One.
The first memory I ever have as a child-
I was looking at bars in front of my face
and trying to push myself up long enough to stand above them
but it never really worked.
I never really ever felt tall.
I was an infant, maybe even a toddler.
I remember a man coming over to me
and then everything seems to go dark after that.
Twenty.
As I was sitting in class, I hear my teacher speak
"The earliest memory most of us have is at the age of 5 or 6-
and you don't remember really anything before that and if you do
it's usually because of some type of emotional trauma"
So I began to wonder if that blank part in my mind
is just another repressed memory begging to eat away at me
when the moment is right and I am happy again.
Or will it stay etched in my mind as a blank page
that I will never even get to fill.
and I'm not even sure I want to-
I'm not sure that's something I'm willing to find out..
Seven.
It happened again-
I remember the lap of a stranger and the dark room
clouding around me making a mockery of my retrieval cues.
I'm not sure who I am in this moment.
Eight
Hyper-sexuality takes it's hold on me
and doesn't let me go until-
Thirteen.
The year the memories of that night flooding my retinas
the year my grandmother got sick-
the year who I thought he was moved in,
the year I questioned everything about myself
until I came to grips with who exactly I was
but I don't think I ever did-
because he moved out and cancer moved in
and I lost touch with who I was because
I was too busy being what everyone else wanted from me.
26 absences from school-
sorry Lakota but cancer doesn't have off days
and neither does my mother who's playing caretaker.
My grandma was never my downfall
though there are times I sometime portray it that way,
she was merely just my lighthouse
guiding me home, whenever I was ready to see the light again.
Fourteen.
I tried pills.
Flexril. Clexxa. Effexor. Protonix. Busphar. Vyvanse. Seroquil.
Etc. Etc. Etc.
I either got fat, got acne
or didn't last two months before having a mental breakdown.
The pills fueled the flames within-
they begun to burn every last shred of hope I had left
and it wasn't too long before I tried to end me.
Fifteen.
Still trying more pills.
Sixteen.
Realized the pills weren't working much anymore.
Seventeen.
Started drinking. Stopped listening.
Coping through empty bottles became routine
and I didn't want to stop for anybody.
I began to fill the hole in my heart
and the blackness in my memory with liquid courage-
I hoped something would trigger me into knowing.
I hoped that the more I would drink the more I would remember
but that was *** backwards because most people drink to forget
and somehow I was somewhere in between -
like I was on death row looking forward to my last meal-
but still hoping for some kind of pardon.
Eighteen.
Started therapy. Manic Depression she told me.
Management tactics turn into routine
though I still held a vice grip on that bottle.
Friends brought me back from the dead.
Made me someone worth loving again.
Then I met a boy.
He was awkward and I didn't really trust a thing he said to get me-
I never really trusted anyone anyway, till he kissed me-
proved to me that I was someone worth fighting for
proved to me that everything wasn't so ******* terrible after all.
I decided I didn't really need the bottle anymore-
that the memories weren't so bad because they made me
victorious-
a winner of a never ending battle I will continue to fight
but I will come out on top every single time.
Nineteen.
Went to college.
Shared holidays with a boy I loved for the very first time-
finally felt like I had a family again.
Shared my love for poetry with strangers.
Fell in love with the world again.
Twenty.
Sober. In love.
& I told myself I sure as hell wouldn't make it past eighteen.

I try to remember the good times, but they are written out in brail and I've never been taught how to read anything but the outline of your shadow. You were never there. Even at times when you would convince yourself you were, you were just a shadow. Painting your way into my life one postcard at a time, one sealed letter and three words at a time. I was never really meant to be anything but lost inside these wounds the world has left upon my skin and inside my memory. I am a tree trunk, and you can see the hell I've faced just by looking at me and if you were to chop me down and open me up you would see the hollowed out pieces and the places where I couldn't seem to stand any longer. I am infested with bugs that are eating away at my insides and they're all named memory, anxiety, depression, and insecurity and somehow no one ever called to help me. No one cared if I lived or died they were just waiting for me to rot from the inside out so they could make room for something they thought was better. But what people never realized was that I was what kept you breathing, I was what made your scenery so ******* beautiful and you watch as I break down and rot away from the inside out. I wish people could see the destruction underneath. As my leaves fall away and the cold days speed up my process I hope you will remember, all my beauty and my glory. Insecurity is getting stronger as I become weaker, depression is like the cold crisp and it's weighing upon me like a chill I can't quite escape from, no matter how many layers I seem to have. Anxiety is like the lack of water and all you can seem to do is show people that you're thirsty but everyone around you is too busy taking ******* pictures of your pain while drinking away their sorrows in 40s and ***** bottles when all you really need some ******* water.. So memory comes along and reminds you why you needed it in the first place, reminds you how ******* thirsty you are, reminds you everyday that you're rotting away on the inside and there's nothing you can do to stop it..
I'm thirsty, longing to fill that empty hole inside my chest that just keeps getting bigger as the days get longer and all I want is for someone to lend me a hand but as they reach out to grasp mine, I break.
I want to stop the process but I don't know how-
I'm afraid of my own shadow again, because it reminds me of what I've lost.

These eggshells that surround me have become shards of glass encasing who I used to be and all I can do is look around myself and hope I have the strength to walk through unharmed.
But with every step forward it seems as if I am hurting myself even more and I don't want to break away from the things that are leading me to where I want to be, but the pavement is lined with molten lava and you're the dragon at the other end.
The more steps I take in your direction the larger the flame, the more I try to surround myself with the help I need to make it through less broken and less bleeding-
you scorn anyone who lends me a hand.
I am sleeping beauty, but instead of being awoken by true love's kiss I am trapped by it.
I've spent 18 years walking on eggshells and as I turned around you came and helped me walk around them. I finally felt safe again. But as the time went by the closer I got to my happiness and the further away you felt so you walked me toward the eggshells that surrounded you and pretty soon we were trapped together.
It's been a while but these shells have turned to glass and there's no heat anymore, no way to turn them to sand so we can walk happily again. The dragon in your heart is named insecurity and burns down everything I try so hard to love, even you.
Soon enough we will both be each other's downfall, because how can I save you when you're convinced you don't need saving.
How can I receive the things I need when you believe the only thing I need is you.
I don't know what happiness is, but when I met you that's the closest I've ever gotten and I think that's what is keeping me on the brink of insanity instead of walking the path I should be.
Losing people is not something I'm good at.
But I would rather lose someone, than lose me.

I want to feel like your warmth on my skin is enough. That every move you make is all consuming and as I wish intimacy was something I'm good at, it's not. So I sway the thoughts away in my mind like I sway my hips and I wish I could give someone some sort of bliss but the blisters on my memory keep busting and everything I never wanted to feel again pours it's way out and paints the crevices of my mind.
I want to feel special. Like every move I make is something to you. Like the waves that beg to kiss high tide like my tiger stripes beg to kiss my thighs. Maybe my mind is just poison. Maybe the pistol to my throat at a young age set in stone that I'm nothing but a grave stone amongst a growing garden of birth and new beginnings that will never be me. I am always the shell casing of who I wish to be and no matter how much I think I am pushing towards something, I am always holding myself back. I step into the spotlight only to be over shadowed by my own guilt and denial of what I should already be well aware of. I'm not sure this makes sense anymore.
And I am sure that these poems are just eulogies someone will read at my funeral or words that will paint and pour over my obituary. I haven't been the same since that February, the one when I lost my happy and gained a whole new chapter of my life I feel like I didn't even write, that feels like just an added story to make things more complicated for me and more interesting for everyone else. We all feed of off the misery and the interesting, we cling to the things that are a mystery to us because drama is in our nature and nuture never had anything to do with the way I was brought up. It was all mere circumstance because if my parents had it any other way they would've tried to raise me. But instead my father raised glasses and instead my mother raised prices and work and ***** got in the way of new gym shoes and admiration.
I'm not sure I feel anything anymore. And these doors to my future hold a lock I do not yet have a key for. But that doesn't mean I'll stop looking. That doesn't mean there's nothing behind those doors.
I'm living, to live for more.

10:50 pm, another beer-holding sorority selfie on Instagram.
I shut my phone.  I clench my fist.
I look up to the man that tried to raise me
as he raises a shot class in front of my face-
then my brother continues after.
The lingering smell of liquor on my nose
makes it feel harder to live.
See, I like to tell myself I've never done hard drugs
but then I am reminded of the days I wanted to mask the pain.
Take a paintbrush over all the misery-
and the bottle seemed to be my muse.
& as the alcohol becomes the inspiration for this piece
my hands begin to shake and my jaw begins to clench
and I can feel my mouth yearning for the taste one more time-
people don't understand addiction.
They don't understand when the problem becomes their life
they don't understand how quickly it can ruin you.
I thought I was just having fun
everyone drinks right?
Until one night I was faced with someone
who said something backhanded to me
so I threw a metal bat at his head.
I missed.
Until one night I was throwing myself at people
who probably didn't even want me for me
but for what I had underneath-
Until one night I was face down in my pillow weeping
because I had no one to drink with-
weeping because the alcohol was nowhere to be found
panicking because the emotions that needed to be addressed
began ******* my insides and making the anxiety
creep it's way back into my mind and into my stomach
until panic attacks became routine for me night after night after night.
& not even two weeks after I had surgery
I tried to drown my pain in a bottle in a room full
of people I thought I loved because I couldn't wait.
I began to forget and the last thing I remember-
was being face to face with my toilet confessing my secrets
via projectile *****-
I didn't think this sickness could happen to me
because I was so "in control".
Three days after that I was still ******* hungover.
A week after that the temptation led in and I tried to drink
again and again and again and when I couldn't
the anger came abrupt and the anxiety took over
I was a basket case that took pride in my tolerance.
I was masking what I didn't want anyone to see-
Every time I drank my insides would turn sour
and the sickness would overcome my desire to drown.
& if it wasn't for the headaches and the hangovers
and the people telling me what I didn't want to hear
It would still probably be an issue-
I lost a lot those years, even myself.
The bottle made me a persona of a person
just a piece that interprets her surroundings
I was a walking metaphor in a world full of short stories-
and I made a sonnet out of my struggle
with 14 bottles and ten syllables of labels
I put on display so everyone could interpret me.
I'm 20 now and I've been sober for 5 months
and it's sad to me when I have to say
that's something I pride myself on
but I do and I am thankful.
Addiction can be anyone-
with anything.
You just have to watch because those hands of yours
can hold on tight to anything that makes you feel alive
like liquor or cigarettes or the **** rips to your lips
but nothing makes you feel more alive-
than actually dealing with life.
That's where I found myself-
in the corners of my mind I never wanted to reach
in the parts of my memory I didn't think I could touch-
I'm 20 now I finally feel like myself again for the first time
since I turned 13, since before all the memory.
There are times when tempation will lead me to the edge of sanity
and try to push me over so I fall back into the hole I dug for myself-
but I am no longer weak,
no longer clinging to the addictions in my mind
no longer clinging to the negativity that surrounds me.
I am a delicate flower and in the winter I may wither up
and want to die-
but in the spring you will see me re-sprout
this time I will let the rain wash over me
and realize it is needed for growth
and I will blossom.

I have a heavy heart.
and there are days it's so hard to hold on to
that I want to just jump into a river of regret
and let it weigh me down to very bottom
so I can find peace again.
I wondered why you push away?
Why my ups and downs make you feel
like your world is being shaken upside down.
I guess, I'm just hard for other people to deal with-
it's funny because imagine actually being me.
I have a hard time dealing with myself-
dealing with the other side of me
that begs to be seen in mirrors and photos
and inside the hearts of others.
Why can't I find a good manic depression spoken word poem?
I ask myself as I search the youtube tags
and all the button poetry videos coming up with
only "The Future" to satisfy my thirst for validation.
I have a heavy heart-
some days you feel it's too hard to carry
and I begin to wonder if i can see a future with you-
but I can't even seem to see a future for myself
because I don't think I actually want one.
I don't want to die-
it's actually, I want to live
but I feel like I'm dying everyday
because my emotions take a noose
and tie it around my brain
and make a mockery of my self control-
I become a puppet to these emotions
and no matter how hard I try to pull away-
make something of myself and take over these emotions
they just push me down-
making a mockery of my heavy heart
and my control withers.
I sit alone in my room crying until 5am again-
convincing myself not to touch the razor
trying to convince myself not to take those pills
trying to reach out to someone, anyone to make it all feel okay again
but I come up empty.
So I called a hotline-
6am secrets syruping over my cellphone
into the receiver
into a complete stranger...
I had wondered when I lost everyone-
I had wondered where I lost myself.
See I sent out a search party for my self-control a long time ago-
but all they could find were empty pill bottles
and empty alcohol bottles lining inside my closet
but they never found me trapped there
underneath everything I've been hoarding inside my memory
for years now, I was buried there.
Some days I feel like I never escaped
like the old empty bottles are still weighing on top
of my heavy heart making me incapable of
seeing the light I have turned on for myself.
My manic depression
is like your favorite toy left in the basement
you get excited thinking about having that joy back again
but as soon as you try to go towards it
you're scared and panicked of what could come after you
and even when you get that courage to step foot onto
those stairs leading you to your happiness-
you stop, look at the darkness
and slowly turn and run the other way.
I will take back control eventually-
I will take this illness one step at a time
and hope someone will be there to hold my hand along the way
although I know this heart is heavy-
I am capable of carrying it alone.