, you either write about it, draw it out, paint it into vision, you express it in some way, or you **** yourself. you have to do something with all those raw feelings. what about happiness though? happiness is so bright and special, why don’t I want or need to express that? is my happy less than everyone else’s? why are things so right when I’m so broken? I only understand myself in sadness. happiness makes me question everything. sadness feels like being in love. are those the only two things I can really feel? sadness and love?… the only times I feel alive, the only times I feel like me are when I have something to write about, something to consume me in 4am thoughts, something that makes it all so real, to make me need to get it out and appreciate the intensity in another form.

i won't ask for help unless i'm certain i can make it on my own
because if i'm not going to, no help will help

i don't talk about my real feelings
i'd rather to pretend to have the ones i should
so why should anyone trust me?
i'm a liar
i'm a good person, but am i? i say i don't judge
but of course i do; this world is too ******
i'm ****** up from the get go
before my real life started, i was destroyed and just when
i was supposed to find freedom
i had to find survival first
i'll never say what i want; i don't think i deserve it
i will not ask for anyone to understand
i always think i've done something wrong
that's a feeling i am used to

i'm supposed to be most dangerous because i know i can survive?
how about -- i'm your weakest link because i am deathly afraid to go back to where i've been?
i'm supposed to know i have the strength
i'm supposed to use what i've been through to my advantage
how about -- you could knock me out with a good plan and a nice final leaving line?
how about -- you could hit me in the face and i would feel, deeply, that i deserved it?
what if i told you i feel that i am the most vulnerable soul walking the earth, and i can barely stand to type it because, well... who is going to use it against me?
they tried to crush me when they thought i was strong.
they did.

how soft you spoke
when you asked, "really?"
as i held the ring out in front of you,
or how my heart was in my throat,
and the warm relief spilling over me when you said you would.

   two days later when we slept all day,
woke in the dark to a heap of problems,
we solved them and i felt we could do anything together. we spent hours and hours through the night together. just together. cold breezes hitting us, the world was asleep, my heart was quietly admiring yours and you laughed so much that night.

   the way you look sleeping next to me now. the sound of soft snoring always calming me. my advice the world would be, "find the one whose snoring you find perfect when you never even imagined something like snoring could be precious to you"

I will love you for the rest of my days and beyond. I will always save you. You make me believe in life, love, and higher powers. After all, this had to have been God-willed fate. I believe something more powerful than us created us for one another.
I will always want to give you everything, I will always take too many pictures of you, and tell you all the ways I find you perfect, tell you every part of you I have fallen in love with you. You may not believe me, and you may get oh so tired of my doting, but I will continue to try to convince you that I love every single piece of you, your heart, your soul, your mind. Were you made that way for me? Or was I made to love you?
And I will never forget these moments, or the beautiful million before them, because they're everything. You're everything to me.

I want to tell every addict in the world how high I get looking at you.
When I'm looking at you, I never want that blade again. I never want anything else in my lungs but your breath. I don't want anything shooting up my nose but the smell of you every time we finally meet again. I don't want anything running through my veins, except this burning love.
When I'm looking at you, everything makes sense.
God help me if I ever have to go through withdrawal again.
You're in my veins,  you're making me see things.

Heartbreak and loneliness,
poetry and sad music,
depression and hopelessness.
That's what I'm good at. Experienced in.
I've always planned for day it didn't work out.
I thought of the songs I'd listen to,
the lyrics that would take over my statuses,
the sad, sad words that would fill my journals.
I would cry at the quotes from movies
about love and loss.
I wouldn't speak to anyone else,
I wouldn't start anything new for quite some time,
because,
well,
I wasn't going to get over you.
I wouldn't be ready to move on for such a long time.
There would be an era in my life devoted to you
and the hole in my heart
and the playlists about you
and the darkness in the middle of the night
and tears pouring down my face
and screaming in frustration why I couldn't keep you.
All I've envisioned for the past year
and three months
and two weeks,
was the horrible, awful time I was going to have
when you left me.
But I never planned for the day that you would stay.

I am yin
And you are yang
While I don't always see
Light within the day
You are facing the sun
And I live in the dark
But still I love you
More than all the stars

*3.5.13

You found me entangled in nothing after you lost me a few years ago. I'm so content for the first time time to be blissfully existing in your love, I'm so finally happy, living between the moments when we both need each other and the ones we comfortably know love. I'm yours no matter how long you are mine. I can hope for eternity while my heart knows you'll never leave.

time will build us up and tear you down
love with fill us with hope and **** the life right out of you
and i just stood there, unaware and naive,
crying in my driveway
i'd give anything to believe in it all as much as i did then.
i trusted that everything would work out.
it's nothing compared to what could be, but it was everything.
some lessons should have never been learned. some may have ruined us. some made us strong by turning bones to stone, skin to ice.
beautiful melody,
my lyrics fit you perfectly.
but for a heart so cold, a mind so numb,
perhaps silence is the remedy.

hard, unfair, hopeless
silence.

I am emotional and emotionless. I love myself, I hate myself. I am happy, I am sad. I am so so sad. I want to get married. I hate the thought of it. I would love to have a baby with you. That’s a horrible idea. Maybe I should end this, I want this to last forever. Don’t ever leave me, I don’t need you. I feel great, everything hurts. Everything.. hurts. I want to die, waste of life. I want to die, I want to stay. I want to die, I’ll be here for you. I want to be your everything, I can’t handle that. I can’t sleep, I’m so tired. I need help, no I don’t, I’m fine. I’m fine, I’m falling apart. I’m not okay, can’t tell. Terrified of truth, it’s ripping my insides out.
and
I hurt.

i don't think i could ever comprehend
the wildfire you incited in my heart
or why.
i can't really know
how you took a heart that never worked right
never beat logically
always beat down
and held it in your hands.
(you keep it there, you pump life into it steadily)
i won't ever experience proficiency
in the field of life-ending, life-starting, life-altering
love.
all i understand now is all i understood at seventeen when i kissed you;
that i would die without you
that no one could compare
that my heart was yours for the taking, i was forever yours for the breaking, you could leave me shaking and aching and my world quaking.
the profound inferno rages and blazes on,
leaving me always smoldering in your absence,
while my heart roars with yearn and appreciation
for the light.

Nearly all of me was gone by the time I realized it was killing me to love you, it was breaking me into pieces being ignored, and now I am nothing left. No matter how much I tried to believe my hero when she told me I was more than what they all made me into, I am still nothing. I've been a sick, sick liar telling myself this was all okay. I've thrown up too many times to speak. I can't stand for all the blood I've lost and friends who never really were. I have disappeared completely and I desperately need to know what this is now - what is left and walking around. This shell can't be healthy but all of you people encourage it to keep "living". Pieces come back to visit but no, you can't make a glass figurine whole again after you've thrown it into a wall, too many chips fell and you never found them. I crave color and truth and feelings but then again I don't because craving is something you can't do when you are so far past numb you don't feel yourself breathing. I don't believe anyone and I don't think I ever have, don't think I ever believed in trust - maybe the way some people don't believe in magic. My legs look more like a cutting board and I don't look in the mirror anymore, I'll only see drained eyes and wish I had enough in me to force a smile. I keep reminding myself to be quieter but it's a lot like ******* your tummy in, you get too comfortable and forget. I used to be very good at both. I don't remember when I stopped sleeping at night but what a silly thing to think it was a good idea. Darkness brings feelings I crave but never the good ones, no, never ever the good ones. Maybe you should be scared of the dark, it never did hold anything good. Maybe you should be scared of me, too. Darkness is what's on the inside of me, and if I hadn't spilled my own blood more times than I could count, I would swear it was black.

*6.19.13

I was sure you were gone and sure you were the one.

i wonder if you honestly thought that i didn't know all my flaws when you were screaming them at me.
i did. i knew. i still have bad habits, but they aren't as bad. i know you probably don't care.
i stopped ripping my flesh with blades out of pencil sharpeners
but not long enough ago for all of wounds to have healed yet.
and nothing goes up my nose anymore, or in my veins,
but now i sleep too much and eat even worse than i did before.
and i can't seem to stop biting my nails because i have no clue what i'm doing until they're all ripped away and hurt like hell.
the rest of my life is like that, too.
i wonder if you ever wondered why i never told you all the things you did wrong.
i won't waste your time telling you now.
but you had bad habits, too. you had your flaws.
i hear you put your fists down
but now you spend your nights in new york
with bottles and bloodshot eyes
or on little stages singing your songs about me.

here, another night
writhing
I should be asleep, comfortable
I should be… normal
instead I writhe
or I lie so ******* still trying to pretend
trying to will it away
inside I am clawing to get out of this body
inside I picture myself flailing, jerking,
thrashing, punching, kicking
I visualize breaking my own bones with how hard I fight the pain
I see it in my mind, I let loose and walk away bloodied, bruised, all cut up… but I won.
in my mind.
in reality I have no energy to thrash.
i lack the spoons to fight,
and this,
is an unwinnable war anyway.

so I lie still.
or I writhe, sigh, and cry.

Last night he said he
was worried about me.
He said one day he'd wake up
and suddenly be without me.
I've been worried about
but I've always pulled through.
I just don't know how to say
that this is nothing new.
I'm okay, I'm okay.
I will be just fine.
I swear to god I've said this
seven million times.
Please, what I need
is for you to believe me.
Because I swear all I really need
is for you to not leave me.
And I'll choose what to lose,
my sadness or him.
I've known you longer,
but I need him to win.
I know you said to me
"I'll never leave you"
But maybe you're a liar
And I just can't believe you.
Or maybe I'm the liar
who just can't find the truth.
Maybe you're the drug
that can't stopped being used.
I've been living with fear
and you're always too near.
I think that I've held you
just a little too dear.
"Don't worry about me"
I've said and I've said.
I'll try harder to control
all the things in my head.

*6.10.13

never believed in much
just people
and lord knows they let you down
but maybe you, gripping your holy pages, will find peace tonight
maybe you'll get to sleep.
maybe you don't have to feel like you're going crazy, losing something you never had. maybe.
but me? oh,  for heaven's sake, i am getting by.
i am losing my grip and getting lost in worry and wonder
but i am just fine.

I'm dreaming of having no where to go
having no one to be
or maybe if I could just go back
and try being me again
but the me where nothing bad happens
I'm never hurt or forgotten or abandoned
that's the dream

hate yourself so much you start to hate everyone else. hate your life and everything that happens every day. hate it so much you use it to cut lines of red in your skin, light it on fire and inhale it so you don't have the energy to hate for a while. then hate all the distractions you use to feel better, hate the people who don't understand, hate that you cannot figure out a way to connect with them and make them know that you want to die, and you're on the verge, and when it gets to that point you won't be stopping to call for help and you won't be taking it easy on yourself because everything else has been so ******* hard.

*5.1.13

angel,
it occurred to me last night,
I've never wanted to live

so much as I do
when I think of a life with you

you want to know me
see me
in ways no one has.
but that isn't how you know me.
i wish it were,
i wish we could sit in your car
on a cold winter night
and i'd tell you everything.
trust me, there's so much i want to tell you.
and i would,
i'd turn myself inside out in front of you.
but
that isn't how you know me.
you'll know me in little pieces
and just a single one at a time
like ripping the tiniest bits of paper up
and throwing them in a
glass jar with the words "rainy day"
written on it in marker.
i'll sing to you, i promise
and i'll show you all my poems
and paintings
and you'll know everything.
just so long as you stay
stay with me
love me
wait for me
to show you
me.

I ran wild, I didn't hide my emotions, I screamed them and threw them everywhere. If I wanted to do something, I sprinted towards it. I sang my songs so loud and made mix cds and playlists that were so bomb I still have them and listen to them and find comfort in them. I said the words I wanted to say, I fell in love with my own slang and quotes from books and movies and I swore I'd get them tattooed on me. I painted for hours and I sketched the monsters out of my mind. It's funny that I hated me then. They told me I was crazy, I was reckless, I made no sense and I would someday settle down.

I did. I still have urges to paint and I still listen to music like it saved my life, 'cause it did. But I can't get upset and drive off in my ****** car and return 6 days later and tell people they were overreacting for worrying. I'd lose my job and I'd feel bad for making them worry. I guess I'm a grown up now.

The point is, go crazy while you can. I'm not done with my crazy, not by a long shot. I'm leaning on the street sign "20s" and I can't see the end of the road, it's just a horizon of drunken nights and learning experiences and trips all over the country and love so hot you wanna pass out.

"don't let them tell you what to do, how to feel"
No. They are going to tell you, and you can't stop them. It is okay to pretend to listen while you fully know you're gonna do things your own **** way. It's also okay to scream at them to mind their business. It's okay to scream and run and follow your crazy heart, you may never feel it so full of passion again.

tell her she is the girl you dreamed of.
tell her that her scars don't matter,
and repeat it over and over.
think of every little thing you love about her,
then put it in a letter under her pillow.
tell her just how you've planned out your future with her.
make sure she knows it was all for her, about her.
tell her how much you love her every single day
and never stop trying to find new ways.

hello
low and behold
i am the ghost of what we could have been
give me your hand, let me show you
what should have been.
omission of flaws and insincerity,
shine light to my heart that pathetically
only would beat for you.
i am only too certain
you made such a great mistake.
but i get it,
i was too broken.
whatever.

Every day brings me farther away from the past,
I'm so thankful for that.
For someone who always felt out of place, out of touch,
belonging is a graceful wonder.
I messed up so bad,
went too close to the edge,
walked right up to the end,
turned around.
I got tangled and mangled and strangled.
Then I pried the hands off of my neck
and broke them.
I was belittled and betrayed,
so I stood up and walked away.
I grew taller with every step,
so I didn't dare stop.
Every day further away from the past is a sweet reminder that
it
gets
better.

"from the second that i was born, it seems i've held a loaded gun."

fourteen. ts, i choose my ******* boyfriend over you. you were always there for me. i never say sorry.

fourteen. em, you make me feel special. i make you feel stupid for liking me. you spend three years trying, i spend that time acting like a *****. i never said sorry.... for this.

fifteen. tdl, i lie to you over and over, mostly when i promise to be careful with my own life. i say sorry and i mean it a little. selfish. ******.

fifteen. al, life became about me in the worst way. i apologize two years later, two years too late. all i talked about was me and my ****. you had ****, too.

fifteen. jm, i hold your hand to a kitchen burner. this is the worst thing i have done and probably  will ever do. i was so tired of your hands. i spill mouthfuls of apologies to you for a year. i am still unsure if i owed you a single one.

fifteen...... you deserved better and my **** choices ruined your chances. i am so
so
so
sorry.

sixteen. em, i use you all year. i use you when i want and throw you away when i want. then it happened, you were thrilled, i was terrified. i fix my problem and simultaneously destroy hope in you. i said sorry and didn't mean it at all. you hate me to this day and you should.

sixteen. di, i make you a million promises. i find out everything you want in life and i pretend to be that. you hit me in a parking lot for this. i still like to pretend you never happened.

sixteen. al, bathroom floor. tears. panic. phone call. terror in your eyes. i am still so sorry. selfish.

seventeen. im sorry to myself for a million things. i wake up when i find true love and realize how reckless i have been. i feel like apologizing to everyone.

nineteen. mt, i am two years into this with you and still my heart breaks for her.
i don't dare tell you.
it'd break yours.

twenty. mt, i have to follow my heart. i have to run to her and let you take the fall. you were my best friend. i am so very sorry.



the hurt ive caused haunts me every day of my life.
the guilt i feel are weights of varying impossibilities.
i don't think i will ever learn to let go.

Lost,
gone,
away
forever.
I don't know why I'm so angry.
It's not as if you could have known better.
I miss you so much,
more every day.
I never knew you,
but I feel such pain.
I wish I had known you,
I wish you were here.
Nothing would matter,
at least something would be clear.
You were perfect to me, even when I wasn't sure.
You didn't deserve this. You were so pure.
I miss you so much,
more every day.
It doesn't get easier.
Time doesn't heal pain.

You don't have to be vulnerable.
You don't have to keep putting your heart in the hands of those who have been reckless with it.
You don't have to stay to feed their egos and wait for crumbs to fall your way.

Pick up all the pieces of your heart from around her feet, gather and hold them close; run, hide, glue them back together when you're strong enough to endure the cuts on your fingers
from dealing with
such sharp shards.
You don't have to be sad forever.
You can choose something else;
you can run.

You can choose something else;
you can run.

Run when the halo burns your eyes.
Run when she lets you hit the ground.
Run when she is a different person more often than she is who you love.
Run until you can lift off the ground and fly.

Spin around, keep running, run around until you fly off the ground. Be a hurricane. Rain your aching, screaming, built-up agony all over her house. Shake out all the tears she pulled out of your heart, wring yourself out and let it pour out of you as you whirl away. Leave devastation in your path if you must; she should have thought of the wreckage when she turned you into this.

Be strong, be all the good that you are, be all of it for only yourself, exhale every bad feeling you got from this, and move on.

Haven't you seen me sleep walking?
I've been holding your hand.
Haven't you noticed me drifting?
Oh, let me tell you, I am.
Tell me it's nothing.
Try to convince me that I'm not drowning.
Oh, let me tell you, I am."


This might be the worst I've ever felt

My head is heavy
My hands are weak
Guilt on my throat
I can never really speak

My neck can't hold up my thoughts
Jesus Christ, you're all I've got

Never would have let this happen
Too much on the line to lose
But maybe it's better than the other way
Maybe I really needed you

The truth of the darkness is
I carry broken hearts with me
Scars and stars and all kinds of
Bittersweet

But I'll use razor trails as notebook lines
And write a story on my skin
I'm brave and scathed
And I swear I'd do it all again

I don't know where this feeling in my stomach comes from. I wish it would stop. Empty and sick. I wish it would stop. It feels as though something is wrong, something is missing. I have no idea what. It's like a horrible opposite to deja vu. Alone is all the feeling I get from it, alone and maybe confused. Unsatisfied, but I wouldn't know how to begin to get what I need. Is this all life is?

There is a recurring guilt instilled in me. I know that it will not ever go away. It will quiet itself with "the past is gone now, nothing can be undone" "you did what you had to" or "don't cry, everyone is mostly okay now"

But then I'm crying myself to sleep with 7 shots as a bedtime story, and I'm listening to all the songs that make my heart hurt and my head numb with nostalgia.

And then I'm doing what I have to do throughout the day - I'm keeping it in and I'm holding on and I'm telling myself it's really gotten better since I last fell apart and I answer my questions with forgetting

Then I'm back in bed. And I'm so close to drifting away from it all but my face is cold and wet because it's winter again and I'm still sad

And then, oh God, I am back four summers ago and I'm wearing my favorite jeans and too many bracelets and I am RUNNING from you. I watch myself leave and I recall every word I put in the goodbye letter and then, I imagine how it destroyed you.. because I ******* promised I would stay

And Jesus Christ I wake up and I know what has happened since and I know that I hurt you when I didn't have to

The ******* guilt is eating me alive again.

every single time
i falter and stumble around
it's like i can feel a stopwatch resetting.
"it's been zero days since my last mistake"
it's like that timer needs to get somewhere
somewhere specific
before i can really begin.
it might never get there,
i might never be stable enough to satisfy
and i can't be okay with that
because who wants a "zero days" kind of girl as a wife?
that girl shouldn't be a mother, for certain.
that type of child will never reach responsibility
stability
to have the life she wants.
the clock goes back to midnight
stopwatch to zero
i won't begin until i can stop
doing all of these things that spin me in circles
and let me fall down
down
down.

I used to love the scars.
I used to love them, and they would comfort me when I was sad.
Now they are only a reason to stop, a preventative measure, something to convince myself to find another way to feel better, but it's not easy.
I used to love the way they looked on my skin,
now I cannot stand them being there. They are unwelcome.
I wish they would leave my skin forever, and I swear I'd never make another. I swear, I would never press that blade to my innocent skin again. I swear, I swear, I swear,
I would find another way to make the sadness leave.

*5.26.13

you should have stayed
you should have stayed

           i'm over that now

and here i am, screaming inside,
screaming in your heart
"i couldn't hate you and loving you
might be destroying me
LOVE ME
LOVE ME
god please,
love me"

here i am, on my knees,
watching a clock with broken ******* hands,
with my broken hands
trying to make it work

she isn't here right now