When I was young, I hid behind tree branches and tall fields of grass
and everywhere was like a jungle to me.
I made crowns out of weeds and painted my innocence with a hinge of green.
I climbed trees away from my issues and nothing could stop me when I was hiding behind pine needles and evergreens.
I grew up back when the dented silo was still the dented silo and not the mockery of human consumption.
When my favorite restaurants all lined the correct side of Tylersville
and Fazoli’s was still ******* around.
Then I moved to where the trees were all I saw and the places beneath my toes became enriched with soil on a daily basis.
I was queen of my own jungle again and I loved every minute of it.
Now when I drive down the road I look to my right and see the streets lined with week old plastic bottles and bags-
you can’t go a mile without seeing trash and I start to wonder when the world will end, when all the pavement will become enriched with cracks and the ground will start poking through again.
Our tax dollars are going towards reparation of potholes, strip malls and new houses most middle class Americans can’t even afford.
I’m tired of watching what the world built for itself, become destroyed for what we try to build for ourselves.  
Everything is destruction and one day Mother Nature will come back with a vengeance and we will be the ones who pay the price.
Look around you, the fields you once dreamed about when you were young are now just economic land-mines and the places you work were once just an empty field.
Just remember, we live and we die and we are sometimes reborn again based on what you believe in.
But no matter your religion, Mother Nature will always be something I can believe in; when all else fails nature will always be the best therapy for me.

Pull your hair out, pull your ******* hair out.
Punch yourself in the face you ******* deserve it.
Can't breathe again.
Weights pressing down on your chest.
**** not again, no not again.
Gonna say something you regret-
Don't ******* text him, don't do it.
******* did it.
Great, now your relationship will probably be over.
Everything feels over, everything is ending.
I want everything to end...

The tears stream down my face
the lungs I use to breathe are the only things holding me back
these hands I use to write are gripping the pavement again
because I don't think I've ever felt so low.
But just yesterday I was on such an endorphin high
I was running in the rain until my socks were
just puddles below my feet
the sky was just an outline of the child I used to be
and now everything feels so ******* temporary-
you can't catch your breath long enough to tell yourself
everything will be okay and somehow earlier today
you were doing just fine.
But these hand clutch your skull again
as you pull your hair-
hoping you are ripped to shreds
because you are trapped inside yourself
a prisoner of your own body and it will never leave
everyday you fight harder to survive
but it seems like each ******* episode gets worse.
Every mistake makes you feel worse-
every mis-autocorrected word on your phone is like
someone punching you in the throat
and you somehow let that control you and you breakdown-
throw your phone and it crashes at the wall again.
You hate yourself for these things you can't control.
Everyday is a battle you can't win
and everything falls to the ground again-
including yourself.
There is a city upon your shoulders now
and it seems your mind is only building it even higher-
you wished you could throw it off but it's getting too heavy now.
All you can do is sit and wait for it to crush you from the inside out-
slowing breaking you down one missed phone call
and un-replied text message at a time
you are breaking down.
All the help you once searched for has gone out of business
and the man on the inside ran away because it was too much to handle-
you've always been to much to handle.
But those days when everything seems wonderful come-
those days when the hands you possess seem like shooting stars
making your every wish come true again-
you are invincible.
Nights spent laughing at four walls encased with your sense of humor
and indulging yourself because everything seems so good again.
But you remember this won't last too long and your back-
back to agitation inside your bones and the war inside your head,
city on your shoulders you are crushed under the weight.

Some days it feels as if all I need is myself to make me happy-
some days it's this same self that brings me so much misery.
Other days I'm just myself, getting by like everyone else.
Then on the worst days, they all hold hands and become friends
they all form a clique and I become a target for misplaced aggression.
My manic depression is a bully, 6pm traffic jams-
and spills on your new t-shirt.
My manic depression is a sugar high, 3pm mid day naps
and waking up just in time for McDonald's breakfast.  
My manic depressions is nirvana and insanity
it holds my hand across busy streets-
but will also never let go of me.

Framing the worlds lullaby on a string of soliloquies
I made the magic happen again-
Volume up and everything inside of my
Eardrums became the strength I needed to smile again.

Sin became salvation and I wished
Every single second could be that much longer but
Cynicism doesn't come with every verse inside a song-
Only with the need comes strength of finally realizing
Nothing makes you happier than
Disregarding the demands of your former self-
Summer comes along again but you start to miss the winter winds.

Only you can feed your need to go on-
Front row of your insecurities making a mockery of this show.

Someone cast your lines and rehearsed your verse all wrong-
Unsung heroes became undone and you broke yourself again.
Muttering the words under your breath you need to save yourself-
Momentary lapse of judgment you finally caught your breath
Eventually the chorus played out and your script was finally finished
Revolutionizing the scene that surrounds, you're finally home again.

It takes more than just words, more than just endless apologize to reason with my nature. These hands have held more things dear to me than you and honey don't think for a second I'm not special. These universes inside these lines painted me a picture a long time ago of the person I would hope to be and the sails are setting in the bay again and I am the windstorm they are getting ready for. I am no last place or home base. I do not fight to win or lose to show pity. I do what's best for myself. These eyes have seen death slowly creep it's way into the picture frame one day, four years at a time. They have seen what it's like to remember blank pages of your history somehow finally filled. The ending to this novel that is me is complicated and messy already and I wish you knew what it felt like. How the wind beneath my feet felt more like a hurricane than a boost from the ground I kept weeping on. How these tears fueled these fingers to write for days on end and how things just don't seem to feel good enough for me anymore. I am a garden constantly trying to water myself with the nutrients I need but somehow never seeing any growth. These hands have made mistakes and these eyes have seen better days but all in all I am a force of nature that will turn your world upside down and put it right back where it came from. I am the *** of gold at the end of the rainbow, but I am also the storm that got it there in the first place.

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.