My eyes glaze over again
I don’t remember who I am here.

Stuck dissecting the parts of myself
I should already be familiar with
But my own body is unknown territory.

My own mind is a place diluted
With good intentions
And outlined in animosity.

Who should I be in this moment?
Who am I to those who love me?
Seems only a luxury of chaos.
Seems only a burden of memory.

My neck is stuck out for all of them
But they cower in the corner of my problems.
And I have no way left to solve them.

I have nowhere to go but down it seems
And everyone just keeps ******* pushing me.

I’m tripping over boundaries as if they aren’t there
Because I do not know the correct place to set them.

I always write about the body
maybe that's because this is the only way
I am actually in control of my own.

I've always been the catalyst
to another's fulfillment.
Always an optimist
but treated the opposite.
this lifestyle's got me low.

So behold-
I have been holding my breath
since my skin was so delicate.
seems I haven't grown up yet.

Seems I never emotionally matured
into this body that reminds me
what loneliness tastes like-
it's diluted.

I have been biting the inside of my cheek
because the blood reminds me I am still living,

even when I feel dead inside.

Maybe taking control over myself
inside of these words
will be enough to make me sane
and will take away the mania inside of my veins-
but I still feel you crawling all over me.

This is a recipe for disaster
my lack luster infatuation
with a happily ever after-
you can see it in the fog of my eyes.

I am slipping into a delusion
of dissociation and depersonalization

maybe this is who I am inside
and maybe I've been wrong about me this whole time.

it's hard to know who you are
when half the time you're away from yourself.

floating idly above your chance at redemption
and recovery and autonomy.

the only thing left to cling to are these memories-
and half the time they're not correct either.

where's the ******* reset
button?

I spend too much time
pressing my worries
against the roof of my mouth-

I am surprised there is anything left of me.

My tongue acts too quickly
seems I cannot keep up
or shut up.

I am spilling these secrets
from between my lips
as if they are my savior.

please remind me
what unchapped lips taste like.

remember me in the heat of it all.

I lie to myself
because it feels
the way you did.

reminds me who to come back to.

why am I holding on to a lost soul?
why am I stuck inside this echo chamber
of apologies as if I wrote them myself.

the backs of my teeth
have gaps in between
and I realize I am more broken than whole.

I don't remember what you taste like anymore-
so I lie to myself as a reminder.

But it's never quite the same.

and I never will be either.

here i sit
pitted against myself again
i am collapsing under the weight of it all-
limboing between recovery
and recognition
i don't remember who i am anymore.

haven't seen clearly in days
because all i see is her face
etched inside the mirror
in front of me.

i try to tell people what it's like
i try to remove myself from it
like it isn't my own autobiography
just someone else's

but that never works in my favor
it just causes even more disscociation

i have not been inside my own body
in 15 hours, i have counted them all.

they have sat heavy on my sternum
causing me to feel like i cannot inhale deep.

i have lost my ability
to do the one thing i have known since birth
and it is because of you.

how do you tell someone
they remind you of your abuser?

how do you let them know
that is also why you keep them around?

how do you know if you believe yourself
when you say that?

how do you know what happened to you
when the memory is lost inside time
and only shows itself when it's ready?

how do you make it ready?

how do you convince yourself you are?

none of these questions have answers,
the light of my reality is dimming slowly now
and everything around me will be dust soon
and this is not metaphor
this is how trauma eats away at my vision
at will- whenever it is hungry for my tragedy.

i hope it will subside soon
i hope these tears will satisfy it's emptiness.

i'm starting to wonder if there's any lost memory left
and then i blink and it's something else.

i wish everything wasn't so stained glass and fragile-
fragmented at the base of my eyes
projection is my only magic trick

i haven't taken a deep breath in 17 hours
i'm afraid of what it will feel like moving through my skin.

just another unwanted entity-
having control over me.

I'm always inclined to curse at an idea.

These hands haven't seen the light of day in ages-  
I can read my past between the crevices.

Too bad it's in a language of anguish-
one I can't seem to decipher.

Will someone teach me?

I am stuck throwing profanities at entities
that will never be able to reply.
Guess I am selfish that way.

and my mind likes to remind of this
when my chest starts spilling out
this morse code that I am not capable
of translating.

it pulses SOS
the only cadence
I have been able to understand.

the rest is all just blur,
just foggy memory.

I am cursing at my brain's
inability to show me.

What is the language of anguish?
Can I feel it in the pulsating of my chest?
Does it whisper to me at night before bed?
Is that the reason I can't sleep?

I have been learning how to understand this trauma
through the stomach pains and pale face.

I am native to it,
born here inside of this suffering.

But still cannot seem to
distinguish the meaning.

How do you find a lost memory
when it is tucked neatly
in the lining of your suffering?

When can I put this to rest?
Will I find meaning here
inside the convalescence?
Or will it all be for nothing?

I worry I will never be okay enough to survive.
each step in this life leads me into more trauma
and I am collapsing inside the hands of tragedy.

here I am hiccuping between breaths
and hoping for a hint of harmony-
but my diaphragm won't let me feel it.

everything hurts today
and I am choking on promises
I never got the chance to make.

my therapist tells me it's okay to grieve
the things you never got a chance to have.

well then I will spend most of my life
forgiving everyone for what they never gave me.

I will sit wrapped inside this idea of a happy family
or this idea of monotony and normalcy
or this idea of a friend who doesn't try to take advantage of me
or abuse me, I am exhausted thinking about where I have been.

when will my limbs be enough to pull me up-
when will I be strong enough?

everyone is so quick to let me down
but how can they carry me with this spine
full of trauma, this darkness that weighs on me?

I have been my own backbone for 23 years,
so why can't I do it anymore?

What does stability look like?
Does it have a face that resembles mine?
Will I ever get a chance to know her?
Or is survival the only face I recognize anymore?

When will it turn survivor?

I wrote you notes in high school
and we talked about our future.

I always thought my depression would **** me first-
but at least I know now how badly it would've hurt you.

A car wreck broke my chest
and I'm left here picking up the pieces.

Somehow a death has kept me from leaving.

My body shakes
I feel it in the tips of my feet
as it moves into the base of my neck

I am paralyzed by a fear
that remains nameless-
a fear that is missplaced
by a juxtaposition of overlapping anxieties.

my body becomes warm.
I leave these bones that once protected me
and turn into ash.

how do you come back from a fire
lit by your own body-
turned into dust on your own accord?

what do you do with the remains?

I have turned desert
dried up and almost deadly.

I do not let up until the sun goes down-
it is the only time I feel a sense of peace.

but even then
I still manage to come back empty
and endless and neverending.


my eyes are tired now
not rational enough to focus on anything
my brain likes to make a mess of my reality.

everything is pixelated
distorted and surreal.

and I have not come back from this since

will you hold my hand through it?

But you can't
you've disappeared
inside your own mind.

will we meet back in reality one day?
or will we stay lost on opposite planes.

I miss when we met in the middle
and you spilled your secrets onto mine.

but I became desolation
and you became destructive-
things won't feel the same again

so neither will I.