You spend
most of your nights
missing her.

You steady your walk-
forcing yourself
towards a double bed
you no longer find comfort in.

The floor wraps it's
fibers around your feet
and you cling to the carpet.

It smells new like-
this isn't a house you've
spent most of your life
buried in.

Move away.

Remind yourself
what freedom feels like.
Be up early to admire
the dew again.

Let it seep
through your bones.

Soak inside of it
like moisture is your head's
only ticket to closure.

You think of her again.

Break the blades of grass
between your fingers
and convince yourself
you and precipitation
have something in common-

these tears they contribute
to your growth.  

Wake up.

Pay attention to
the fact you lived.
Don't be mad she didn't

what happens when your mothers tongue is tougher than a fist? I see more of myself in my father now than I ever did.

I don’t recall how distance came between us but in mirrors I tend to see it; in the reflection of a pint glass, the emptiness reminds me.

Stained glass vision from the intoxication. I always promised myself I would never turn into this. Pixelated morality, the lines are always blurry. I never see my smile clearly.

Funny how we always run into the things we are running away from. Where do I move forward from here?

I wrote it on my wrists one year
and then again in the powder of pain pills.

and once more inside bottles
of dark whiskey that made me forget.

Since then I have not been close to a knife
without it feeling too heavy.

Since then I have not been
able to stomach medicine.

Since then the alcohol doesn’t
go down the same.
Just makes my eyes ache
and my chest feel heavy
the intoxication isn’t fun anymore.
just a warm nostalgia
of why I started it in the first place

Even upon running away
I am reminded of it.
Even upon coping
I am reminded of it.

In the steady up and down of my breathing-
I hear yours in my ear.

In the weight of cloth upon my skin I feel them there.

So what am I to do?
When you still ruin me
from the inside.

What am I to do?
When my own father
is invalidating at every corner.

What am I to ******* do
When his Facebook comments
are thrown into my face
as he uses the word “molestation” as an insult
as something I should be ashamed of
as something that doesn’t happen but only to deface men.

What am I do to do?
When around every corner
I am reminded of what they’ve done to me?

I. Keep. *******. Walking.

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.

Sometimes shoes are hard to fill
sometimes they feel like cement
but somehow I keep walking
whether on eggshells or stained glass apologies
I wither in the aftermath of accomplishment.

I am afraid of wanting more for myself.

where do you go when defeated is all you've ever known?
how do you make peace with a half-assed apology?

I am afraid this forgiveness makes me weak
weeping inside of the idea that I can be in control
of this trauma.

but the twin sized bed in my childhood home is more of a cage
and I am stuck there wishing I could escape.

wishing I could make something more of myself.
I am too visceral and not enough visual
this anxiety taking my breath
making me sick to my stomach
why can I not remember correctly?

No one talks about it.
No one gets how it feels to miss a memory
or how the presence of one
makes you lose reality.

My mind is stuck in fragmentation.

I'm tired of not remembering days
because of what she did to me.

Manipulation a scarlet letter on the chest of everyone.
My younger self tells me they all just want something.

No one can take anything away from you
if you have absolutely nothing left.

wipe the hard-drive clean
I will become obsolete.

I'm coughing up my lungs again,
smoking cigarettes I never had any intention of starting.
This isolation becomes inhalation
but it seems I cannot breath anymore.

Constantly searching for satisfaction I will never find
because it is found inside of things
I do not trust myself enough to keep
somehow I ruin everything.

Shallow tendencies weighing heavy inside of me
I guess I prefer semblance over substance.
So here I go again, locked inside an idea
rather than an entity.

I don't trust myself with sincerity-
too wrapped up inside attention
to be able to hold on to anything.

Carrying love would be too much.
I would crush the weight of it in my palms-
ash it like one of my cigarettes.

It would disappear every time I inhale.
It would disappear every time anyone got too close.

So I do not let them,
I tremble inside walls
and long hours
and become nothing
because that is what is expected of me.

Maybe I will gain the courage
by seeking someone that doesn't scare me so much.
Or maybe I just like the rush.

Stuck in an endless cycle of wanting love
and being scared of what it does to me.

So I **** down another cigarette
knowing this smell will stay with me.

Knowing this is as close to commitment as I will ever get.

Here's the dagger
use it in the same places on my back that you always do.
It's my only form of consistency.

Every time I turn around you're there, making me feel so unworthy.

Remove you from my mind and I become nothing-
just another sick sense of normalcy I've never been accustomed to.

This anxiety shakes my ribcage,
I'm having trouble breathing the same.
Having trouble feeling this way-

I haven't in a long time.

Not since the alcohol made you confident.
Not since my turtle neck and long black jacket.

You can only make progress by trying
but I am too consumed with your timing.

See I'm either reprimanded or taken for granted  
and in my mind that's inane.

In my mind I've gone concave.

Caving in again
I am now sheet rock and monolithic.

Show someone who has always had nothing
what having something is like and they might use it against you.

Too worried about who will have the last laugh
that we never think about the satisfaction.

I will become dust in your wake and we will both
make the mistake of letting stubborn tendencies fill the void.

This tension is leaving me desperate.
Wanting nothing from you, but all of your attention.

I'm dying to find your insides again
you lost them behind friends who never knew you.

but I still do.

I'm intoxicated inside this tragedy,
it weighs in my palms.

paints something timid
and thick like a calligraphy pen.

I try to write the words that keep me sane
and try to rationalize falling in love again.

but can I carry the weight?

will my palms be able to hold onto
both the pen and still maintain the penmanship
or is this dynamic too graphic
too unrelenting
and messy?

who will I become when the ink dries?

will I smudge this pain
onto the mouths of others?

or will my silence
be enough of a concealer-
or will my silence
be but a fashion accessory
that I wear on my wrist.

this fear it has no use for me anymore
it is just taking up space now.

I must find something to make it all worth it
something that looks a bit more pretty.

do I continue to carry this with me
when it is all I have ever known?

or do I learn to let it go?

so I write until the pen runs out of ink
and I seem to run out of stories.

maybe I'll make it out in one piece
or maybe I will make a piece out of it.

either way this is where the fear stops.

somewhere between lost earrings
and the stain of alcohol the next morning-
I have found something.

It's stuck behind my snaggle tooth
and beside the lump in my throat.

it's called salvation
it's called ambition
it's a misnomer that spells out the sound of my own voice
I will spill myself as ink spills on paper
and I will unfold, over and over again.

I will make more than a story out of this malice.

i miss the way you would dance off beat and the feeling of your arms wrapped around my body.

I can't seem to turn it all off and I guess I don't want to.

You were the only person who ever made me feel something real.

but my trauma became too much and I ****** everything up.

Since when do I rhyme in my poetry? I guess it's bc that reminds me of you too.

this is ****, similar to the way I treated you.

I haven't been the same since you left.

I don't think I ever will be again.

but I was right about one thing, you'd be happier without me.

I'm sorry for what this pain
has turned me into.

I'm almost 23
still I sit
uncomfortable
with the parts of myself
I should've felt okay with at 12.

But I am stuck there.
A small girl
painting on her skin
wondering why everyone
makes such a big deal out of her body.

But still I am stuck here.
A grown woman
tearing at her skin
wondering why
she feels so outside of her own body.

Everyone wants something from me
there is only so much I have left to give.

They wonder why I cannot
push past this pain.

They wonder why I won't
shut the **** up about it.

It is lined inside my DNA now
my genome is riddled with trauma.
It is as much apart of me
as the these veins inside my skin.

I am weak
in the same breath
as I am strong.

Taking steps backwards
until I meet the small girl
that was ruined by another.

I shake her hand
and thank her for the progress.

I look in the mirror and do the same.

But all I see is my trauma
lapping over my eyelids.
Stuck inside of my reflection
my abuser stares back at me.
Smirking.

Stop making me remember
I am trying to forgot.

But this is just as much apart of me
as I am apart of it.

It will never be a second cousin
twice-removed.

It will forever be malignancy.  

There is no remission for this.

No black box warning
on the side of these pills
because I will end up killing me first.

my savior is myself
and I am swallowing solitude whole.

once again I am sitting inside
all of this dissatisfaction
awaiting the perfect storm
awaiting to be reborn.

but this trauma lingers in the shadows
it always seems to follow me
while everyone is shouting,
why can't you make it leave?

so I'm stuck in explantion
surrounded by those
who will never understand
this severity.

I sink.
I sulk.
I'm dirt,
I'm mulch.

The thing that makes others grow,
but they seem to always toss aside.

I am scuff on shoes,
and chips in paint
and no one will look at me
as anything but.

still I sit
idly awaiting the instructions
on how to rid of this weight.

clinging to this hope
inside of my chest
but chagrin finds me
charges me a fee of suffering
and reminds me I am nothing.

just the supplement
to a walking monument
of something I will never beat.

this trauma it lives with me
it stands in my silhouette -

maybe I'm just the shadow to it.

I watch the ache in my chest
for you
dissolve into a quiet whisper.

I rethink every decision ever made
as these memories are telling me a story
about my progress
as if it was someone else's

will I always stand inside the shadow of another?

will even my own not be enough company to keep me sane?

why do I love lonely but crave the embrace?

I'm watching my expression change,
with every single word I say
and every single thing I feel.

it seems it's all imagined,
the desire for infatuation
and lust and connection.

it's all just ego.

I am nothing but
a whisper in the ears of no one.

should I even speak at all
when my words don't mean anything to even me.

never have I been trusting.

and here I go-
coming undone again.

thinking the world of myself
but the world is ******
so that's counterproductive,
isn't it?

paradoxical contingencies
keep me awaking from these dreams.

go to sleep it's a nightmare
and wake up it's the same.

my vision is getting blurry
and my voice now shakes
from inadequacy.

I love every part of me
so how could this be happening?

my shadow laughs back at me,
reminds me I am the same girl I was
19 and addicted to things.

almost 23 and it's more of the same-
23 and I've lost almost everything.

so what's another 23 years?

here comes the crash and burn
here comes me keeping score
of every **** thing you've ever done
in comparison to me I think you've won

watch me unweave into a basket
of backseat insecurity
you're driving me mad.

I'm sorry for not being there enough
and I apologize for shutting you out
but when every word from your mouth
shouts "this is your fault"
it's hard to stay calm,
it's hard to keep going.

I took my last breath for you yesterday
and now I breathe much easier,
without the weight
of a thousand problems on my plate.

this is food for thought,
your universe is not as big as me
I'm as small as a pebble
and as frail as the dirt
but I can still become something more.

Dissemble myself from you
piece by piece.

I don't want to leave you with nothing-
but I don't want to keep on hurting

Myself.

I'm done trying for your sake
should've seen this mistake
coming around the bend again
but we're at a four way intersection
and none of us wants to go.

I'll guess I've make the first move,
to move on from being you.
to move on from letting you
love me.

it's a sad song,
on a good night
it's a long drive
with no goodnight
kiss.

I'm craving things
I don't seem to miss
and it seems I'm done
reminising
about you.

These memories
were good to me.
But the pressure was too much.

I threw myself under the bus
and I never looked both ways.
I should've looked both ways.

these scars on my knees are a reminder
  i cannot run away from the past.

but still I am buried here
   staring at soil unsettled
   basking in the outline of my body.

I have spent my days trapped-
  holding on to this idea
  that I can dig up dead memory.

Holding on to what keeps me guessing.
  everyday I am reminded
  of this ghost that carries me
  like it is a harness that helps me sit up straight.

But it seems I am slouching again
  seems my posture cannot handle
  the fact I'm trying to stand up for myself .

Where did my backbone go?
  how do I repair this absence?

When will I know that I can trust myself
  when will the alcohol stop being a cushion
  for everything bad thing I have ever done
  and every bad thing that has ever been done to me.

I am relapsing into oblivion
all because someone else wrecked who I am.

All because of this spine that is missing
and this spirit that cannot be dug back up.

It's shame I can't tell love from deceit.
It's a shame I only sometimes recognize intimacy.

When will I uncover the parts of myself
  that make me fit for recovery.

Why is survival the only thing my body knows?
   why can't I convince it things are fine now..
   why can't I convince myself?

This cold makes my nose bleed,
turns my toes white and my fingers blue.

I'm having trouble coping again.
These times they take a toll on my insides.

This fear of everything is isolating me.
I have come to terms with inconsistency.
My limbs feel as if they are backwards
and I can't seem to stand up straight.

Everything I have come to know is different.
I haven't changed much, but I didn't stay the same.

Clinging to an absence because a presence will show it's face
and I'll be hanging by a thread again.

Talk me out of this isolation and seclusion.
Avoidance is the best tactic I know
so watch as I run away from it all.

But I'm still stuck inside this lingering chill
and wrapped up in this winter feeling.
Everything around me is frozen solid
and so I sit, lacking stability.
​
Nothing falls short but me and my expectations.
Since when is life so ******* daunting?

I am haunted by a faceless man
and he lingers in this winter air.
Oh what a shame to become this thing.

Oh what a ******* shame to become something
and be afraid of it all.

I am falling in love with isolation and lonely
it has been the only calm I have ever known.

Dissociation climbs it's way into my limbs
and I am a puppeteer at best.
My subconscious is pulling the strings
and I am inside a body I no longer recognize.

I try to remind myself of me.
But all I remember is a sad shell of a person,
a shadow just trailing behind.

I am wasting away inside of my own mind again.
I'm hanging from these frozen limbs,

my head's on backwards now too
and this past is all I see-
I can't seem to walk any other direction.
Frozen until I have seen it all.

Stuck inside an endless loop of
untying knots in my memory,
still trying to tie up every loose end.

until we meet again
the innocence I once had.

I am on the receiving end
of an emotional hierarchy
on the power dynamic of control
and it is based at the core foundation
of my childhood
rooted inside the deep seeded
fear of isolation and abuse.
I have come a long way since then.

Since the corner
of my shut closet
became a museum
for these guilt pangs
in my 7 year old stomach.

But the shouts of my parents
still haven't diminished
and neither have these pangs.

A constant reminder
I am closer to my childhood
than I am my progress.

So I have to take a step away
from all of these things
putting me back into
that dark closet
into the Eminem show soundtrack
on the 6th grade bus
crying because I didn't feel loved.

I don't want to go back
to not eating for weeks
or showering for a month
just so I could get the attention.

I never had it anyway
so why was I fighting for the nonexistent?
why am I fighting, still now
for the constant validation
and acknowledgment of existence.

I am still closer to my childhood
than I am my progress
and I keep stepping back into
people, place and things that put me there.

every friend and boyfriend
reminding me of my father or my mother
and every minute of isolation reminding me
that there is no lesson that I haven't been taught
from loneliness and inadequacy.

So I should be thankful
I am closer to my childhood than my recovery
because that's where it started,
and for me-
that's where it ends.

Somewhere between the closet space
and basement walls-
I am buried there.

around me are civilians
struggling with what it means
to be normal.

stuck in a loop of society's
standards and how their parents
raised them.

A plethora of mental chaos
and the burden of growing.

around me is myself
struggling with what it means
to be normal.

lost inside the idea
of being in control of something.

Their normal has a face.
It’s an object, or found at a place.

My normal is void of
human characteristics-
it is all solidified inside
this lost memory that
rips my limbic system
into an endless limbo
of hyper vigilance and manicness
I am a vigilante at best.

My normal is foreign.

My normal is a girl
with a slanted face
sitting in class
wondering why
the tip of her pencil
feels like a vice grip-

why the words
from a professor’s
lips sounds like grooming-
when in reality
she's stuck in a trance.

She's stuck inside the time
she got bribed for intimacy

stuck in a time
where she thought trust
was lust and that little girls
we're supposed to be submissive.

She's hanging by the thread of her thoughts
realizing these are memories-
realizing she cannot stitch up the holes inside of them.

That all this bad ****
isn't actually a daydream
that she can just fidget and blink and pinch
her way out of.

So now she has to learn to cope-
while she has an hour & a half
to take an exam and her mind
is void of any information.

She has never been taught
a lesson that she didn't teach herself.

I have never been taught
a lesson that I wasn’t manipulated
into learning.

So forgive me-
Bc my wish to be normal
is your struggle.

Forgive me
because this trauma
isn't a competition
but I can't help feeling like
I'm losing
can’t help but wish I was
in the place of others.

Can’t help but feel like my childhood
is nothing but an ankle monitor
keeping me distant from myself.

I am carrying around this burdening
that no one has any idea what to do with.

I am drowning in the idea
someone else will ever be able to help me.

I'm drowning in the idea of solitude
and independence-

That loneliness will someday
feel like progress.

That this pencil
will no longer feel like a vice grip.

I am choking on the absence of words
just dead air and radio silence.

This salience,
here on this stage-
will swallow me whole.

The only place I can call home.
This type of normal chains itself to me.

I have broken down more walls
than I can count on these fingers
they are too busy clenched into a fist.

I have broken down barriers
in hopes of betterment and redemption
my arms have grown weak under this pressure.

I'm weighing the pros and cons
of survival on the tops of shoulders
so it's safe to say I'm grounded
safe to say these bones feel heavy

I speak only when spoken too nowadays
but the look on my face reads third person omniscient-
anyone can get inside my head
my body language is written that way.
Too fragile to speak up,
Too stubborn to sit down.

I'm tired of these walls
holding me back
and these barriers
keeping me on the outskirts
of my own life.
My mouth is just a drawbridge
these words drown
in the wading water underneath

I have broken down more walls
  than I have written poetry
only to realize I have built them myself
only to realize I have written them myself.

comprehension isn't in your bloodstream you are too busy apprehending these repressive tendencies. Everything is messy lately, and I can't seem to see things clearly. This can't make sense to anyone but me- and it never will. Memories are isolated events. My trauma is a movie only I have seen but everyone tries to write the review of. I'm tired of this being a competition. Like whoever has the most ****** up life wins in this potato sack race to the finish line- I'm far from fine I'm two steps back and trailing even farther behind. Everyone seemed to have had some kind of advantages, these genetics were defective for me, my motor skills and processing delayed and defective see I can seem speak on these things too clearly. Mumbling at the mouth of memory and retention, I'm trying to articulate what's piled on top of my heavy heart and this chest full of weight and ***** slate and angst. I'm having trouble marking the place on his face. I'm having trouble marking the place where I laid, where he laid, where I can find peace. I'm having trouble not having trouble. I'm alone in my struggle too. No one knows you better than you, but no one knows me like I know me and it seems this is factually accurate from an everyone standpoint. Am I okay anymore? Or is this void the only voice I will hear when I am being called back to sleep. Where will these secrets always be kept? Inside of the locks behind my retinas, who the **** forgot the combination to the safe. That would be me.

5 months ago
I discovered I had cptsd-
I have a new name to claim and to become accustomed to.

my mind is wired weird now.
and I can't blame these happenings
on chemical imbalance anymore

this true has held my throat shut.

Everything I knew about myself vanished,
but everything I knew about myself now made sense.

Every step forward was inside of quick sand.
Every step out of it was dragging around *****.

My mind was sheet white and clean slate.

These triggers always align my eye sight
even words can engrave themselves
inside of my head-space.

I am everywhere at once.

Here's the thing,
my prefrontal cortex is stunted
and it's all my childhood's fault.
I would hold resentment or place the blame
on my alcoholic father, or on my abuser-
but I don't have the time or the patience
to entertain anger.
So instead I am sad.

Grudges have been my calling card
since birth and I'm tired
of wearing them like a scarlet letter.

A giant red stain, but in my eyes
and on my face,
everyone knows I am damaged
everyone knows I am deranged.

I walk on spiders
trying not to squish them
knowing **** well,
they could **** me if they wanted.

this ache in my chest sends me backwards,
under covers and into a night
that knows no time zone.
hours mean nothing
to the face of a depression nap.

my hand clings
to my childhood blanket-
when all I've been
trying to do lately
is let my past go.

but there's nostalgia there,
hidden behind the tragedy,  
behind the smell of alcohol
on my father's breathe
and the sound of distain
in my mothers.

there was hope there once-
until I saw what it turned me into.

but is this version of me so bad?
I guess things could've been worse.
I guess all of this pressure
could've turned me a little more numb.

cutting off circulation
at my self-confidence
I've been trying to find a balance.
Dying to find a way to feel
non-restricted.

I guess there are better words
to be used than the ones I do.

But who has time to be pristine,
when someone will find me
messy anyway?

who has time to think,
when I am just
who everyone says I am anyway?

what good is pressure
when you know you
won't live up to all of these
expectations?

I'm wading in the water
awaiting a wave to carry me away-
but these blockades won't budge.

and I'm stuck
sitting in a place everyone wants me to be.
looking like I am happy.

where has this talent gotten me?
where will it even take me?

I have spent too long in the shadow
of someone else that I no longer know myself.

but have I ever?

These losses are never my own,
stuck inside the hands of someone else.

but I am always the person to uncover them-
make a facade out of the remains
I am always the chosen one.

and when that is the case
what am I supposed to feel now?

bereavement is not a luxury I have ever owned-
it has always been stuck in the mouths of others.

so what do I say when grief gets in the way
of my ability to empathize.

what happens when I am too broken up
to put into words
the way I would like to dropkick
this world
in the nuts
and walk the **** away.

the deeper I travel inside of my own head
the harder these things get.

it was his,
they were theirs,
she was hers
and his
and it's
and never mine.

This sorrow is never only mine
because the weight is more heavy
upon those who have lifted this burden.

every single thing
in life makes an impact.

and I have always been
the airbag.

Who am I
but a tracer at the forefront?
a direct result of pain,
so these images
are always distorted-
disfigured and misconstrued
malignancy swallowing me whole.

who am I
but my disorder
scraping away at my vision
so all I do in return
is feel everything
and witness nothing.

I am floating above these memories
with my hands reaching out
to touch, fight or throw away
whatever it is that's holding me back-
when will my sight return?

who am I but
a chaser of these wishes.
a runner after dreams
that stay that way
because my feet can't move.

how do I answer the question
when someone asks,
"what happened to you?"

who am I
but a body?
one they stole
away from me
so when I look into the mirror
I only see what they did to me.

who am I
but a mind
too in competition
with my former self
nose-diving into
self-destruction
one thought at a time.

who am I
but a girl
in a dark corner
replaying her past
until it deafens her
and she doesn't
remember the sound of her own voice.
All she hears is the silence
of what she should've spoken up for.

Who am I
but a name on a list,
a placeholder-
a speaker to other poets?

who am I
but a lost destination
no one remembers the name of.
too run-down
and has-been
just a point on a map.

Who am I
but these things I feel?
Who am I
without these things I feel?

Who am I but this trauma
caked inside of my mouth, on my teeth
and hiding underneath my tongue.
When will I be clean?

Who am I
but a survivor
telling stories
of the past
like PTSD is my calling card?

Who am I,
who am I
who am I?
but the things they have done to me?

Who am I
but a survivor?
paint the word in red across
the lines I have drawn over these years.

Hang it banner style in the offices
of the therapists who know more
about me than my father.

Tell it to the people
who broke me in half.

say it again
to the boy who shattered my insides.

scream it at the face
of doubt and insecurity
and remembrance.

Survivor.
It is not always black and white.
sometimes it is void of color-
emotionless and distinctive

But it is who I am-
speaking with this
chestful of trauma
learning how to breathe
around it as I go.

What do you do
when others become
the aftermath of what happen to you?

Is trauma better a closed door than an open window,
is silence the only thing that won't cause them pain?

How do you talk about it
when the words leaving your mouth
Are just as toxic to those you love
as the events that occurred were to you?

Is this trauma always a contest?

Does it always beg to discipline
a body demanding closure?

Will memories repressed
always lay into the place that once held your spine?
Where each moment spent remembering
chips away at your backbone-

soon enough there will be nothing left
and you will have to stand up straight on your own.

But what happen when you crumble,
and you take everyone down with you
Is their downfall now your fault?
Does this mean the trauma is now your fault?

That because you let yourself be honest-
it was nothing but a disservice to those who love you.

Is it better to struggle in seclusion
than let someone wither away
inside the hands of your abusers?
the same way you have for years.

Is the conversation
worse than the experience?

I’m still trying to find out.

Hidden between never open fingers
and vocal chords
scared shut

I have been battling
the idea of redemption.

Will those who know help me fight
or watch as I do it alone?
Either way,
I am rebuilding my backbone
from the ground up.

Chipping away at the parts of me they made a mess of
filling the gaps with concrete progress.

Structure can only be as solid
as the foundation it was built upon.

So here’s to hoping I harden.

I have become nothing
in the hands of my abusers
just skin cells
collecting dust under beds
I only remember the smell of.

Please don't look at me
I am only a fraction of a person now.
The other parts of me
linger on the bodies of those
who barely remember what they did.

Who smirk at the idea
because they got what they wanted.
I am scatter-brained and shattered
at the thought of them.

Intimacy trying to make its way
past carbon fiber memory.
Not once has it gotten through.

There are three faces I see
when someone is inside of me
Theirs, hers and his.

Each getting something they want from me
Stealing away what I once held so close and so sacred.

I never want this,
and I'm not sure I even did the first time.

Shouldn't it be special?
Why does it make my heart break?

Why do I not even remember
the way it happens half the time.
I remove myself from the idea of closeness
in hopes all of these ideations go unnoticed
and I sink into the bedsheets

Slip into the space
between the box spring
and the floor board.
My favorite hiding place.
Nothing but dust in my wake.

This form of appreciation only comes in zeros-
but the well has ran dry
and I have left empty handed.
how do I show people
the only thing I've known
when I lost it all so long ago?

Dimes have turned to
my only form of decency
and my love only comes in currency-
how did I grow this way
following the footsteps
of a man who did the same

Why was love never my forte?
Why does it cost me everything?
and leave me broken,
fixated on reciprocation
no one knows the name of.

Struggling behind the self worth
of a coward.
He raised the stakes
And now I make his mistakes
and continue to pay the price.

Put a dollar sign on happiness
I'll buy it till I'm broke
I've done it all my life anyway.
I'm sorry
I'm not so good with words-
or feelings.
I'll pay the amount
everyone is dishing
in hopes to clear my conscious-
In hopes to show my hand.

Truth only comes in the evening for me
Anything else is found
inside a carbon copied smile
and the flick of a wrist.

I work hard to make a living
but it just ends up falling
in the place of loving.
I wish someone taught me
money doesn't buy the kind of things I want.
I guess I'll have to keep learning.

Nothing good comes from the sulking inside of my bloodstream.
And nothing good comes from writing these same lines and thinking these same thoughts.
Why am I no good at anything I do.
Why are these pills not enough to remind me who I am again.
Did I ever really know her?
Lost inside memories that never came to the surface.
Lost inside a face in a dark room that I never see-
only smell and feel
that makes this all worse.
That something was stolen by a man wearing a mask and I can't retrieve the footage.
Maybe this is where all the hurt stems from
or maybe I'm just using it as an excuse as of late.
Maybe I'm just ****** up
and maybe the blame is on me.

And maybe these lines I write will be good enough one day to remind me why I started writing in the first place.

But until then
I will wrap myself around this life and hope it helps me drown.

I will count out my breaths:
holding them in longer than I take them-

and I will wish for better days,
knowing I don't believe they will come true.

I will pray for a way outside of this life and into a new one, knowing I don't believe in God.

Missing you in pieces
Falling into the places where they lay.
Loving you in parts
because I didn't know you how I used to.

Everything is breaking
I don't have enough sticky tac or glue or medication to fix all of this.

I can't talk or write my way out of this hole.

So I'll tie myself around this life and hope it will help me drown.

But maybe I'll float

And maybe I'll never know.

I tried to call out to you
in my dream last night.
But you were lost
behind a fixation
I couldn't re-imagine.

Now I'm looking
at the way I'm coping
hoping to somehow
ghostwrite my way out
of this incessant grief.

We can't just spill loss
into a letter and hope
by some chance
they read it over our shoulder.

I am foreshadowing
someone else's demise.

I've spent a lot of time losing this year,  
and somehow this was the most difficult.

Somehow the idea
is worse than
the reality

Somehow these words
will not be enough for you.

Asking you to stay
sounds selfish,
but you leaving seems the same.

I can't tell if
this is a poem
for my best friend that died-
or to the one who tried to.

I guess it's both.
I guess I am both.

Somewhere between grieving
too late and too early
in the same breath.

Loss feels so much more
than empty,
I am a tea kettle
  with bad metaphors
left on too long
so I am just screaming.

This is an empty house-
no one can hear me.

My blood boils over
with emotions
never taken off the back burner.

This chest caves in
and I cave into
the mindset that
this scenario
isn't imagination.

This is real life
and death isn't
just a concept for me anymore.

It is object permanence.

It took time to rewrite my past
in a way that looked pretty on a page
but everything-
just eventually
turned
   uncomfortable.

It feels
like i'm always
wearing wet clothes,
sulking because I tried to drown
these memories I didn't want at the surface.

But I needed air-
so they came to catch it with me.
They demanded a home inside of my world
  and so they put me under.

Now I'm clawing my way to oxygen
but this doesn't feel like
  just water anymore
  more sheet metal than surface.

Every move made
by anyone-
  myself included
feels like a weight.  

I keep fighting my way
to sanity and
I keep fighting
  to remove this memory.

but it says with me
and it screams
every time you touch me.

How will I ever be okay
with comfort?

How do I cope
with something
so adamant about
keeping me under.

These dark images
invade the back of my head.

It's not my fault
someone
  took away my childhood.

So why am I the one-
drowning?

1, 2, 3, 4
What are women fighting for?

My father doesn't know-
about my past.
As the **** culture comments
slip from his tongue-
I mourn for the women
who experience the same.

Because every time
it is a knife upon my spine
chipping away at my backbone.

Some days,
it hurts to stand up straight.

5, 6, 7, 8-
Women need to procreate!

We tell women
their legs are an entry way
men can use at will.

But then they urge us to keep the seed
growing inside of us-
when sometimes it is just a ****
coming to the surface
because of an invasion
of our own garden
the one we spent
so much time growing.

In the case we let it flourish
into a flower, even though we don't
have the proper nutrients
all of those mouths
that told us to water it
are now dry and absent.

They don't return
so we are the ones who become withered..

Once,
a man who thought we was more
medicine than overdose
took away a child
that could of been my sibling.

And ever since-
my mother feels the withdrawal.

7, 8, 9, 10-
Will **** culture ever end?

Not when there's a vulture
among the white house
now painted blood red,
Caucasian white,
and bruised ego blue.

When the words
are noosing their way
around our necks-
we must give misogyny a kiss of death.

When some "feminists"
spew misandry from the pores
remind them to exfoliate
the hatred from their vocal chords.

Remind them to
look up the definition of feminism.

We can't forget-
about the boy who was forced
by his cousin and stayed silent
because "men can't get *****"
right?

We can't forget-
about the women of color
who fight harder than most
because their skin
gives them the greater war.

When this America
is etched with white supremacy
Don't let them fetishize
or demoralize our sisters.
We stand together.

Don't let these instances
slip through your fingers.
Grab them by the throat
and remind yourself
of when they made
you lose your voice.

1, 2, 3, 4
What are the people fighting for?

******* Equality.

What do you do
when you realize
you're the aftermath
of someone's abuse?

It was written in the subtleties,
not the clear skin on your face.

You find it etched inside
of a voided smile.

The byproduct
of back handed remarks.

You stayed home
convinced yourself
you weren't really lonely.
But when you went out
you were made to feel the same.

Second guessing became
second nature.
Proving yourself worthy
became a personality trait.

It's not always clenched fist
or hit and run

It's a quick wit
and a razor tongue too.

The kind of love
that makes you
question the lengths
you've walked in life.

Makes you think
the only way is stay put
or go backwards.

The green eyed monster
turned you pale again
and you don't see
yourself in the mirror anymore.

Only someone who paints
her face with a smile
and tells everyone she's okay.

But the aftermath
is still just as deadly.
and your eyes feel sore
from trying to see
the good in things.

It's not always black eye
and a pain in your head.

If the flags read red-
then run.
No matter how far
you have made it.

Died a thousand times
to watch you live inside of me
But with each house fire burned
We became nothing
but a cemetery.

Ashes became of bones
and I lost my place of comfort
but you conform to coincidence

and say it didn't happen
pretend it didn't happen.

Your eyes are the fire
that made this home a hell
And I'm having trouble
sleeping through this heat
when will you admit it to me?

You poured the salt
on these open wounds.
Drunken tendencies
leading you dependent
on a girl who never stayed.

Still you gave your words away
to a place that wasn't mine
and ever since
I've felt homeless.

You fueled this tragedy
with cheap beer
and desecrated the
aftermath of my remains.

and said it didn't happen
pretended it didn't happen.

Too hard to be happy
without a home
inside of my heart.
I guess it's time to start
rebuilding
But these bones ache
and this head hurts.
You're always
feeding the flames
You're always
burnt out.
I'm always
feeling the heat
Trust is a two way street
But ours was an intersection.
Too much stop and go,
Not enough direction.
So all we did ever did
was crash
And burn.

You have become nothing but a zip file inside of my memory,
taking up too much space so I had to make you smaller, and smaller
until this nostalgia didn’t overload my chest cavity
and you became minute enough to just forget again.

I have sent you into the backup file
laying on the desk in my room
Away where our pictures are.
Away where you should be.

It was always supposed to be give and take
But all you ever did was take what you wanted
and acted like I was the one who couldn’t give it.

Now I am found
one year after the fact
and each of the three I spent with you
has left me with nothing but resentment
and this animosity chained around my ankle
you always held me back.

I don't care enough
about you anymore
to finish this poem
it ended when we did.
I guess finishing is
something we were both
terrible at.

well at least not for me anymore.

One year.
I read it on the page
twist it until it
cripples around
my tainted fingers.

I looked you
in your eyes
and asked you
why I should stay.

You could never tell me.
Still you never told me.

Actions speak
louder than words
but even your
voice was quiet.

Your hands were still-
Too strained
from words you
gave to her

and never let me breathe-
suffocating
under your insecurity.

She broke you
so you broke me
and I was left
with nothing.

I never had you
and you never wanted me to.

So I broke away
From what left me broken

you still think it's my fault.
I guess it's all just my fault.

For letting someone in
who didn't love me the same.
For loving her
Until it drove me insane.

Seems you spend
so much time
worried sick
about my mental state
I'm starting to think
I'm not okay.
You convince me
I'm not okay.
Let me lie here
enjoy the silence.
I don't want to drown
inside of worry.
Not anymore.

The only truth known to me-
is the simple sense of delicacy.
The furrowed brow
and the asking how.
The not knowing when
or how to withstand
The idea of an end
only to lose some friends.

The hurt from it all
and the pain of death.
Seems I am the only thing left-
but I'm barely hanging on.
I'm barely hanging on.

This clenched fist
doesn't make any sense.
I can't reach out
somethings holding me down.
These hands are stuck stagnant
seems the darkness is stuck on me.

No rhyme scheme
seems to fit
so the metaphors
and the meanings are split.
Something in common
with my personality.

Ups and downs
encompassing my skull
Seems I don't know
anything at all.

The hurt from it now
and the pain of goodbye
Seems I am the only one
grasping at what holds me up-
but I'm barely hanging on.
I'm barely hanging on

Beyond the imprints in my skin
Redemption has tried to
Encompass my hands and hold them tightly
Across these urges that attempt to pain my smile and
Kiss the lids of my eyes.

For I have not found
Room to grow just yet,
Only making such a fickle
Mockery of my former self.

Why do these
Hands no longer feel
Anything-
They just tuck away the memories.

Beyond this smile
Repression holds me again
Often times the only thing
Keeping this mind sane
Etches a mark onto a page

Yielding what I need for recovery
Only to leave me back to one
Universal truth, to break from what broke you.

you make me better
though I am still bitter

spending days
soothing the burns
upon my hands

I had been
holding things
too tightly.

you loosen my grip
help me hang on
remind me
this isn't solitary

remind me
I am not stationary
or stagnant
just starting

continuing this journey
just like I had done
all the days before
this one.

but I am not alone
for you are the hand
that helped me
and held me

you are the grip
that keeps me
from falling too far
back into the same patterns.

I worry if I write
about the way
you have saved me,
you won't want to anymore.

that you will feel
your work here is done
and you will move
slowly on.

the progress
will regress
and time will
wither us apart.

I will try to hold my grip
but I will be too weak
and my hands will let us go.

you make me see
the fault in that

and laugh
at the cynicism
etched inside
of my smile

you make me
want to continue.

so I will fill up this page
and write all of this poetry
for you-

and not care
what happens
if I do.

What a sad fate
  her name so common.
So the triggers
  lined inside
  of my eardrums
play a silhouette
  of my nostalgia
and it is never symphony
  only sympathy
  and infamy.  

It's played
  mirroring the blood
that runs from my skull
  tarnished and desecrated-
  mind now too hollow.
It was ripped clean
of your memory.

My retinas aren't safe
  from a women with
  such a common name.

What a twisted fate.
I fell in love with
a lover
who didn't
  love me the same.
But loved her till
  the death of us.

He.
Loved her.
  Until it drove me insane.

the sad fact is-
this is progress.

This is what
years of trying
have painted inside
of my demeanor.

I leave him.
The freedom makes me fly-
then I put myself
right back in the same position.

Constantly
******* myself over.

But this is still progress.
Still happy.
Still okay.

My best friend died
College starts.

I keep it together
for the friends
and the boy.

Help him maintain progress.
I had drifted too far from mine
  before.

I think about this time last year,
and the months that came before.

I think about the inconsistency-
the insane mood swings
accompanied by the
suicidal tendencies.

I've made progress.
Repeat this.
Try to memorize it.

I took medicine
because one of my boyfriends
convinced me-
I was crazy.

Shortly after-
He cheated.

Took him back
Because I blamed
my own inconsistency.

I should've made
him feel more wanted.

Seems I am the cause
for so many others'
problems.

My mom
blames herself
everyday.

I think about
if I wouldn't have told her.

My friend
dies in a car crash.

I think about
how I should've been there more.
How I should've taught her
to wear her seatbelt.

My boyfriend
drinks away his emotions.

I think about
how that's not
the kind of person he is.

But I am a hypocrite.

I have started drinking again
The pattern repeats.

Here I go ruining everything.
Here I go missing the old me.
Cooped up inside lavender walls
with my phone turned off.

Seems that was when
everyone else was happy.

Living life without me.
I think I could do without me
  too.

My hands yearn for you to hold them again
seems I have become too complacent
inside of the idea you will come back to me.

I have yet to find the proof
lined inside of your eyelids.
Seems I don't even remember,
how they look anymore

Seems I don't even remember,
the sound of your voice
that lingers inside of this autumn air.

The leaves are falling,
making death seem so beautiful.

I am falling,
making love seem so miserable.

Here I go again-
lined inside of thoughts
that will never be congruent.

Consumed in all of these memories,
I have no idea what to do with.

Guess they will follow Fall's pattern,
perish until something better comes after.

Guess they will wither away,
inside of these winter winds.

I am tired of waiting for the Spring.

The warning signs I didn't pay attention to,
because I was too busy loving you.

1. Your hands felt like tight clothes that didn't fit
and I couldn't find a return receipt.
2. My interests, to you, were like destinations-
you could drive me away from them at will.
3. My days, were etched in your palms
and you could break them, just as easy
as you could make them feel comfort.
4. You never let me feel things.
5. You always made me feel bad for loving you.
6. But you made me feel like loving you
was the only thing I could do right in the relationship.
7. Our future consisted of nothing but
the outline you wanted to draw.
You were an artist-
all you ever knew
was how to pain things
the way you desired.
8. You hated my friends
and any time spent with them
with anyone other than you.
Too green eyed
and not enough purple heart.
You did not honor who I truly was.
9. You hated my family-
Even though in 2 and a half years
you only "tolerated" them a handful of times.
But just like every other aspect of my life
they were found too inadequate.
10. You broke me down into a person
I wasn't even sure I recognized anymore
spending everyday morphing myself
into someone I thought
you would be able to love better.

But you never loved me better
and so I went backwards.

It took me a long time
to realize the abuse
that was captivating my life.
Someone doesn't have to hit you-
for it to be considered abuse.
Learn this.  
Repeat the warning signs
inside your head
until they register.

One day I will have to teach
my children to stand up straight.
Not to take anyone's ****
and to run far away when
someone else makes them
feel like their love isn't worth it.
I will be strong-
head held high
while knowing
in the same exact breath
I am a hypocrite.