Sleeping has never been my forte so as thoughts of you creep inside mind I try to reiterate the advice I heard from my brother. Melting into my thoughts as I try to count sheep but they just end up running away and I am lost again. He said, "you can't make someone your passion, but you can be passionate about someone". But how do I separate the two when everything I do is extreme and intense and never subtle. Love isn't just a weekend lake house for me, it's the bed where I lay my head at night. It's not just a power ballad for me, it's an entire acoustic album filled with melodies you don't even wanna hear anymore. I don't half *** anything, especially you. But maybe that's my issue, these emotions are never half hearted. They take up my entire body as an entity, eventually I can't let go. I am who I am and you are who you are. We are both gray areas because we do not understand ourselves, maybe one day you can be yin and I can be yang and we can meet somewhere in the middle completing what it takes to make us whole again. I am whole. But it just feels a little better with you next to me.

I wanted to write about how the curve of your smile made me tense inside, the way his harsh words echoed inside my memory. But the only thing I could seem to muster up the courage to write were things that were vague and dishonest.
I shelf my feelings for the sake of becoming someone else. For the sake that some day I will be worth something, to someone- anyone at all. You spoke your words to me and I listened to them like a poet, unsymmetrical and all relating. I felt dead again.
My heart had trouble calming that night as I danced your words around the edges of my mind, back and forth and over again hoping to hear from you. Hoping to understand this language in your mind that I don't seem to comprehend too well. You're often not too english. More so metaphors and undertones of sarcasm. Of off handed remarks and cynicism. I can never read you.
I want to blame it all on you. That the hurt that lies within my heart is all because of you, but the blame is on me. Though I am not the only innocent one. Your words a thousand scars upon me. Your words a skipped disk stuck in the CD slot, constantly reiterating in my mind. I don't know how to read you anymore.
You were once the person that held all my secrets like they were gold and you let me understand things in ways no one else did. You just listened- but now I realized you were just awaiting the moment at the bridge of my words to jump off. Onto something more fruitful that was to your liking. I've never felt good enough.
So I take the long distance road maps to destinations I haven't seen and I look at every option before I decide to travel again. You were the road less traveled. You were the cornerstone of every decision I had made. The land-mine for my insecurities. I let you trip me up. I didn't even try to catch myself. I let you trip me up- somehow I'm still falling.
Still awaiting at the foot of your words and the edge of your thoughts for something, anything to guide me home again. I feel lost inside your love. The distant river has overflown and I've forgotten how to swim again.

I wish people would stop telling me to get better-
stop letting my words lingering upon their minds
like these emotions I possess are even under my control
things aren't that simple for me.
I hid myself away for months on end
just to learn how to deal with myself again.
I became the only friend I ever needed.
I thought I fixed myself-
but the world was too much
and I had to resort to solitude again.
I wish people would stop saying it's all in my head-
I know it is but it's not something I can rid of
it's in my head which means it's apart of me
every single ******* day.
I wish normalcy was easy to come by  
and I wish these emotions I felt weren't so ******* extreme.
Nothing for me is just happy, or sad.
It's not just black and white anymore
it's shades of the gray and the off-white inbetween
it's dark blue and hints of purple upon a clear sky-
indigo tears on a white sheet of paper
they stain me, from the inside out and they stick.
Permanent marker etched upon my brain chemistry
there's no magic eraser to clean up this mess.
I didn't make this for myself
it was made out of nature and nurture
and circumstance and I stand here
holding my heart out to whoever will listen
just so they know this battle I'm fighting
isn't self inflicted, I didn't enlist myself
I was drafted into this war
the day I was cognitive enough of my emotions
I was shipped off.
Indigo heart upon my sleeve-
I just want someone to realize this side of me
Someone that will say I love you
and I will help you be happy.
I know misery loves company
but I'd rather be alone-
than bring someone down with me.
All I need is some understanding-
because I can hold my own hand in a time of need
but I need someone to tell me-
it's okay to be this way.
All I've ever been is too much
I want to be enough
show me I'm enough.

They say imitation is the most
sincere form of flattery-
But why do I feel like my exoskeleton
has been carved out and worn
by someone else's bones
and everyone seems not to notice.
I've never been one to claim
originality but it feels as if
who I was contridicts with who
I actually want to be.
So the only mistake I have made
along the way-
Is believing I could be anything but I.

Courage is a too way mirror-
you act a certain way when people aren't looking
when often times you don't realize they actually are
courage looks you in the face
it sees you how you wish you were-
courage knows all your secrets.

Courage is a four way intersection-
too much stop and go
too little patience
always having to predict another's move-
but courage doesn't always take turns.

I've always been really good at comparisons-
but really bad with expressing how I feel.
See missing you is like a simile
without the smile
because all I have left is just I
and not even my happiness anymore.
So I wonder when the waves will stop-
wonder why you will kiss me
at high tide
but leave when it becomes low again
I am low again-
But I hope that you realize I am so ******* happy
but at the same time I am nothing.
Like the sea, there are parts of me still uncharted-
I wish you could discover more of me
But you're a little too afraid of change
and I spend too much time shopping..

Courage is a hangnail-
taunting you to do what you know you should
realizing after it ******* hurts like hell-
sometimes you regret it most of the time you don't.
Courage will be there again one day-
just remember it's gonna hurt
but sometimes you have to bleed
to make room for new skin.

You have become the monster under my bedsheets
and the creature that keeps me awake at night.
The one who reminds me I am no longer worthy-
not even a response leaves your lips as to why.
You make it seem like these hands
that have been holding you up for so long
are only just holding you back.
I want to feel like the sun-
not the candle you blow out
when the wax becomes unbalanced
or the room begins to smell nice again.
I want to feel like my presence in your world
means more than just nice words
and late nights of me by your bedside.
I need to know this isn't just a game for you-
that these feet and these eggshell punctured soles
have walked all this way to mean something to you.
I want to know I mean something to you.
But as of late I just feel like an empty box
patiently awaiting to filled with something special
but you just use it to prop your feet up.
Look outside the box-
see that I have been standing here heart in hand
for god only knows how long
and remember to dance with me.
If the sunlight isn't enough for you-
live inside your shade
become accustomed to darkness.
Just remember-
turn the lights off when you go.

I broke again today.
The earth shattering at my feet
became a mountain beneath my toes
of all the things I should try to hold back.
Hold it back.
Deny yourself the freedom of expression
because it will linger upon your wrists.
Stop yourself here.
I try to stop myself in my tracks
but I end up getting stuck in the mud
and there's no one here to help me out
so I end up sinking again.
As the waste reaches my mouth
I am silenced.
The will I had to bring myself out of this mold
has vanished and I am a sinking ship once again.
No one ever tells you how to cope.
How to trace your fingers across scares you've made for yourself-
how to turn this madness into something so beautiful.
No one knows what it's like.

I was 17 when I discovered I had manic depression-
the words left my therapists lips like they were an execution notice.
"This isn't a diagnosis" she muttered
"This is who you are, who you've always been
it's not a death sentence".
But why did I feel as if I was being sent to death row-
to be hung by the noose I had made myself
out of tragedy and molestation and abuse.
There were no flowers at this burial.
Just a long awaited sigh of relief.
I always knew I wasn't like everyone else.
She drew me a picture of what it was like-
there were five stages of the imbalance living in my bones.
Major depression, dysthymia, normalcy, hypomania and mania-
she drew me a picture like she was trying to map me out
like she was drawing a Ned's declassified Bipolar Survival guide-
She explained it well.
How the days of normalcy tend to come and go again and again
but the mania and the major depression
pack their bags and stay awhile.
The major depression is like
a visit from a mentally abusive family member
that makes a point to tell you what the **** is wrong with you
when you already know, you tell yourself the same things everyday.
But the mania is like you're fun aunt that buys you beer
and tells you it's okay to **** whoever you want.
Get that piercing, dye your hair, who gives a ****?
The world is yours and the endorphin high you're on-
yeah that's your best ******* friend.
That's the aunt you wish you could be-
and sometimes they take you out on dinner dates-
they'll tell you how horrible you are and remind you
of all the things you have to be worried about.
They fill your head with nonsense and anxiety-
they convince you life would be better without you.
But then you remember what the mania feels like
when it's just the both of you bonding over ice cream
and spending too much money on thing you don't need-
you don't ever want her to leave..
"The mania is why most people don't get help" she said.

Mental illnesses are like actual illnesses-
they're a chemical imbalance in your brain
and you don't tell someone with diabetes
"Oh hey, just think that you're insulin is fine and it will be"
It doesn't ******* work like that.
See the Norepinephrine ran away when I was young
and the lack their of decided to hangout with serotonin.
They became best friends-
so I became the third wheel
and suddenly they both just stopped coming around.
I found a journal from when I was seven-
It said, "I don't want to be here anymore."
Most seven year old were taking care of furby's
or watching saturday morning cartoons-
But me? I wanted to end my life
like it was another ******* rerun
of the same episode you ******* hated
and all you want to do is turn it the *******
but there's really nothing else on TV
so you watch anyway.
Idly sitting there as you're hating every second-
But I'm still alive.
And these hands have dealt with more than just cuts
and pills bottles that became empty with mania that became worse-
I'm staring blankly at this page she drew for me.
Mapping out my mania like it's roller coaster tycoon
I think I'll call it Avalanche because ever since
I was labeled as having "Manic Depression",
I've been climbing my battles ever since-
even though some days, they try to fight back.  
There was a word to the way I was feeling
and a map to express it.
I felt like when I was young and I led Dora to the correct place-
all because of the map guiding her to her destination.
My therapist gave me the map-
she drew my way into understanding.
I haven't found my way home quite yet-
but at least I now know where I'm going.