The pain has control again-
like usual, there is no known cause for this chaos
no reason you can find in between my fingers
why the regurgitation inside of my throat
escapes like it's a secret barely kept.
The way I am currently is no secret-
though the reasoning behind it is one.
I am a smoking gun
and the only thing I ever aim at
is myself.
Some days I miss-
and the gun does not smoke
everything around me is clear
so I can see myself so much better.
But on most days the smoke
encases my lungs and steals
away every inch of oxygen
from the air around me
and I feel like I cannot breathe
my lungs inflate but I cannot breathe.
I am running around chasing air
that I am not sure even exists anymore
but I know it does,
I can see it all around me
as the breathing of others make me tick
as the rising and falling of chests
makes me feel so ******* nostalgic.
I run as fast as I can in their direction-
but we don't share the same air anymore.
See I am light years away just longing for their lungs.
The trigger finger has stopped pulling
and the smoke seems to fade.
But somehow I still can't breath.
Everything is fine-
but somehow I still can't breath
why the **** can't I breath anymore?
Inhale.
Exhale.
Repeat.
Why are things not changing for me
why are my lungs still crushed under the weight
of all this pressure on top of my shoulders.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Repeat.
Why am I crying over nothing again
why does life have it's hands around my throat
why can't I swallow these pills meant to fix me
and when I do why don't they work for me.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Repeat.
Why is this gun I hold still shooting if the barrel is empty-
why has this smoking gun left me empty
why are my lungs just decoration for a chest that is now empty.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Repeat.
Why am I sitting here crying over a vacant phone screen
and convincing myself of things that aren't even happening.
My shadow has ran away-
it is not capable of keeping up with me
it has found that we no longer share the same outline anymore
for I am just a skeleton, hollowed out and shedding skin
and it is a shape I used to find comfort in-
one I used to know well before my breathing stopped.
Inhale. Exhale. Repeat.
The words I no longer need-
who needs breathing with a chest full of nothing.

*******, and *******. **** me? ohhh you wanna say ******* to me? Well here's a ******* for you found this **** in my pocket, got it half price at target that is why I bought it. Who knew it would come in handy.
Our relationship is like a deviated septum because one side is always getting more than the other and if you didn't realize, you're the deviated side because no matter how hard I ******* try to give you the oxygen your heart desires, you can't open up to it. You sit and block almost all of yourself off to the world and even off to me and I've only known parts of you. A small wind casting through an open field, this is how I feel. I am the tumbleweed in every boring movie scene, gliding by just so someone will notice me, but essential to essence nonetheless. So **** me right? Well frankly, I'm tired of all this ******* because none of it consists of love making, because I don't actually know how to make love but I sure know how to ****. And I find myself writing the same lyrics as Wale, I think this is what rock bottom feels like.. Because :p I :P find :p myself :p more :p content :p with :p being alone than I ever ******* have with someone else. Always stepping on toes or picking up the pieces and it's cool if you're parents are still together and you've seen love like that your whole entire life, but me? I haven't, **** I wish my parents weren't together maybe then I would be able to leave my prison cell of a room. I have seen love ripped from the hinges and thrown to the wind- like ******* Owen Wilson's nose type love. I grew up with that ****, but I still love harder than I ever have but you can't tell me that you do the same because this fuckery has been my whole entire life, so I have adjusted.
I have dabbled in alcoholism, and maybe a little drug abuse, but see these apples don't fall far from the tree and misery seems to be the best currency.
So who the **** am I?

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?

This life is like quicksand
Seems I'm caught up and sinking again.
Trying to talk my way out of it
But it seems my mouth is covered now.
Blocked by passive aggression
and the weight of my heels dragging me down.
I can't come up for air.
The grains have taken me
And there is nothing left.
No matter the strength I try to muster
Or the screams that leave my lips.
Seems my lungs are sinking too-
Seems I'm too middle of nowhere
And not enough city streets
nature is too familiar to me
And these buildings not enough.
Throw me a rope
and watch me drag myself out of this mess
and untie it from around my neck.
I'm dreaming of ways to make it out
But all I see is black.
All I seek is black
Because it's nuetral
It's nothing and it's calm
It seems that's what I need now.
It's dark under this sheet of grain
And I wish the sun would shine
Hard enough to make it glass
Bc I've never been one to live outside of glass houses
Too inside of the box
Never beside it.
Always beside myself.
Watching everyone look into me
But they don't really see
The whole picture
Just the box they put me in.
Turn me into stained glass windows
And I will show you what a church looks like at mass.
Belief and praise and worship.
I am nothing like I said I would be.

My reality is ephemeral-
I have trouble comprehending
what's actually real anymore.
My thoughts play too into what is in front of me
and I misconstrue almost every instance.
I am capricious and conflicted at all times-
never knowing my wrongs from my rights
never really feeling entitled to what I feel.
So I feel like my feelings are never valid
does that mean my invalidation is invalid?
Conflicted.
Constantly.
So I count the only things I know for sure.

1)  My mother gets headaches, migraines actually. Everyday-
doctors visits followed by phone calls which say "You're fine" but from what I see she is not fine. She drinks her soda and smokes her cigs. Finds her only peace of mind in this piece of mine. Mary is her friend.

2) My Dad gets pains in his hands to where he can't write some days. He loses feelings in them on occasion. He coughs for a half an hour every morning spitting up the mucus that lines his lungs. He drinks coffee and then goes for a cigarette. He drinks his beer and finds solitude in an alcohol content higher than my gpa. I start to wonder what's more important to him.

3) My brother works hard, he's lazy on some days but puts in effort where it really matters. He drinks his makers and tries to drown out whatever he feels the need to. He grows things to remind himself he can. He is a lot like my father.

4) I have a 3.4 gpa currently, I am bipolar type II. Most days I have at least two anxiety attacks, one if I get really lucky. I wake up everyday feeling sick. I have endometriosis. I was molested, twice. I am currently still trying to repair the love that was ripped from me like my heart was being taken to the black market for some pocket change. I drink my coffee, and drown my sorrows in blank pages and bury them into my therapists couch on wednesdays. I never satisfied with the affirmation I receive. I find solitude in dark corners. I am at war with myself..

I would like to turn this around-
flip the script and make something happy out of this.
But reality is not happy-
reality is nothing but perception.
Your reality can be happy
if you turn a blind eye to the destruction
or just appreciation that it breeds creation.
Always question.
Never settle.
Remember the things to which are true.

1) The grass is green, but not everyone sees the same shade.

2) Rain is necessary for growth, but it can also ****.

3) Technology is rapidly advancing faster than we can learn about it.

4) Poetry is the greatest magic trick we can hope to know, seeming one way but appearing another to every single individual who comes across it. Poetry is the biggest con artist and the best therapist. It is lined with metaphors and double entendres, it sits in stanzas and hopes to be read.

This is the end of the poem
and I have trouble feeling okay
with how things have been mapped out for me
aligned by the universe in one shape or form
we are all just shapes and forms
and we're constantly waiting in line-
filling out forms
in hopes of filling our voids
by doing a line of some sort
until our check voids
and the cycle continues.
Maybe that's why I see myself
whenever I look into the washer.
Longing to be washed away-
ring me out, hang me up
I want to feel like I am able to be worn.

I really ****** myself up this time-
blood dripping into the palms of my hands
I started laughing through my tears
couldn't wipe them away
too busy trying to stop the bleeding
this broken heart has made scars again Mom-
but everyone around me is too busy to notice
or maybe I've just gotten better at hiding them-
hiding them behind this smile I like to paint
but see I never thought I was a good enough artist
the silence and the solitude like to tell a different story.
I turn the page,
watch as the silhouette of the last
makes it hard to read in between the lines-
too many pages of me have been unturned
too many chapters that go unread
there's a lot more to me than just a synopsis of this facade.
I click my tongue-
I make touch each one of my fingernails
Seems I am here, cognitive.
But from the view out of my retinas
all I see is blurred vision
a skewed understanding no glasses could fix
my far-sightedness in people has made me blind
there is no side to this story that can be unseen
expose of me, decompose with me.
I would like to waste away with you
but my views are too backwards
and it seems I am lost once again.
Reality makes me feel less real than dreaming nowadays
everything feels like such a dream
but most of the time it's just a nightmare.
I sit back and wish to drink this ***
the kind that's red and has little danny speaking tongues-
this lightbulb burnt out,
the hallways are lined with red
and nothing is shinning anymore
it's no longer a diamond
it's just all Kubrick zirconium.
watch me like your favorite novel
read me like your favorite movie-
never let me disappoint
but someday soon you'll get tired
and you'll pick something else
to fill the void of convincing yourself you like change
but nothing feels as good-
and the cycle repeats.
I would like someone to never tire of me
but these eyes have made way for more tragedy
and the bags under them make way for travel.
I will paint a smile upon my face,
tie a t-shirt around the open wound
so I can maybe stop the bleeding
and I'll pick up this part of me
place it upon my shoulder right where there's a chip-
because that's where it fits
that's where my heart is.

I'm sitting fist to chest
Chest to fist
And remembering
Every single other time
My reality has played this moment
Over and over inside of my mind
Until the ticking of my watch
Makes me throw it at the wall.

I'm tired of wasted time
I'm tired of the wasted nights
I spent wasted
Cause you took my body
And didn't care about wasting it
For what was under your waist

And then I had to wait-
Fostering the memory
Under security blankets my mind
Laid out for me so nice like.
So ******* pretty I didn't want to touch them.
But they started getting *****
I just wanted to wash them clean
But you know what happens
When you finally look under the old
Dusty ***** rug.
You find some ****
You would've rather not seen.

I saw some **** there
My mind would've rather not ******* seen.
But memory just had to pick up the **** blankets
And memory had to start a fire.
It walked away when I needed it most
and now I'm the one left
Trying to smother the flames.
Alcohol only made it grow
And the blankets I try to throw over it now
Just caught fire like everything else.

It's still burning,
But the bad weather
Followed by the good.
Helped it die down a bit.
I can manage them here and now
Still appreciating
the warmth it brings me.
Still appreciating
the strength it gave me.
But I have too many burns now
To ever trust this fire again.

memory left me scars
cuts and bruises-
Followed by a tainted liver.
It was the warm gun
and it pulled the trigger
more than once.
Every time it did
everything
went up in flames.
Except for me.
Except for me.

I stopped myself in the middle of a sentence again-
revoked my right to write and repeat the words inside of my mind.
This page has seen too much blank and not enough progress-
this mind has seen too much repression and not enough retention.
You can't wrap your brain around a memory that doesn't exist,
how are you to cope with an event that is all haze and heartache
with no face painted out for you-
it's only stench and sorrow from the wounds you opened
all because you couldn't make out a face in the dark,
so you turned your skin the same color as your memories
and everything went black
this page was left blank those days.
There's no getting back those words that were never written
and there's no getting back those memories you sent away
abandoned them like an old pair of sneakers,
too many holes and not enough support
too much stench and not enough comfort
in knowing you can wash them clean.
You were tired of the effort,
it's easier to get new shoes.
It's easier to let go,
make new memories and leave these behind.
But you'll be 21 washing your face in the bathroom
and the stench will reach your nostrils
you'll wonder why you didn't push the memory further-
further inside of your mind enough that
your nose would not recognize the smell anymore.
Must and molester-
high and mighty and something like axe body spray.
Cheap and overused, like I felt after you.
Repression was never something you can hold on to for long,
it's unreliable and forgets to pack your lunch for the day
leaves you at the bus stop waiting for a way home
eventually you find your own way
eventually you start packing your own lunch.
Nothing is worth an idea, or an imbecile taking over your life.
Seven years I spent happy, seven seconds it was taken away
and I've spent the last fourteen years reminding myself
that I am more than you have made me feel since then.

I smell you there, on the hand towel in the bathroom.
On the random guy passing me in the mall-
it doesn't hurt me anymore
to know is to be the owner of your own emotions
to feel is to be the owner of your own knowledge.
Belief and acceptance are the only hands you need to hold.
They will walk you home from the bus stop-
they will make you that lunch
they will be the new pair of shoes you wear on your feet
so you can stand up straight again.
Don't let these memories bring you down
don't let the lack there of do the same.

The best revenge to your repression is dealing
with the fact the memories may never come to you
but when you're walking through the mall and smell
the man who stole your innocence-
you'll know that memory is warm gun
that you would rather forget you have the bullets to.
Lock it away and laugh to yourself,
the best self-defense is acceptance.

you walked swiftly in and out of our lives
and left footprints along the way.
The alleyways you danced through
and the homes you left your mark in
all mean something to this world.
You smelled of ***** and cigarettes
your teeth were stained yellow
and your gut told war stories
of nights you've spent dealing with your mania.
You lost your best friend
and then you lost yourself
I don't think you were ever the same after that day.
Always a black sheep, sitting in the back seat
waiting for the car crash to come.
T-bone you straight to your heart so no more pain is felt
and that's what happened.
Your heart gave up around the same time you did.
Didn't let us know the infection living inside your bones
how your lungs were rotten and hallowed out
because of all the things you tried to keep down
because of all the things you washed down.
I think this is for the best-
the hands became too heavy to hold your heart
and your body followed suit
it's not a full house without you in it.
The humor never left your side
even when the gray went from your hair to your face
you still spoke like you were on a stage
like you had to prove to everyone
you were still worth something-
that you were something aside from family.
The black sheep that lost a chance at a heard
when his companion shed their skin for salvation
and took the kin along with them.
This doesn't feel like the reality you were in-
I still think it a dream sometimes
and but I know you have found your happy.
The same thing that took your love away
took you away
and I'd like to think thats irony at it's finest
but it's really just a sick twisted
twist of fate we have all fallen dizzy to.
Wake me when this ends-
remind me everything will be okay again.
We were hesitant to invite you to family events
because of the drunken nights you drove away
when you probably shouldn't have
but thanksgiving is coming and you won't be there..
Thanksgiving is coming and you won't be there.
I'm still trying to convince myself I am awake.

I hang onto the edge of your tongue
like a cliff that holds my obituary
written in it's stone structure-
as if every word you speak could change me
or send me flying over the edge-
forever falling, with no sense of security.
I have been bent and broken
and twisted and misconstrued  
into a shape I am no longer familiar with-
I am a mere figment of what once was
a shadow hidden in the dark alleys
and bed sheets of my subconscious.
Who I was is now just a ghost
and when resurrection is a rarity
I'm not sure there's anyway to make it back.
It seems the only time I am enough
is when I am putting on a smile
or kissing the traces of your neck
I left the dark side of myself behind when we first meet.
Seems I am the girl you hide away
inside your bedroom and your sheets.
The girl you sleep with, and sleep next to
but one you never seem to exit your comfort zone for.
I am more than just an everyday routine.
Please, just try for me. That's all I need.
Who I once was isn't who I am now..
So please give me back a fraction
of what I have left behind for you.

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.

The irony,
in simple posts from sea world,
"a whale and her baby,
showing you we care about the bond."
But if you "cared" at all about the bond,
you wouldn't restrict them
to small spaces and four walls,
you would never restrain them
into jail cells in comparison
to their size.
Do you ever wonder why animals rebel?
because the only concern
us humans have is for ourselves
and the most selfish thing
we do, is pretend to care.
Because if we cared,
those whales wouldn't rebel.
if we cared,
those monkey's wouldn't attack.
and if we cared,
we wouldn't spend hundreds
of thousands of dollars
to confine the things
we think we love.

if you love something,
you should let it go
right?
then why do we put
locks and chains
and cages around
the world's beauty
why do we enslave,
for our own personal enjoyment
the things we could just
hop in the car, drive to the land
and probably see ourselves?
this is not humane..

In a nation where we pride ourselves on freedom
all we do, is hold down the things we wish to save..
All we do, is silence the struggling.
All we do, is degrade the different.
So I'm asking, when are things going to change?
When will we stand up for a world
that we deserve to be in.
When will we make like monkeys and whales
and animals held down by circumstance
and bring down what's doing the same to us?

Do not turn a blind eye to the world around you
do not turn your back on things you think you can't control.
I know that the world you carry on your shoulders
weighs heavier on your conscious,
but it doesn't have to.

and it all starts with you..

I want you-
to want to be with me.
In all ways more than what we are.
I am tired of letting you hold me at night-
tired of feeling your arms around me
when we are not one.
Tired of the questions  inside of my life
ringing with curiosity of an answer I do not possess.
There is no future here-
I realize that now.
My expectations have led me astray
and I feel so alone again.
Deserving more than I give myself,
not enough credit
where payment is due.
I'm not your leased item-
the nice suit in the store window
you will return once you've worn it enough.
You have no intention of keeping me
you just want me to be only yours.
I can't even formulate poems properly
because I'm tired of fighting with myself
about these feelings of which I do not know.
Hope has led me nowhere again
and I am lost at the fork in the road.

I found myself inside the sun
and lost myself in the winter winds.
It's no surprise to me anymore-
that I am prone to repeating my mistakes.
Convinced myself to run away
but I ended up running back.
Stuck here, wishing I would've kept my word-
but I'm not familiar with consistency.
I missed you as you were leaving
but nostalgia reminded me why I shouldn't.
History has a tendency to repeat itself
and it seems we're standing inside
a museum of our mistakes.
It has dawned on me-
our love had an expiration date
it was not fermented properly
so eventually everything just spoiled.
Love isn't fun for me anymore
it never really has been.
Everyone is always stop and go
when I always wish they would stay.
But I am not enough to keep them-
too much to handle
too much to tolerate.
Irrational and unpredictable-
these cons are too abundant
they outweigh the pros too often.
But my heart is big
and you make it feel too heavy to carry.
I loved myself once-
then I loved you instead
you felt there wasn't enough room for both.

for some sad sorry **** reason
I can't get over the pain I feel
it overwhelms me
more than most things
and I could live
five lifetimes
and twenty three tragedies
break new ground
infinite amount of times.
I could go from the brink
of crazy as **** and back
But still never be used
to the pain I feel.
Some people say physical pain
is worse to bare than mental pain
and on most days
when my stomach is tight
and i'm curled into a fettle
position clawing onto whatever
chance of peacefulness i have left,
I would agree.
But other days,
I clutch a pillow to my chest
and stuff my face into it
wishing I would lose my breath
and leave this hell hole
that is my way of thinking
and break free from the chains
that confine my ability to be happy.
But the best **** comes from the worst ****,
which is why I write this
and constantly have internal conflicts.
is mentality worse than fatality?
or is it all so ******* tragic
that we need to stop comparing
two forms of pain that
dont even ******* coincide.

I don't know about you,
but i'm ******* tired of fighting-
especially when it's a battle
I know I'll never win.
They have pills to take away the pain,
and pills to numb your brain
but what people can't comprehend is
it's all the ******* same.

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.

You broke me -
Shattered me to pieces.
Afterwards I was laying on the ground and you still somehow
made me feel sorry for you.
The feet you used to walk on my heart were now bleeding
and I was in even more pieces.

I tried to put myself back together
for you.
Heal the wounds
that are now just scars.
But I keep looking at them
Obsessing over how they got there.

I'm still in ******* pieces
And don't know how to put myself back together
You don't give a ****.
Because
You're better now.
I'm not.
But that doesn't matter
Because you can still see yourself
in the pieces I am now.
I still show you your reflection.

I stuck around for you.
Hoping you would help fix me
Hoping you would help me fix myself.
Instead you just stood there and watched me struggle.
Admiring your handy work.

there's something about sadness,
that's just so comforting.
and something about madness,
that's just so safe.
and i'm not sure why
but my mind has been poisoned
by negativity and resentment.

The flood of emotion
that drowns me in my sorrows
is a crutch and a curse
and every instance
is a reason to feel hatred
and sadness and rebellion.

it's hard to stay sane
when everything
and everyone
changes almost instantly
and consistency is foreign.

my lack of faith
comes from my overwhelming
fear of being left alone and cold
so i find safety in solitude
and i find comfort
in feeling nothing at all.

maybe this is why
everything i write sounds the same
and everything i conjure up
all ends up reverting back
to what once was
and why lines reused
is just my way of clinging
to the only amount of
consistency i can control.

i have never been one
to tell how i feel
or speak of my past
that is buried beneath
the wings i haven't yet
used to fly away from here
because i fear,
happiness
just like sadness
and every other emotion
for that matter
is just a crazy,
illusion
that leaves the bruises
in my mind
and the scars
on my wrist

because finding an outlet,
that gives you what you need
is almost as rare as
someone understanding you.

and the blood spilling from your veins
is temporary,
the love leaving your lips
is temporary
which is why
in life you will always
somehow, someway
be secondary.

It isn't always little boxes,
you can ask who put the baby in the corner
but the only thing this one could muster up is-
Why is he there?
Did someone put him there to **** with me.
Should I kick the baby?
It's not holding any substance in my life,
so what keeps me from kicking that ******* baby.
Squint, breathe, think-
no.
No no no no.
Don't think, thinking leads to thinking
and thinking leads to more thinking
and those thoughts lead to these ones.

I'm out in public again clenching my hands,
tensing my shoulders until the veins
are the only uniformity I've come to know.
All eyes are on me
even if they're staring forward.
I assess every move I make
in each person's direction
in hopes it will not be a grenade in their wake.
In hopes these hands will not break them
or these thoughts will not harm them.

Aggression followed by paranoia
paranoia followed by over self-awareness.
Nothing makes stillness seem real anymore
is it even real anymore.
Why the **** am I like this?

Sometimes I hear voices in my head not my own.
They sound more like the people I know
The people I love telling me everything I hate
and somehow they get louder than my own thoughts.
Drown me, no drown them.
The bridge is the closest way to make their downfall
and maybe they could stop hating me
long enough for me to apologize to them
for these hands I hold in front of me too often.
These arms I flex, and this face that mimics just the same.
I start to wondering why I am apologizing in the first place-

Merely because I am existing-
****,
am I actually existing?
what if everything is made up into little boxes
and none of them in order
like my thoughts they are misplaced
misused and tampered until dismemberment
I have not agreed upon these terms and conditions
now I seem to be self depricating in the fine print
that no one ever reads
what if I'm signing my life away?

It isn't always little boxes
clean bathrooms
and the 21 times you rewashed your hands.
Sometimes it's big boxes,
trapped inside darkness
hearing nothing but your open wounds
yelling at you
telling you they will never heal
but the voices sound too familiar to not believe.
You try to run towards them,
but your feet are too insecure to step forward
your hands are clenching too tightly to stop the bleeding
you feel and you feel and you feel
the wounds they never heal.
your head never seems to heal
but you deal and you deal and you deal.

Mark the calendar for a date of death you're not sure is coming-
mark it for a life you're not sure you're living.

Know that when and if tomorrow comes
I will scream at the knock of my door
or if I accidentally knock over my drink
and spill out the milk
I have spent so much time trying not to cry over.
Seems I need it for cereal.
Seems I need this for survival.
Seems these thoughts aren't so bad after all-
seems they've made me not so bad after all
seems they've made her fall in love.

Mom, I wanted to tell you I love you
but all that came out was "Have you ever thought of the world in an existential sense to where we're not really here, but we are actually here. What if it was like the Truman Show?"
and I ramble and ramble and ramble.
But know I love you
sometimes words are hard to find
and if I take the time to write them
they are a canvas of their own.
They make sense of something
to someone other than me.

She looks at him with golden hues
and looks at the mess he had made
still seeing a canvas in his wake
waiting for him to break it
waiting for it to shatter into pieces-
knowing it will be
just as beautiful.

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.

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 take time to remember that the things which broke me
are also the same things that rebuilt me.
I take time to look at my father
and his reaction when I told him
the hands of time which he had no control over
withered my being with a bottle and made me trust men a little less.
I take time to remind my mother
that my issues with affirmation don't come from
never being in love or being alone a little too much
they come from long work days and even longer nights
spent bickering about the child that I see across the halls
that he sees when he looks into the mirror hating himself.
I take time to remember the wall I had my back pinned against
was cold like the winter seasons I spent hiding away
from torment and never descending vocals
attempting to outshine each other
one backhanded comment at a time-
and that it was never my downfall
never what held me back as person or made me afraid.
My downfall was with each slap in the face
that was literal or figurative I figured it was my fault.
But we can't help the hells in which we face
even if those hells are stained red across our faces
I have felt the pain.
I have remembered every moment I tried so hard to repress
and knew the tragedy it had brought me.
But with each moment of sorrow is another story
another reason my fingers hit these keys
instead of letting someone else hit me
I have seen the thunderstorms and slept under dark clouds
awaiting the moment I get struck by lightening.
Death is imminent, as well as pain and happiness
without them we would never appreciate ourselves
and each of our little hells inside of heads and our bodies
that have spent years waiting for validation.
We don't come with receipts, we are non transferrable.
We are that sweater you hate to love
and those old, raggedy boots that match every outfit
that at the end of the day you couldn't throw away if you tried.
The fight isn't over, it starts inside of us with each breathe we take
and the thoughts and feelings we possess are just soldiers
on the war path to defeat whatever life tries to throw our way.
I don't believe in most things..
but I do believe in me
so why should believing in anything else matter
when you have an entire war raging inside of you
just waiting, patiently for it's moment to attack.

Never feeling anything became my safe haven at a young age. Most days, the only thing I wished for was some reassurance, or some kind of mild affirmation. My days were spent bottling emotions because where I come from, feeling things gets you nowhere. The sickness that overcame my mind became who I was. Negligence molded my personality and I wound up in more compromising positions than I can count on both hands. Naivety became someone else's malevolence and my imminent downfall.

Recently, I have learned to feel the things I've always kept bottled up- so these emotions are new for me. When the wave of sadness overcomes me it's never just that; it's crippling and exhausting, and hard to manage most days. I never just feel something simply. Anger is always rage, jealousy is always extreme envy and insecurity becomes suicidal tendencies. This is all so new, and i'm not sure it will ever not be because I've spent 18 years hiding every single thing I felt for the benefit of someone else. Now these bottled up extremities are flooding over me like a tidal wave I cannot escape from. This is my high tide and I wish I could make you understand.

You come from love, attention, reprimanding and affection. I come from neglect, dollar signs, bruises and empty bottles. Where there was a vacation or a trip, there was a 4th grader walking an entire cruise ship alone in the middle of the night. Where there was affection, there was a command shortly following. I don't want to let my past effect my future but it's made me who I am. I will never apologize for who I've become because I don't exactly know who that person is. I cannot fault you for your flaws, even though they are little to none. But I am forever wishing these actions of mine didn't seem so foreign to you.

You've over-stepped your boundaries for far too long, so I took sides. I drew the line you crossed and you just blew it instead. I gave you a dose of your own medicine and you starting enjoying the high. I began to wonder when exactly it was you lost yourself, so deep inside someone else. Tears became sobs and anger became overwhelming and you still stayed for a reason I'm not sure of. Wondering where we went wrong became my downfall and I wasn't sure what to believe anymore. You take the words from your throat and paint them over sinister skylines and I'm not sure you even know the meaning of a lie. Every truth had become unfamiliar and every bond became broken. I tried to get you back to the person I knew, but somewhere along the lines you became hollowed out by your vices and got lost in what you thought were escapes. Now I worry for your safety and mourn for the person you once were because that's not who you are anymore. I'm exhausted trying to decide if the words slipping from your lips are credible or if you'll be indebted for the rest of your life. Strength in my bones I have attempted to carry the weight on your shoulder and made them all into mine, but the load got too heavy and you were left with nothing, watching as I struggled to save you. I haven't got a clue left on what to do. But I will mourn for you.

IVE GIVEN YOU EVERYTHING. Ripped out my ******* heart and handed it to you on a silver platter and what don't you understand about that? I did, for you, the most vulnerable thing someone can do. So never treat me like I'm ordinary because you control the one thing that drives my emotions. So when you're lonely and missing me, remember that's where I am at every moment of everyday. See everyone feels things differently, but why do I feel for you a love so big it's the entire country of Russia? When you feel for me, well a love that's grand but I'm not sure how grand because you've never actually disclosed the information. Why is my love so big and so consuming that it turns me into someone I hate when we're not together? My anxiety without you is like your 8th grade best friend out to be exactly like you, but yet change everything about you so she can go behind your back and steal your boyfriend, while then making sure she ruins everything you've worked so hard for. I'm never sure if I have multiple personality because I become someone new every moment anxiety consumes my being and wears my skin as an overcoat, and uses my ego as a umbrella from the storm that is my train of thought. I DO NOT FEEL NORMAL. But does anyone, ever? What I'm trying to say is that, I love you. So don't ever take that **** for granted because I will become the Kanye West and Miley Cyrus of breakups. I will be everywhere you look even when you don't want to see me. All I ever wanted was to love someone and have them love me in return and now I have that. This feeling is the best worst thing and I'm trying to manage as I go. Loving a mentally unstable person is never easy, but ****** you try your best. I have to learn to love myself the same way you love me and I am taking small steps, but I am still moving forward.

I count down the days until the things that get under my skin decay me and I am left with nothing more than a stardust heart. These days blend together like water color courage and turn into something like acrylic coated love but I can't seem to make my soul worth selling. It never occurred to me this currency is something I have to base my being around but it is the sun and I am merely just the earth. Learning how to live, one rotation at a time. I will never stop spinning, and nor will my head because even when your heart stands still, it actually doesn't. The earth continues to orbit and the stars continue to shine night after night after night and so do you. We are the galaxy and the planets, all in the same hands that feed the mouths that are eager to learn and soak up knowledge. I have learned that nothing comes quickly or on time, nothing is ever planned. Everything is obsolete and ever so inept to stay consistent. So let these winds change, and the sky turn to gray. Let the sun take a break from chasing the pale on your skin and open those wide eyes and believe that not everything is worth knowing. You have to understand that you can't understand it all. Some things aren't meant to be seen, some words aren't meant to be spoken. So hear what you will and see what you want, because none of it makes a difference in the end. We all are subject to change.

As I lay motionless, watching you watch the tv screen, I remember how much you mean to me. I remember how much I hate rhyme schemes and when you don't pay much attention to me. How I love your smile and the way you get so passionate about the simplest things. I enjoy that part of you. You don't feel like you owe me something. You make me laugh because you like my smile and not because you feel like you have to. I have seen the glimmer in your eyes when you look into mine and I am reminded that those are the moments I live for. I've never written in my life as much as I have while being with you. I think that means you bring about my passionate side about the simple things. I'm scared of the dark without you in it. You make me feel safe and I don't know what I would ever do if I lost that part of you. I don't know what I would do if I lost you. Someone could come along and show you parts of yourself you've never seen, like you did for me.. You can fall head over heels in love way more than once, but I hope the one time with me is all you'll ever need. But if one day, I no longer make you happy, I will do my best to adjust to a life without you.. But I hope, oh god I really hope I never have to.

I would like to be happy for other writers because they're a lot like me and in the same sense not anything like me. But these words upon these pages can't help but reel me in, whispering sinister secrets into my ears, telling me not to let in anyone and keep my pen to my self. These words are my wreckage and these bones thrive off of the ink that spills, spills into my veins until I'm not sure I have much competition anymore. It's a rush, an escape and a piece of nirvana flowing through my body. But I cannot help the fact I feel insecure. Everything I've ever done, or have accomplished has been overlooked or taken away. Not this time. I will write until my hands are sore until the crippling pain of arthritis makes me no longer capable of using my hands. I will then use my words to encompass the page because all I'll really need is like text to talk or something by then right? **** since the age of about 6, I knew this was my lighthouse, my way home when I couldn't see the grass in front of my feet. My way out of the dark corners and into the arms of those I love. The lifeboat I needed when drowning in the same sorrows as my mother or when I was drowning in the bottle like my father. This is my sanity, and in the same sense my downfall. So when I stand here and recite for you, write for you and smile and shake my head and tell you all these things about myself not many people know, realize it takes more than these ten fingers, these two legs, and this one thumping, beating out-of-my-chest heart to be this exposed and this naked. Usually at times like these, if i'm not shaking like a leaf I would be picturing you all as puppies, but now I'm just picturing you all as my family, my close to home even though I'm not sure what home feels like anymore but if I had to pick, and someone asked me on the spot, this would be it, you all would be it. So when it comes to writing there is no winner, or loser or anything in-between, there is you and there is me, pen and paper, shaky voice and butterflies knees, right here is sanity.

Halfway through halfway through my life I understood what it meant to be wanted by no one and not aware of anything all at the same time. I've driven miles and seen many places but they all fade to gray over the horizon. My eyelids become heavy as I think about the sleep that I need, but instead I stare at a computer screen. This life has brought me twists and turns, ups and downs and it's like roller coaster tycoon on an old desktop computer because these days I find myself trapped inside are slow and these words I am engulfed in are incessant and I can't seem to turn off full screen mode so everything that goes wrong I can't run away from anymore. The mistakes look me right in the eyes and deem me unworthy of avoiding confrontation. It seems these feelings are starting to demand refuge and they're tired of spending seventeen years in a cage. These matters can no longer be referred to as trivial. I have made more mistakes than I have made poems and I'm tired of being a victim of my own emotions.. No longer will I stand and watch the sunset slowly fade away. I will chase that skyline until I see the dawn again. I will plant my feet firmly on the ground and I will do the only thing I know how, grow.

I'm so ******* sick and tired of being just someone to you. I start to wonder if it matters who I am or if the presence of a body is all you need by your side to provide you with comfort at night. The friends and the nights of sleep I have lost for you are mountains in comparison of what you've given up for me- which is minimal, maybe just some time and your sanity. Your hands have held onto me for so long you don't remember what it feels like to be without. The cold between your fingers has been long overdue and I have been so worried about you getting frostbite I forgot to keep myself warm so I am left with a frozen heart. I would build you monuments and you would tell me it blocks the view of your precious sunset. I would sail the entire see to grab the sun and bring it back to you and you would tell me your skin is burning from the intensity. So it seems to me nothing I do, no amount of effort I put in will ever be enough, but at the same time it will be too much. So is it asking a lot to want the same treatment in return? All I ask is for adventures and surprises, maybe a second out of your day where you do something for my benefit.. But you're too busy stuck inside the monument I built for you and basking in the rays of the sun I brought to you only to never realize that I am frozen in your embrace. Parts of myself have been lost inside your arms, and hidden away beneath your sheets. I do not like what I've become, a mere shell casing of who I've been. Extrovert turned introvert by love's sinister embrace.

Just when I think you don't know me at all and that everything I've come to know and love is falling out from under me, you remind me that you've always known me. You've always known the part that tries to push you away because I get scared but you don't let that happen. You know I'm irrational and inane but that's why you love me. Everyday with you I am reminded to be a better person, for myself and those around me. I lived a life with my head in the clouds thinking no one wanted me, but you came along and showed me what the grass felt like between my toes and showed me the ground felt a lot more like home. Sometimes I try to rationalize love, to over-analyze it and dissect it, until I know exactly what I'm dealing with. But you remind me to feel with all I have and not to worry about the weight on my shoulders because we carry it together. Things are hard for me to cope with sometimes and these days feel so bleak and colorless, but you're always right there next me convincing me not to be afraid of the dark, to just wait for the sun to rise again.

The darkness engulfs me and the pain ensues. I have felt the malevolence of larger hands wrapped around my throat. I have felt the arch of your back on top of me turn into something that reminds me of a cataclysmic time. My eyes go dark and nothing seems familiar anymore. The incessant reminder of what was is something I can't run away from. The depths of my mind go farther and more undiscovered than that of the ocean floor. But the waves keeps crashing and pulling me, turning me into a tsunami of these dark uncharted memories. The only thing that holds me back is the memory of being held down and stripped of any control I had over my life. I cannot help these hands I hold remind me of stone sometimes, I can no longer hide these broken parts of myself. Naivety was my biggest downfall at a young age and I couldn't stop the fact that something so sacred was ripped from my fingertips and thrown to the floor as I watched in despair, thinking this is how it was supposed to be. Now the fog has lifted from my mind and these eyes can see clearly once again. Some time after, I realized I would never trust another man. Not when that innocence I had left was turned into these nights I spend crying on the bathroom floor clenching a bottle of Vicodin ready to lift each and every pill to my lips... it will no longer control me like this. These hands will no longer feel the stings of deceit.  This broken heart is being rebuilt, one fragile piece at a time. My sexuality is not to be toyed with and although that part of myself was stolen from me I am trying my best to get it back again. These hands are still grasping the idea of sanity , frail and bruised as they may be, I'm still holding out for something.

I tell myself to rebuild these broken wings I find myself soaring upon, but I realize the necessary tools are missing. I try to get a handle on my current situation but I realize there's no handle on my bedroom door anymore and I am trapped again. I have made a mess of the remains out of broken dry wall and picture frames.  I rebuild, rebuild, rebuild but it's never like it was before. The paint is two-toned and some things can't be covered with a painting of your face next to mine. Some things can't even be patched up. Such as the way your eyes seem to guide me into a world that seems too daunting to stay inside. I let the breeze carry me away and hope the broken wings can still soar despite the damage that has been done. I have made a bed out of all my regrets and have no issues laying in it anymore and nowadays I tend to sleep better than I live. I have seen the misery in your eyes when the thought of me waking up without you on my mind crossed yours, and I've never felt so low. Plausibility isn't always the best reality and I know with you we have our differences, but that doesn't make a difference to me. Maybe the days I deem dull are just a distant memory and every time I wake up without you is a day I want to get through just to see you. Sappiness is not in my agenda, but intentions lead to attention on some occasions and I would like to spend every occasion with you.. Loving you has been the best thing I have ever done for myself. The first decision I made without anyone but myself in mind was when I said you could call me yours. Please believe me when I say, I will always be yours even if the day comes that we expire, I will age like fine wine, with you always still on my mind.

Some days I can't think straight,
these words in my mind twist and they turn
until I'm trying to discover the bottom line.
Some days I can't think straight
and some days I think too much-
the words I speak hang on the edge of my tongue
awaiting someone to understand the intensity
of this overwhelming desire to speak my secrets.
Would you listen?
Listen as I sing from the rooftops my tragedy
and mask the brick walls
with the graffiti of my cloak-and-dagger heart.
This isn't closure, it never was for me.
The nights I spent alone and sobbing
have taught me more things
than any amount of advice can.
I have yet to be silenced,
because these words I write
and these poems I seek out
are the undisclosed reason for being.
I may have wanted to die many times
but there's a reason none of my poems rhyme
and it's because there's no rhyme or no reason to them.
They are stream of conscious
they are hanging on every word
until I have no more left in my obsolete mind.
Please don't test me.
I will be fine-
because I always end up that way.
One Poem At A Time.

Everything about me is unorganized and messy,
like your favorite pasta dish, or romance novel-
There are layers to who I have become
and even more layers to who I was.
I can't help all my poems sound the same,
or maybe that's a good thing
because when the pain drowns me
in the same mistakes I've made repeatedly
I remember that I am yin and I am yang
all in the same hand.
There is no sign on my star-crossed heart
that says I can't stay exactly the same
there is no roadmap inside my dark defeatist mind
that says I can't change who I am everyday.
So let me be dynamic-
and never the friction between your sheets
because I will never be static.
I am a stone wall with every sad thing you've ever witnessed.
I am a garden full with every joyful experience-
The pessimistic paradox and the optimistic oxymoron
is what I have become and I'm still comprehending how that can be.
I have yet to find myself fully, but I know who I am
these words become my compass
and I wish I could just go north
but this galaxy that is within
wants so much more-
I will discover myself again.

You took your words and with them you stitched together my lips and reminded me why my voice is so crippling. You made me realize that nothing I say to you will ever triumph over the negative things I do. The hands that reach over to hold me at night are the same ones that you used to speak the truth I think I've always known. Brutal, were your words and they shook me from the inside. You never look at what we are, you only look at what has been before. The deceit and treachery you've been apart of has now been taken out on me. I shouldn't have to pay for others mistakes. I start to wonder if the reason for your harsh judgment is because you hate yourself more than you think you do. But I hate myself too and all I want is to love everyone I see equally, so what does that mean for you? The person I knew has now become a mere shadow in the faded distance and I can't put into words anymore how yours remind me why I'm starting to speak less. The sad fact is I've never cared for someone so much and I've never had someone I care so much about make me feel the way I do about myself. The moment you came into my life I felt beautiful and soon that beauty slowly faded. I started to wonder why I was wilting and dying slowly and then I realized there's no sun where I am and the source of nutrients are scarce. The energy I have left has been used to keep me alive and I can't be your burden anymore. These words are my sarcophagus and I hope you enjoy the funeral because this eulogy had ended.

I can't decide anymore whether I ******* hate you, or if I love you. This internal battle is not one I'm good with because I'm still not sure what love even feels like anymore. Each day you treat me differently, so I'm stuck here on the edge, waiting for the clock to strike me dead. I have no remorse anymore. I will do as I wish because I'm so tired of being cautious of each and every little step I take just to ensure your stability. I am difficult. I like cheesy movies, sappy sitcoms and writing poetry- all of which you one day love about me and the next, you're making me wish all my interests were the same as yours so maybe you would actually be interested in the things I say. You don't hear me sometimes, or maybe you just don't listen. I'm getting to the point where my own voice is being drown out by yours because it's all I ever hear anymore. I can't see the good that's in front of me because I keep looking back at what we were. My eyes are blinded by the tears that fall, they taste like the regret of all the things I've never said.

I've come to realize that everything I write is somehow about you and you are the inspiration behind all the madness and whenever something goes wrong I want to run, full force, into your presence only for you to say some **** to me that makes me laugh and makes me forget why the **** I ever had a reason to be sad. Maybe I will start believing in myself when I stop ******* things up. This mind has held onto the idea of you for quite some time and I can't seem to shake the feeling everything is already how it is supposed to be because losing you would be the second worst thing I've ever done, the first being hurting you. I am the global warming of many people's lives,  I burn down the necessities and I freeze, I make the breeze turn to ice and turn these winds into a windchill and my heart is cold again. My heart will always be unsure of who to trust and lust and love because I'm still trying to decide whether or not I believe in any of it, at all. I keep trying to tell myself I am okay, but then nights alone remind me that I cannot be who I am with anyone, because who I am is destructive. My aura alone could cause a hole in the entire ozone layer, then we would all be ******. I don't know what to think when every bone in my body wants me to think of you. The idea of you wrapped in someone else's embrace with a smile on your face gives me an inane sense of comfort. Because I am destruction, and I burn everything I touch.

The distorted thing about being in love is you're always questioning if the hands you hold are honest or if their intentions go deeper than just modesty, if everything you've worked so hard for is just to occupy a space in their sheets. You bought me ice cream once, I didn't even have to ask you to, you just put it in my mailbox and told me to walk out and look inside. It had a little yellow post-it note on it. That was when I realized no one had ever done that for me before, no one had ever went out of their way to show their appreciation for me. But that was the last time something like that happened because the moment I became yours, you stopped trying. The sad thing is I stay with you because I believe all I deserve are nice words with no action to back them up. When in reality, I deserve someone who would move mountains for me, travel a million miles just to see me smile because I would do that much for someone. I'm sorry I feel so worthless but nothing makes me feel otherwise. I don't ask for too much but you are too selfish with your ways.  This relationship is a two way street, but yours in under-construction and blocked off to any hope of getting to you. I wish I could make you understand the way the things you do ******* my mentality and make me wish to god I didn't have such a big heart. Maybe I shouldn't have given you so much of myself just so you can throw it all away and pick it all up again whenever you do so choose. I guess this is what I deserve and maybe you were brought into my life to make me realize I will never be that person everyone else thinks I am. I will never deserve more than what I receive from you.

I hope for second chances in life, not those in which I don’t deem myself worthy of at least. I mean, I want another chance to speak these words to an open canvas of people and watch the expressions that fill their faces as I spill my guts on their shoes and reveal a little more about myself than they would infer someone my age had went through. I long for that gaze. It is filled with sorrow and regret and love and peace all in the same moment and I think that’s the only time I have experienced euphoria. I believe in life there always lies a second chance at something, or someone. But the second I chance that second of chance I become deranged and paranoid and I succumb to the pressures my anxiety puts me under and wonder when she will stop being such a psychotic ***** and give me a chance to live my life again. I haven’t been the same since the Effexor filled my veins and I’ve been scratching at my surface ever since, looking for a chance to find myself again.

I hear myself think, but I can't ever hear myself talk. I mean I do but it's not in a voice I recognize anymore and I think I'm inbetween finding myself and losing myself. I'm not really sure which way I will go, maybe a little bit of both because that would the road less traveled right? So wouldn't that make all the difference? See I have an inference that if I try hard enough to control these things in which I don't think I can, I someday will and whether it be true or not it's hope that keeps me going. I am alive and it's weird to say because so sooo many times I wished I were dead. On every star in that **** sky I wished I had never been alive, but now it's so different. I wish on the stars to keep living and I wish for adventures and culture and **** maybe one day even children- maybe thats too far... and maybe the road I have paved for myself is mediocre because I have never done it before, but ******* I tried my best. These fists will no longer drag me down and this mind will no longer hold me back. I am not chained to anything anymore except some words on a page and in thirty minutes it will be tomorrow and I will see a new day again, one I had wished so long ago wouldn't come. But tomorrow, I will see the sun and the clouds and feel the grass on my feet and I will remember that even your self esteem can blow off some steam and your worries are just water weight you need to get ****** and **** out before you let them weigh you down. Stick around kid, it's worth it.

I try to be the person I’ve wanted myself to be all along. And I try to make you listen to these words I speak and hope you understand. But some things just don’t happen the way we want them to. And the days we want to sit out and watch the stars, the sky is blank and so are our minds. So I cherish the days my mind is filled with regret, and memories, mostly of the days I wish to wash away with those regrets. I will take each galaxy and paint them across my emotions just to show you what I feel is more than just an expression. I feel so low when the days are the same and even when the sun is out I remember when it rains and I’m not sure that will ever change. These moments of euphoria weigh out the moments of extreme distress when clutching a bottle to my chest seems to be my only savior, I savor those moments of mania because they make for a **** good story to tell. My days are numbered and so are yours. Whatever comes will make me or break me in ways that will alter me. Maybe the love for myself won’t be enough, but I’m willing to figure it out. I’ve spent years hating who I am and that’s the most exhausting thing I’ve done to myself. I woke up.

I am broken, again and again and again I try to put myself back together but these thoughts, and these uncontrollable emotions will not let me. I have been bent by instances from before. These hands will not let go even when I try to pry them off of what's been holding me back. Ridicule is what I am used to and in some sense it is comforting. But the incessant lack of decency that surrounds me makes everything seem so bleak. I am tired of being sorry for these things I feel and I'm exhausted trying to hide my pain for you.. Bottling up these things that hold me down is harder than I had ever imagined and I wish I could erase the pain  I feel for you but that can't happen. I cannot just wish away these things I wish to wash away, if only it was that easy. I am broken and your contribution isn't much but it somehow makes a difference. I need to find myself again and I need to get away before the elephant in the room tramples over everything I've worked so ******* hard for. I have no words anymore.

I will breathe you in. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Repeat. Consistency is never my strong point but the only thing I tend to keep doing no matter what is breathing and blinking. My lungs have collapsed from the pressure of drowning too far into the deep end. My ears have popped and I feel that urge to breath again, but can’t quite get back up to the surface fast enough. I can feel myself giving up just as the break that surface and gasp for that breath of fresh air I have waited so long for, and that’s what loving you feels like. Relief. I have spent my days stuck in the dark because I couldn’t find my way around these walls I have built for myself. I wasn’t responsible enough to remember, I needed light. That’s when you broke down the walls I was confined in with your sledge hammer heart and built me the moon with only your bare hands. You told me you loved me fast and nervously and I knew then you were my lighthouse, my nightlight, and my bedside lamp. Always there for when I needed light. You’re my breath of fresh air on a humid day and you make me feel like walking into a refreshing air conditioned house on the hottest day of summer. My cup of hot chocolate after an all day battle with snow ball fights and sled rides. I’ll never need the drugs most people abuse because you are my high.

I dyed my hair today and couldn't stop thinking of all the people I would disappoint, but I dyed it anyway. I woke up today and thought about all the people I would disappoint, but I continued my day. See this life is filled with those who wish to keep you just as you are. But you, you are every-changing, obsolete and beautiful anyway. I try to tell myself I don't care about the people I upset by making the decisions that make me happy, but it doesn't hurt any less. I have become a gray, middle-area of who people want me to be. I have grown so accustom to others customs that I'm not sure where I belong anymore. No one seems to be around anymore and I have dug my own grave. Somehow this feels lonely again, the same loneliness I have tried to run away from. And just when I turn around to look, thinking I lost it, there it is as I turn back around standing in front of me, awaiting my next move. I may never rid of lonely. I may never be myself again.

You were the first boy to buy me flowers and they weren't roses like all the other girls get. They were the colorful, cheaper ones and I liked that. That was the first time I realized that you knew me, a little better than I knew myself. I was terrified of you. Not in the way that I thought you would bring me harm but in the way that I knew you would make me happy and I didn't think that's what I deserved. I made you sad because I knew I couldn't ever be happy, but then you found love so I guess it's okay. I'm still trying to decide if I am finally happy because I'm not sure exactly what it feels like. I cry a lot, I guess I always have except when the alcohol masked the pain. But I didn't want to go down that road and now every time that sip hits my intestines I get sick. I guess it's for the best, isn't it? We were always meant to be friends, because it's simple. And this love in my life now never is. Maybe I was meant to be who I am now, in order to grow from who I was because I've never really liked myself. I'm not sure that part of me will ever go away. I guess being a friend is the only thing I don't **** at these days. I hope that part of me will always stay.

I wonder when the hurt will stop.
when this life that is forever fleeting
will become one with this heart that is constantly breaking
again and again and again.
I try not to care-
not to give **** about these feelings
that seem to take over my entire body.
Clinging to my throat in hopes
that I spill the things most sacred.
I want to be numb again
naive and grasping onto the oblivion
that was once my second nature
my proof of an angel in my wake.
No mistakes proved to be a disservice
because I didn't feel a ******* thing.  
I hope you realize you ******* ruined me-
at least you ruined who I was when I was with you
and as the exoskeleton of the girl
fades away into the background
who I am now grows stronger.
I realize that lying is your second nature
and being true isn't in anyone's agenda.
Only trust yourself-
because this life will make you drive drunk
and laugh when you get pulled over.
This life will invite you to the party
that no one really wants you at
and then watch as you sit around awkwardly.
They say time heals all wounds
but what happens when there's blood stains
on your new t-shirt from self-inflicted violence
but you still somehow wonder how it got there.
I am my own tragedy
but a masterpiece nonetheless
and the senseless emotions inside my head
all turn to stream of conscious in the end
I try to make sense of it all.
How I can never stay in one place too long
or even listen to a song all the way through-
**** what you heard.
I am the creator of my own destiny
and I have made mountains of these mistakes.
I will love harder than anyone you happen to know-
and if you seem to **** with that
I will ******* up harder than anyone on this earth
You can test me if you would like.
But these bones have spent so long breaking
that I will suffocate you with their ashes
and watch as my brokenness chokes you up-
makes a Tarantino scene out of your mistakes
and turns that **** into an episode of X-Files.
I am in the twilight zone again
wishing things wouldn't be so ******* different
every single time.
Wishing I could be real and sincere every second
but no one can seem to handle the things I feel.
They're not human enough-
not willing enough to feel emotion inside their bones
as much as I
so they wither beneath my facade
and hope to understand a fraction of me.
There is friction beneath my feet-
so watch as I go up in flames
watch everything I once was burn down
and watch who I am now rebuild.
Resurrection is an understatement-
Self-revolution is my only sanity.

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

close-knit but tongue tied
these knots have formed around my limbs again
and all I seem to want is to cut ties
but I keep running in circles
the rope gets tighter now
there's nothing strong enough to cut
close enough to break from what brings me down.
There are days when I don't see myself too clearly-
I make a mockery of all this progress
and reversion encases my jawline
builds a fortress around my cheekbones
lets these tears I own fill an arc all the same.
Never sane in what I am saying
never too close for comfort
never still
always silenced.
See this mind of mine has torn in two
and I am seeing stars again
I looked too closely into the light
that became of me
and now I have trouble seeing anything.
Blind optimism has turned a blind eye to currently
to the reality I live which feels nothing short of a fiction novel
but these spells are not long enough for many chapters
So I fill this shell casing of who I am with novellas
and hope the print isn't too small
and the dialogue isn't too excessive.
Feeling apart of something bigger
has always been my call-to in this world
has always been the north star guiding me
to the place I want to be.
See I've never really felt the words "family"
warp around my skin and make a home inside of my psyche
but it's the only word thats ever meant anything to me.
Which is why these words turn to a warm gun
and I hold it close to my chest
inching to pull the trigger
in hopes more of me will scatter onto the floor
and into the world.
But I strive for consistency and stability
so the gun is just a way to protect me
these words will always be there to protect me.
When I grow old-
when the color fades from my hair
and you can no longer see the outline of my youth
etched inside these expressive tendencies
that is where you will find my happy
in the names of every offspring
and every person I've ever loved-
every good deed I have ever done
that is where you will find my happy.
I have lost myself inside the toxicity
and it clouds the mirror on most days
but sometimes the smoke clears
and I can see who I am again.
Repeating "I am here"
until I convince myself it's true.

Dear me-
I lost myself inside of you
and I will be coming to collect soon