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Amanda Stoddard May 2015
It's like I'm in a constant game of hide and seek-
some days whenever I'm not looking
I end up losing myself
and can't seem to find where I hid-
I've always been really good at hiding.
Some days I'll be able to find myself
in the dark corners or under bedsheets
from when I was a child.
Other days no matter how much I try
and work towards finding who I was
or where I've been
or how the **** I got this way
I'm clueless.
Lost myself again
and not sure where to find me.
I sent out a search party for my happiness
but it's really ******* good at this game
I sometimes wish it wasn't.
You would think I would get tired of hiding
but it seems I like a challenge
and this hiding from myself thing
has been something i've done all along
a trade I seemed to master at a young age
and it only gets better with time.
I found you one day-
and you took my hand and helped try to find me
on the days I missed myself and needed it back.
You always knew just where to look
you always somehow found
what I would spend most of my days in search of
and now it is your turn to hide.
I can't find the same person who helped
find me
you've gone missing.
You must've been practicing for a while
because it seems like I really can't find you anywhere
not even in the same places I once did.
You've become an expert at hiding away parts of yourself-
This game is one I don't want to play
I'm done looking for you in the same places
that I lost myself.
I just want to find me without your help-
and I want you to be able to do the same.
I don't know where you are anymore.
Maybe I'm the one who's been hiding all along.
Amanda Stoddard May 2015
America.
Home of the brave land of the-
1,520 children who died this year from child abuse
and the 670,000 who lived through it
The 1,825 who are abused each day
and for every one report of child abuse-
two others go unreported.
So Josh Duggar can get away with molestation
because of the statue of limitations-
and everyone talks of "his recovery"
but his own sisters cries go unheard.

Oh America-
Where colleges would rather
cover up a ****, than catch a ******.
Where High Schools take pity
on abusers who play sports
or have a high social standing-
Where abusers don't get charged
because the girl they gang raged
was "intoxicated".
Where 4/5 of assaults are committed
by someone known to the victim.
44% of victims are under 18
and every 107 seconds another PERSON
is sexually assaulted
and 68% go unreported
and 98% of rapists will never spend a day in jail.

America-
Home of brave land of the-
41,149 deaths by suicide in 2014.
where it's the 3rd leading cause of death
in youth ages 10-24.
Where 70% of youth in juvenile justice systems
suffer from a mental illness-
but instead of treating it
we continue punishing it.

America.
Where John Green can romanticize
the 2nd leading cause of death in the US
Cancer!
Speaking of cancer-
why haven't we found a cure?
America!
Where why would they find a cure
for a billion dollar industry
that's fueling our economy.

America.
where you have freedom of speech-
but jet fuel can't melt steel beams
and everything is a government conspiracy.
Loose change taught you more about 9/11
than the news.
Where 500,000 Iraqi civilians
have died because of the Iraq war.
and roughly 6,000 soldiers died in Iraq-
but that's not including those who died after the fact
brain intact with PTSD coming home to broken families-
and we still think war is a smart idea.

America!
Where those who are supposed to protect us
eventually just start killing us-
and getting away with it to!
Where protests turn to riots
and everyone that's a shade darker
is labeled "****"
But an "upstanding"
white male citizen
can get away with molesting his sisters-
I'm looking at you Duggar, again.
Where Freddie Gray can be tortured to death
but hey no one cares
because he had a record of selling drugs right?

America-
The land of brave home of the
genetically modified foods.
You know-
the food we actually have to re-modifed
so other countries will deem it safe enough to eat.
Where our fruit isn't even actually fruit
unless it's label ORGANIC.
Where there's a McDonald's around every street corner
and being Vegan in today's food industry is impossible-

America!
Where we were once a melting ***-
but everyone complains about immigrants.

America!
Home of the brave, land of the free.
Where ignorance and Justin Bieber
are more accepted than the LGBT community-
aren't you proud to be an american?
This is a themed poem. I understand we have it better than other countries in some aspects, but this is just based off of looking just solely at the united states. I'm in no way putting down the deaths of soldiers or Iraqi civilians. Just trying to raise awareness. I'll do an entire world one soon.
Amanda Stoddard May 2015
I tried to smoke away my thoughts of you today-
but as the hunger pain etched into my stomach
and as every single laugh left my lips-
all I could taste was you.
My mind was somewhere else-
but I still ended up finding you there.
I've had writers block for a week
it still hasn't stopped but I hope
writing about the way you left me
will help the words come back to me
I hope it will make me worthy of something again.

I broke today-
my 10 month streak of no self-harm diminished
and I was at war with myself again.
I gave myself a concussion
clinging to the episodic tendencies I've always known-
I missed the familiarity.  
My nose started to bleed
because all the stress was getting
way too into my head
and so was I.
I fainted.
and no one was around to find me.
I woke up from falling-
alone once again
which reminded me of my childhood
everything reminds me of my childhood
the days when the stress would take me over
and sleep would win in an instant-
everything makes me feel so low
everything reminds me my childhood
except you.
But why do I see your features etched
into every face I come across.
Why does this feeling in my gut
tell me I should run back to you-
why do I feel like you're my forever
but you want that with someone else instead.
You said I wasn't the problem
and you cried when I kissed you for the last time
as you hoped you weren't making a mistake
even though you knew you were.

I hope one day I forget you-
that your name just turns into
another face in the crowd
another person I don't care to know.
I would've spent my life with you.
But you were too caught up in insecurities
and inconsistency.
People in your ear
telling you this forever thing doesn't exist.
I was left on the ground-
sharp words from your lips
pinning me down
all for your peace of mind
all so I could eventually lose mine.
Enjoy your freedom-
because I am now the prisoner
trapped inside myself
and you had the key-
but you tossed it aside
for that peace of mind
and your own company.
I am now my own tragedy-
Misery loves company,
but ******* I love lonely.
Amanda Stoddard May 2015
Every figment of my imagination has become
etched into the forefront
and it no longer hides in the back of my mind-
It is a painting amongst a wall I no longer own
every pigment of my thoughts for you has become
nothing but a dark shade of black.
You are nothing but a dark shade of black.
I let you re-paint me into something you'd like-
I let you take my hands and wipe them clean
as you painted me brand new ones.
I can't hold on anymore.
You were always a perfectionist-
who never really knew what he wanted
all you ever knew was it had to be perfect.
But I will never be perfect enough.
I have been struck by your razor tongue
as I take the mirror images to my own wrists
thinking I will never be picture perfect again.
You were always a perfectionist
but I am no Monet-
though I am just as beautiful
I will never be your work of art.
The pigments behind my eyelids
will eventually be filled with light again
and everything will be turned into
the shades of yellow I have desired all along-
you will no longer turn me blue and black
with the words that leave your red lips
I will not be your masterpiece-
I am already my own.
Amanda Stoddard May 2015
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.
Amanda Stoddard May 2015
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.
Amanda Stoddard May 2015
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.
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