My palms become greased with worry and fatigue
that maybe this time you won't ever leave
but you eventually do-
and I'm sitting here wondering how the **** I got so exhausted?
How these hands have been gripping so tightly
to the bottom of my sweater
that they don't even feel like hands anymore.
I just wish you would ******* disappear
that this world could just exist without you
and these stages I have build out of my fears
did not become mountains for you to climb upon at will.
I'm tired of always looking over my shoulder-
worried that maybe you'll be there
and it's ****** up that I worry about that
because worrying is all you ever ******* did-
I just want to feel normal again.
I want to feel like this body isn't
the wreckage in Miley Cyrus' wrecking ball video
I want to be Miley ******* Cyrus
not the broken walls and concrete at her feet-
but you make me feel this way.
Make me feel like everything I will accomplish
everything I could potentially accomplish
isn't even worth it or even within my reach for that matter.
I got a 68 on my first test of this semester-
you took that score and ran it through my head
until my insecurities triumphed over
everything you caused me to say to myself.
I am done being a misplaced embodiment of past experiences-
I will not invite you out with me anymore
and when you beg and plead
and cause me to regurgitate my fears for you
I will push you to the side-
make a shrine out of who I have become
because it's not you anymore.


Dear Anxiety-
I'm done apologizing for who you turned me into.

Sincerely, You don't control me anymore.

I'm tired of being empty bottles
and filled spaces there for your temporary usage.
I never stand too firmly on the ground
because the other foot awaits cautiously
for my next wrong move.
Even when I think I do everything right
somehow I end up breaking the empty bottles
and filling the space thats supposed to be sacred.
All I ever wanted to do was make someone else happy-
but I suppose I'm better off alone.
So take this as my open-ended apology letter
and feel free to walk away
because I am, for the last time-
for good.
Never again.

I fall sometimes-
and some days I can't get back up.
Clinging to the pangs in my stomach
left there because anxiety likes to remind me
she's still breathing-
Clinging to the knife in my side drawer
left there because I don't trust myself
and depression is right in my ear
telling me to do it again and again and again.
There's two devil's on my shoulder-
and no angel to be found.
I fall sometimes-
and end up making a home out of the ground.
Leave me here in pieces
I've always picked them up alone anyway.

1) You were always really judgmental of my friends, like there was a point behind your reasons for always being timid, there was.. I was oblivious and you told me things, the things you saw, that I should've realized a long time ago. I've been better since the alcohol left-
2) I never believed in the idea of love- always blinded by what I thought was mutual infatuation when it was really just my incessant fixation on the idea of.. You called me gorgeous the first day we hung-out and that was the first time anyone ever did. I fell for you fast and hard and that was the first and only time I ever have.
3) When you talk about the things that interest you or make you happy, your face lights up and your words become sonnets of admiration and everything you say sounds like poetry as it leaves your lips. I live for this.
4) I was kind of a child when we met, hardheaded and stubborn in my ways- never letting anyone close enough to scratch the surface but you made me realize that what was behind the surface was so so much better.
5) You made me love who I am, from my hip bones that beg to rip through my flesh to my nose and the way it sort of takes up half my face- you made me fall in love with myself again when I didn't think I ever would.
6) You give me a reason to have a lust for the life I live and I may be hard headed and stuck in my dark depths of depression but you're always there to lend a hand when needed.
7) Though you taught me only I can help myself back up, you will be there to keep me from falling down again.
8) The way you like really weird things most people wouldn't take a second glance at shows me that you find fascination in the beauty and the balance rather than just the image. You paint a bigger picture with your opinion and turn it beautiful every single time.
9) The way you get angry when someone wakes you up too early, or too aggressively- but you still find time to turn and tell me you love me.
10) This is the part where I start to cry because I was never really good with emotions and I'm spilling all of them just for you. This is the most naked I've felt even without a single piece of clothing on, but you'd still probably think I was beautiful.
11) I threw my phone across the room in a fit of rage but you held me anyway.
12) You always get more punch buggies than me- but on a good day I get more than you and can rub it in your face as long as I can, until the next time you win again.
13) I really didn't think a year could feel this short but with you I feel like my life here could last an eternity.
14) We fight sometimes and you always let me talk until I'm blue in the face which takes a while and even though you fall silent in times I wish you would scream or cry or give me something- you still find a way to calm me.
15) I love the way you're protective over me and sometimes I get overwhelmed by it but secretly it's really flattering because I've never really had someone look out for me. Ever.
16) You make me feel safe in a world that is filled with darkness and violence and tragedy, but you make it all seem so so far away when you're lying next to me.
17) When you are lying next to me, holding me close to your chest and kissing me on my head- it's almost therapy.
18) Though you tell me you love me with words, you also show me. Chivalry isn't dead ladies; yes my boyfriend opens doors for me- eat your hearts out.
19) You make everyday feel better than the last and you put up with my constant worry that someday you're gonna up and leave for no reason- but you don't.
20) I spent my 19th birthday with you and will now spend my 20th and every day since then has gotten better with you even when it seemed like everything was going to fall apart again- we kept it together.
21) You turned 21 last year but you don't really like alcohol-
22) You did what I thought was the impossible- made me believe in love.

My father was always one notch on his bedpost close to hypocrisy
and my mother was a couple notches shy of getting there-
she never dabbled in multiracial relationships like my father did.
You see when I was growing up
I had a crush on the little mixed boy down the street
and I was afraid of telling anybody
but it wasn't because of his skin-
but because ew, feelings. Right?
I never saw just black and white,
skin color was never a forefront
it was all just background noise-
to me it was all just gray.
There's no handbook about who you connect with
and there's no color scheme that's gonna show you who to trust.
I realized that because before I had a boyfriend
No black people where allowed at my house
not because they didn't want me hanging out with black people-
but because they were afraid I would end up with one.
Segregation was my father's second nature
and I would like to blame it on the era he was born-
even though I'm really not so sure.
And now that I have a boyfriend everything is fine...
It's like in their mind the more melanin the more sin
I'm sorry father and mother but there is no color coordination
to this thing we call life-
I never grew up afraid of colors because I loved rainbow-
I never grew up scared of the skin that wasn't like mine
just because of all the stories these white folks like to tell-
But the funny thing is
it was a white male, and a white female that molested me....
And my parents probably would've warned me
about the mixed boy down the street-
so really? who should we be afraid of?

Everyone. Equally.

Take it away-
Every emotion and strong-will I possess
throw it out the ******* window, as you jump-
wishing your insides would rot in inverse
as you yell back at me to do something-
but you're already falling to your death
and I can't stop the car because its leading me
to my future and I can't stop time
because I'm not ******* god
and I can't take away the hurt though I wish I ******* could.
I. Can't. Do. Anything. Anymore.
It's funny because these words kiss the page
like an abusive uncle that kissed your mother
against her will but you can't tell anyone
because you're trying to keep what's left of your family together-
It's ink, it's permanent and other people have experienced it to
but not like you, oh **** never like you.
So I take what was mine from the ******* start
and hope I can turn something so tragic
into this thing we like to call art, and poetry
but it seems to me I need a ******* lobotomy
because I don't know what to think or feel or do anymore..
All I know is that I had something once,
held it close to my heart like a pistol
and let everyone witness me playing russian roulette with myself
as the clock strikes game over and the gun is fully loaded
they watch as I pull and pull the trigger until I have nothing left
until blood shed is all over the kitchen floor
and you start to wonder how you're ever going to eat there again
But everyone around you is watching in awe
and saying "let me try".
But little do they know the bloodshed is staining those tiles now
and you're having trouble getting back up....
You left a bloodstain on your new t-shirt
and it kind of represents your blatant disregard
and my foolish naivety thinking things would turn out different.
"Maybe this time, I can help"
but as my face hit the floor and my memory left me
I woke up in a cold sweat, shaky and hazy
and I realized this time was different-
I was shaken up for three days after that
not knowing which house was mine to own
not knowing which words I always chose-
my mind blank on a page for the first time
in weeks, and months and days
you subconsciously shook me
paralyzed with fear, I was crushed by the weight.
So I come to the page that has been my pistol
and put that to my chest once again
but everyone thinks this is just a trend
just something we all do for pretend or therapy-
not me, this is somewhere between mourning and the purgatory.
So take it away, I never had it anyway.