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.

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.

You light my darkness.
You explode into nothing.
I really miss you.

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

there will be days your hands feel weak and it will hurt your legs to walk forward, your skin will feel ready to break and your head will feel so heavy on your shoulders. there will be moments you talk yourself into giving up, there will be moments when you settle for the best you could do. there will be lovers that make you feel like you already gave up, there will be one lover who will always love you best. she'll make your skin stronger. there are going to be days and sometimes longer stretches of weeks and months when you will crave nothingness and you will feel like you have failed when you have not. you don't have to always give your best. it's okay that you don't have the energy to sprint towards perfection every day. you are sad and you are loved and you are lovely though you'd disagree, you are in pain and doing your best to be okay. it's okay.

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.

I misjudge my own feelings. I change my mind constantly. I have to make the wrong choice five times before I make the right one and understand why it’s right. Sometimes, quite often, these faults --no--habits will confuse you. I’ll tell you I need to be left alone ten minutes before I need you more than I have ever needed you before. I will be most energetic when I feel I will soon collapse into a sea of sadness. I will infuriate and disappoint you while I make countless, hasty, bad decisions as I try to alleviate the symptoms of life. I will say it once but not more: I am sorry for these things about me, only because they will sometimes negatively impact you. I am me. I am worth it.

no
I don't want anyone else around
get them out of our life
forget her and we'll forget everyone
that led our hearts to here
leave it all behind
look down the road and never back
it's the only way to survive but now
we could thrive
you can hate the love songs
and I can hate the past
because I just have to love your eyes on me
your hands on my back
your smile against my lips
maybe every month
maybe every once
in a really difficult while

we're here now
and
I can't
stand to think
of all the nights
you'll be missing from me

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

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

It took me a long time to love myself, and now I realize, I thank all the higher powers, I thank myself, and I thank those who helped ***** me up along the way, because my ocean-deep scattered head and my stitched scar-tissue heart are my two most prized possessions, and I've just about fallen in love with the way my heart breaks over and over and keeps beating

The one way you're bad for me, and I find the good in it.

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 am a house on fire
I am a cracked windshield waiting for a bump in the road
I am ***** clothes in the corner of the bedroom
I am a respiratory system full of water


You think your suffering friends never reached out because they thought you wouldn't understand, wouldn't be there for them...
No. The reason they didn't come to you
is because there was nothing you could do.

time lapse
Collapse
time and again
I
i will let myself down
Love's never done anything but fall short
and neither have i
Can't stop shaking
to shake it off

Something bad happened,
I was down for a few hours.
With the weeks and months
and life I've had,
I'm in awe; I didn't disintegrate in guilt.
You're constantly cleansing my mind.
Picking me up, nudging my chin to the sky. I don't think you know how easily you ameliorate my uneasiness.
After all this time, babe, I've learned to save myself. I can't let you be my everything, I can't let you be the sun.
But **** if you don't light up my world.

I feel guilty being reminded
Of all the many moments my heart ached for you
While I was supposed to belong to someone else.
I feel guilty
For also feeling something so right
About my entire existence yearning for you when you were a thousand miles away, years in my past. Your words were ghosts in me,
I had finally, finally forgotten your scent unless I tried really, really hard,
(Your smile, I admit, was branded in the chambers of my heart. It would never leave me, and I never wanted it to,)
and I had everything my brain thought I needed then,
But I didn't
And my heart and soul knew it.


In the most honest of dawns and dusks,
Logic forsaken me, my heart and I packed up and ran to you.




Is the wrong thing really the wrong thing if you do it for the most profound, paramount of all reasons?
Would the people we hurt forgive us if they felt the depth and truth of our reasons?; of this love? If they knew it was so meant to be, we may as well have our very own North star in the sky to guide us together always, a stack of novels and poetry and art that this love inspired?


It's a funny kind of guilt.
I believe I did wrong...  I do.
I also believe I would do a million times worse for you.

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.

Tell me everything I've said that still haunts you. Tell me what you wish I'd say. Tell me all the things you think are too unimportant to bother saying. I promise I'll be interested. I'll always want to hear.
Tell me where your mind goes when I mention I'm unhappy. Tell me what would make you happy.
Tell me what you went through while you were missing from my life. Tell me about that really dark time when you didn't know if you'd make it.
Tell me about the happy times when you knew you'd be okay.
Tell me anything.
I want you to know,
I want to know
everything.

I've got a few tethers, each one is stretched. I'm trying so hard to do right.
I've never followed rules, even my own.
It may have been easier alone.
Resistance to give, that's all it is.
But couldn't we just run away from it all and live free,
walk tall and just be?
This is getting a little ******* me..

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.

she would come to you falling apart at the seams. she would confess all her midnight tragedies and she would beg you for answers that she knew she would not find in you. she would cry and scream, it was not fair. you, scared to your core, glimpsed what a soul could go through and you told her it would be okay. you had no way of knowing that. you lied so as to keep her from slipping away into her deep sorrow and late vulnerability. and mere hours later, the sun would rise, and you would never be invited that deep into her mind ever again. you would never again feel her soul. she knew to look somewhere else for answers next time. she knew you did not understand.

I'm trying really hard to be okay with what's been done to me
I feel more okay when I can do the things it takes to be okay
I feel more than okay when I'm going 100 miles an hour down the road I grew up on
I'd feel ******* great if I could destroy my body a little bit more
That's all I want
I just want to be okay
I want to forget

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

I hope you're okay
It's not like you not to fight back
But I don't have the right anymore
So I hope somebody in your corner
Is holding your hand and
making sure your eyes match your words
I really hope
Someone is looking out for you
Like you looked out for me

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.

I’m doing fine without you.
Everyone said it and everyone was so sure
and everyone was right because
I can go whole hours and days without thinking of you. I never thought I would be able to do that.
I’m doing fine without you,
and I hope you’re fine, too.
I’d say sorry but neither of us are. I’d say I miss you but I don’t.
You’d say you hate me but you probably don’t care enough anymore.
Hate is exhausting, I know.
I’m doing fine without you.
It’ll be a year in July since I found someone better.
And it’ll be two in August since we ruined everything.
Bout five since I didn’t know who you were,
so about five since I was happiest.
But I’m happy again.
I’m doing fine without you.

Years pushing the darkness back into the shape of a shadow
even when she was slicing my back open to get back into me.
Years of lies after years of embracing unspeakable happenings. How could I have known it was okay not to be okay? I missed my chance to fall apart and heal properly. Then all I wanted was to forget his hands taking my breath and my voice and my love
and his cruelty taking... Everything else I had ever wanted.
And I wanted to forget the way I had let myself fall into an ocean of her love only to drown in it and beg for more to fill my lungs.
So I forced it all out of my mind because, Lord, I have finally faced it: as soon as my mind finds a way out, I take it. I take it and I run with it. I run wild trying to heal my barely beating heart and I hide, pathetic and alone in corners of the world that no one would think to look for me. I do not linger in pain and wait. I take what I can like a ******* thief in the night and hastily sew my heart together and calm my mind and lungs until I can carry on.
It worked for years. And years.
I... thank you for a moment of peace to think while you shelter me from the world of pain and reality of love and loss.
My eternally unsettled mind will continue and my heart will as always, try to keep beating.

I don't want to talk about you moving on
I don't want to discuss your future
I don't want to hear about you cutting off the dead weight to fly free and happy while I fall to ground and break the concrete.

You said "you need to be stronger"
So I pulled my armor on
Can't keep this up much longer
And it was my fault when you were gone
Because I wanted you too much
And I needed you, too bad
And I always said I'm sorry
But you took advantage of that
There you are months after,
You're joking that I could never win a fight
With you and it broke my heart
That you were right.
Cause I wanted you happy
I couldn't stand to see you lose
I wanted you more than everything
So I stayed, for you to use.
You were hurting and I couldn't see
That maybe there was some way
You weren't right for me.
But how could that be?
I wanted you desperately.
So you left and you took my heart
And it was never harder to be apart
I was longing for you in tears on my bed
You didn't care how many I shed
You drove home in silence
And I tried to stop crying
And I spent the next months
Trying and trying and trying
But it wasn't enough,
You called your own bluff
Said you couldn't do this
But couldn't you have figured that out
Before you found my lips to kiss?
Anyway
I found a way to survive
Fake it til you make right?
Just smile and you'll be okay in a while
Doesn't matter if you're falling apart
That's the best lesson you gave me,
Along with how to break a heart

Don't do it
Don't do it
Don't
Do
It

I'm too tired to consider this good work
My message is simple and then I'll drift off

-I will not feel bad
-I do not deserve to feel bad
-we all make choices, I can live with mine
-it is not my fault, it is exactly the opposite
-I am doing the best I can
-I will be okay

i envy the ghosts
who get to spend all their time where they want, with whom they want
i envy their transparency
that would allow me to watch over you
eradicating facades, destroying pretenses
i'm really getting quite jealous of the ghosts, how they are able to drift silently around you, gazing at you, watching you laugh, cry and live.
but i know now that i am a ghost
and sadly i have my limits

all you had to do was
look and
see
what was right in ******* front of you

What if I don't make it to where I'm supposed to be before I have a chance to change it all?

whispering words of wisdom, let it be.
let it go, free your hands from your mangled heart, let it heal. in all kindness to yourself, don't go back. you held your breath, even if it hurts to breath again,
it's time to breathe again. lying on the floor in a mess of hungover emotions, so strong you tremble at the mercy of your thoughts. at any moment it could all hit you, you would fall apart in front of all these people you have carefully, manipulatively fed lies of okay-ness. what if it crumbles you? stand back up, because I swear to god if there was one universal truth that I could convince everyone of, it would be, "there is no shame in the truth of emotion." so why am I holding all my feelings and truths like ***** weights? if I believed for myself the things I believe for others, if I just allowed myself to feel the way I accept others do, would I be so messed up? boxed up? maybe if it were for these words, I would explode.
maybe if I went back, changed how I withheld, changed how I gave up, maybe

Oh god

maybe...

I wonder what you've told them about me
I wonder if you told them the whole thing hurt like hell

I knew I was being pathetic,
desperate,
but God, I just wanted to talk to you.
I just wanted to hide in that small, dark room forever, listening to your voice.

she loves you with her whole heart
but isn't it way too easy to make her fall apart?
in some numb trance from the words you said,
she kept on her clothes and lied down in your bed.
few words spoken and nothing close to a touch.
you probably didn't know that your words hurt her so much,
because she faced away from you and silently cried out her whole heart.
it's just way too easy to make her fall apart.

Quietly accepting.
We could let this drift away,
but I don't think you would.
Your poker face has even you fooled, love.
But over and over I'll put my cards on the table and I'll try not to stand up on my chair to tell you all about my heart and the things I know.

distance
depression
desperation

Scars on my wrists, scars on my legs,
“Stop hurting yourself,” he begs.
Can’t stop crying. “I’m just so tired,” I sigh.
I’m alone, and I think I want to die.

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?