Does he kiss your eyelids in the morning when you start to raise your head?
And does he sing to you incessantly from the space between your bed and wall?
Does he walk around all day at school with his feet inside your shoes?
Looking down every few steps to pretend he walks with you.
Oh, does he know that place below your neck that is your favorite to be touched
And does he cry through broken sentences like I love you far too much?

Does he lay awake listening to your breath?
Worried you smoke too many cigarettes.
Is he coughing now on a bathroom floor?
For every speck of tile there's a thousand more
You won't ever see but most hold inside yourself eternally

Well, I drug your ghost across the country and we plotted out my death.
In every city, memories would whisper: "Here is where you rest."
I was determined in Chicago but I dug my teeth into my knees
And I settled for a telephone and sang into your machine.
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine

And I kissed a girl with a broken jaw that her father gave to her.
She had eyes bright enough to burn me. They reminded me of yours.
And in a story told she was a little girl in a red-rouge, sun-bruised field
And there were rows of ripe tomatoes where a secret was concealed.
And it rose like thunder, clapped under our hands.
And it stretched for centuries to a diary entry's end where I wrote,
You make me happy when skies are gray
You make me happy when skies are gray and gray and gray.

Well the clock's heart it hangs inside its open chest with hands
Stretched towards the calendar hanging itself
But I will not weep for those dying days.
For all the ones who've left there's a few that stayed.
And they found me here and pulled me from the grass where I was laid.

Does he kiss your eyelids in the morning when you start to raise your head?
And does he sing to you incessantly from the space between your bed and wall?
Does he walk around all day at school with his feet inside your shoes?
Looking down every few steps to pretend he walks with you.
Oh, does he know that place below your neck that is your favorite to be touched
And does he cry through broken sentences like I love you far too much?

Does he lay awake listening to your breath?
Worried you smoke too many cigarettes.
Is he coughing now on a bathroom floor?
For every speck of tile there's a thousand more
You won't ever see but most hold inside yourself eternally

Well, I drug your ghost across the country and we plotted out my death.
In every city, memories would whisper: "Here is where you rest."
I was determined in Chicago but I dug my teeth into my knees
And I settled for a telephone and sang into your machine.
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine

And I kissed a girl with a broken jaw that her father gave to her.
She had eyes bright enough to burn me. They reminded me of yours.
And in a story told she was a little girl in a red-rouge, sun-bruised field
And there were rows of ripe tomatoes where a secret was concealed.
And it rose like thunder, clapped under our hands.
And it stretched for centuries to a diary entry's end where I wrote,
You make me happy oh!! when skies are gray
You make me happy oh!! when skies are gray and gray and gray.

Well the clock's heart it hangs inside its open chest with hands
Stretched towards the calendar hanging itself
But I will not weep for those dying days.
For all the ones who've left there's a few that stayed.
And they found me here and pulled me from the grass where I was laid.

touch my skin, don’t read my mind
disappears before it’s gone.
burn the bridges down
ruins swept and gone.

share my skin and not my mind,
tape has played and gone,
there is nothing left to play
script was said and done.

books stacked high, loaded gun
sweet ****** taste starts to run.
I like the haze and the smell of sin
there was no difference where you’re gone.

black lace dance around my hips
intoxicated lips, I’m crazy.
whiskey drown my lungs to sleep
sink your words into the deep
I’m ******* crazy.

you’re dark, you’re smoke, you’re night
immersed in your own sad life
you’re ******* crazy.

touch my skin, don’t read my mind,
disappears before it’s done.
burn the bridges down
I’ll build another anyhow.

share my skin and not my mind,
tape has played and gone,
there is nothing left to play
I feel you leaving now.

Do not hand me promises of someday, when things are easier, when we are older and have our lives figured out. Somedays do not exist, they are ghosts collecting in the corner of a house falling apart. They keep their mouths tightly closed in thin lines, biting down on the bitter, empty promise. Afraid to open their mouths to let the words once said escape into the air polluted with maybes and laters.
Do not tell me to be careful. Do not lecture me on patience and perfect timing. I am tired. I am nineteen years young and exhausted by each one. Excuse me, taking the knife, cutting to the chase. Erasing the maybes and the if only's off of the notebook paper and photographs littering my bedroom. I will not wait in line. I will not count the seconds to find out a fate that I did not chose. That I did not create. That sneaked up on me in the middle of the night as my dreams were dancing around patient expectations. I will not waste my time.
Do not tell me someday, when we are older. Because, honestly, I do not have a lot of time. I do not expect to stay here much longer.
I am exhausted.

green leaves and the smell of summer sun
through the woods, as fast as we could run
count the stars as they fell one by one.
first time you've heard me laugh.

photographs where your smile touched your ears
such a shame how it faded over the years.
I've never wanted more for you to be near

than when you turned away
and you left me here
the way you said my name
how it cut the ear
the needle received
all of your broken tears
nothing left to do
but wait with my own fears.

I never knew such pain was possible
than to lose all I've been fighting for.

the end of sunlit days
but I can never rest
the taste of *****
salted on my neck.
and I fill my lungs
just to ease the pain
but I've come to learn
that it never goes away.

veins are blue till they run dry
we've lived this time through
spilt but still new.
mirror's dusted but still shines
but the reflection's not the same.
do you even know my name?
I can't smile but you understand
that I cry when you hold my hand
and you hold me anyway.
I tell you how we'll see them all die
that freedom is what it feels like
when you lose every thing
we are alone
as we drive by the familiar face
and we are alone
set fire to the only place
and we are alone
I felt safe as the years collected on the highway.
and we are alone
as we danced under the stars of the graveyard
but we have yet to be free.
we walk through the woods past where we belong
all warmth gone.
seems as though the prints in the snow
were already made.
sleep has called
but we can't hear
because we are here.
I can't smile but you can tell by the look in my eye
that there is something finally lit inside
it's been so long since I could speak.
I've seen every thing torn away
and you were the only one
that promised to stay.
could you be the one to save me?

Onetwothreefour
Onetwothreefourfivesixseven
Onetwothreefourfivesi­xseveneight.
Onetwothreefour
Onetwothreefourfivesixseven
Onetwoth­reefourfivesixseveneight.
Onetwothe blinding light.
Bright.
****.
Onetwothreefourfi—ants.
Crawling up and down my spine.
Fire. Electrifying my veins
Ripriprip them out.
Bleed the bad out.
****.
Onetwothreefourfivesixsev
There is no solitude.
There is no true isolation
When every time my eyelids shut
His face is branded on the inside like veins.
Proteins and cells dance together
Into memories far gone and much missed.
One breath in.
If only that would do the trick.
But there is obligation in it.
Follow up required.
Two doctors that told me depression was normal.
Follow ups every week to month
To when the next bad reaction to medication.
Three times I accepted him back into my life.
Why did I let him in again?
The flame of ******* is always to be chased
After the first hit.
Four times
That I actually remember him say
That he loved me.
But it would be zero
As to the number of times he proved so.
Five years since I have been happy.
Or is it more?
I don’t remember anymore.
Six…six…six…
Because I chose to side with the devil
Since God would not love me.
Seven was my lucky number
Until I concluded that
Luck must not run in my family.
Eight. Open.
In.
Onetwothreefour.
Hold. Still.
Onetwothreefourfivesixseven.
Outoutout.
Onetwothreefourfiv­esixseveneight.
Are you okay now?

What a stupid question.

I ******* hate birthdays. Well, more accurately, I hate my own birthday. I hate the obligation of it. The expectations of a day about myself and how it was so glorified in my childhood. People would gather, be happy, and enjoy each others company just to show how much I am loved. And for one whole day, people would think of me. What *******. What ******* ******* it is to expect people to gather all in one place when I don’t even have friends to go out with on a Friday night. And how selfish of me to assume that on one day my ‘friends’ would surpass the stage of shallowness to think of anyone but themselves. And I know how entitled I sound, but I promise I’m not because I have never expected such things to actually happen. I would never dream of them extending out of the realm of delirium. They are just nice thoughts. Nice, selfish thoughts.
Another chapter to the absurdity of birthdays is the wishing of “happy birthday!” Oh my god. How awkward. I want to be wished so, but also not at the same time. I do feel happy and even honored that someone will take the time to say that to me, but I feel that if I don’t act bashful that I would come off as self-centered. But also when my close friends, and occasionally when I do have a boyfriend, don’t say anything I feel sad and dreadfully insignificant. But then I remind myself that the world does not revolve around me and then I feel guilty for feeling sad and no one should feel guilty for feeling sad.
And through writing this out in hopes of finding enlightenment to my long tradition of hating July 6th, I have just come to the conclusion that I am in fact not fit to function in this world.

it was not in the high E's or the low G's
stretched across the wire string,
not in the fluid movement of dance
crowding the open spaces.
not in the light laughter or
in the simple words coming from
simple mouths with simple, detached
minds. not in the meaningless touch
of the stranger next to me
or in the breath burning my neck.

we made beauty out of silence
appreciated the smooth ring of emptiness,
the raw obligation of space.
the thousand words of a glance,
the gentle touch of your eyes.
the immaculate hold of tears
and uncomfortable truths.
the shelter in sleepless nights
and the strength of withdrawals.
the few moments of being with
the one that defines your life
is the beauty I have seen.

held between fingertips, the sand sinks
through the cracks, funneling till absent.
but I can still feel the rush of grain,
the colliding of corners and burning
friction. I can still feel the weight,
the obligation of its existence
long after it retreated into the abyss.
I lit the last match just to watch it
burn. the last hopes escaping into the
air, never to comeback. a chemical change
cannot be undone. a chemical imbalance
they told me. the happiness disappeared,
only with blue and yellow lights to
dance around my frontal lobes. physically
incapable of joy, I sit here, watching the
old memories fade, replaced by darkness
I, here, holding the ashes.

Every time I try to construct the perfect opening line, my mouth floods with venom. Nails clawing my palms to remind myself to keep composure, not to inflict unfixable damage.
I don't know if we have ended. I don't know what we are. But I know I am no longer in your thoughts. No longer in your words or your smile. I know you no longer have room for me.
And I know how you see me. You think I'm a mess. That I can't stay sober because of my boredom. That I push others away by taking them for granted. That I took you for granted.
But you don't know me and I no longer know you. And you say that you don't judge but I can feel it every time I speak to you. And it's probably my own reflection.
It kills me that I don't know you anymore. It kills me that we no longer text each other until the first hours of the morning. That I no longer see you and that you no longer care. I can't stay sober because there is no happiness anymore. Because I would give anything to forget the reality in this situation. I push people away because what's the point when even my closest friend doesn't have room for me in his  life anymore. When we spent six years building this relationship only to be standing in ruins. I no longer live because I am haunted daily.
You said you've changed. So has everything. You like yourself now and I'm really trying to be happy for you. You have so much going for you that I understand how my absence doesn't phase you. But it was the old you I fell in love with. It is the old you that I long for, that I miss with my entire being.
But to read your words that those six years together had been a waste, that even to you, I am the villain, cuts deeper than any blade across my skin.
That's life.
And I genuinely hope you are happy.

I don't know what's wrong with my mind. I have no inspiration. I have nothing. I am nothing.

My living is simply waiting for my death.

Even that seems to be exhausting.

Skin clung around my bones like an itchy sweater. Nerves on fire with anticipation. I have been around myself long enough to know I cannot be alone much longer. Drowned in emotions too often to know that this dull indifference is just the calm before the storm.
You have robbed me of everything. Of my best friend, of my family, of my faith and trust, of love. And now you have thieved me of my emotions. I am an empty shell, body aching from longing. I do not want to cry because I am not sad. I do not wish to yell because I am not angry. Yet I cannot smile because I am neither happy. I do not speak because I have no words to say to you. I wasted them begging you not to leave the first time.
I am unsure if this is of content, for I've never experienced it. All I know is nothing scares me more than myself. What I am capable of doing when I have nothing to lose when the storm arrives.

If it was meant to be, then why is it so difficult? Why am I always asked for the extra effort to hold your end?
I fear that God has a grudge against us. The angels are casting their bets. They look down and laugh. They laugh at me. That stupid girl.
I thought "at least we have love."
But what is love when even that proves not strong enough to last?
It's an empty promise.
But my world without you is an empty life. At least now I have hope. A false sense of it but hope to say the least. Built upon the lies you routinely feed me. The lies I willingly accept.

Ignorance is bliss, after all.

Our generation is the victim of deceit. Misled by the books and poems and movies that has seemed to become our diet. Our form of entertainment eventually becoming the subject of our daydreams.

I am so sick of this romanticization of suicide. This dark artistry that seems to allude this picture of choosing to end ones life. That there is love in pain and martyrdom in the death of someone before their time. And so we thought ourselves saints as we drew the blade across our skin. We envisioned a gallant setting of roses and candles at our funeral. We thought that the hanging of the noose was some form of metaphor, some elaborately constructed final act that we must abide to in order for the 'perfect ending'.

Through this journey of recovery, I had reached an epiphany. Calling ******* on this obscene lie I had been feeding myself since middle school.

There is no beauty in suicide.

Suicide does not make a saint or a martyr or whatever gold painted character you imagined yourself to be after you had passed.

Suicide is the end. That is it. It is death, and for all we know, you may cease to exist. Total abyss. You won't even be able to realize you are dead because your mind will no longer work. Just black.

When you draw the blade vertically up your arm or put your mouth around the barrel of the gun, you better be committed. Because once that trigger is pulled, there's no going back. El Fin. There is no hope of waking up in the hospital as you pictured. Your story will end right there.
There is no beauty when your parents or your lover walks in to find your dead body, trust me. I know. There is no beauty in this complete devastation, just inexplicable pain. And that pain will last them years. Even 15 years later, as she is washing the dishes, your favorite song will come on the radio. She will stop, close her eyes, and imagine the 'what if'. What if you were still alive. What if you were standing next to her, enjoying the little pleasantries in life.

Imagining your funeral is useless, because you will not ever know how it will be played out. You will not be some floating spirit in the back of the church, watching your mother weep over your corpse.

I agree that there are reason's to end ones life life, and that people are entitled to them.

I just believe that the youth today should not be fed this ******* romanticized picture of suicide.

days like this remind me of how mentally ill I am. Why he left me. Why I want him. Why most of my friends got tired of my ****. Why my family is discomforted by my presence.

I feel like every time I'm in the room with them, I have to excuse myself. I cannot conjure the energy anymore to act like everything or even anything is alright.

Your body lay next to mine, the morning sun
burning your outline, ashes into the air,
as I reached out to catch the remnants, palms empty.
I felt your name escape my lungs, evaporating

into the damp grey. Body weighed down by
empty sheets and the aching emptiness.
Mind racing miles, a carousel blurred in confusion.
Entirety of my being desperately weeping.

An addict through withdrawals, all I want
is one more hit. One more time to hear the
sound of my name fall of the surface of your
lips. One more memory of you brushing the

hair out of my face to brand its way onto
my brain, to relive it over and over again.
One more night of holding my body against
yours, the warming comfort of your skin.

My bones long for you, fatigued by your absence.
There is no color, there is no sound, there is no taste.
There is no sense without you here,
without the certainty of your existence.

I cried for you not to go, on knees in prayer.
So afraid of losing what I prized most.
But you never stray from my mind,
declining the wounds of loneliness to ever heal.

But to be near you without your touch,
to have to act like I don’t know all your secrets,
that I’ve never held your naked body,
that you don’t give my life meaning

is the worst punishment of all.
I’m in love with this addiction and
I’m not about to quit. My string of
****** that sends me to nirvana.

I cannot hurt you with words.
Now with the hundreds of miles between us.
Not with the bitter night's air
slicing open my lungs and
closing the corset around my ribs.

I cannot strike you.
My will refuses to pick up the knife
even when it is mounted into my back.
I cannot inflict pain
just to regain balance after these years.

You cannot love me with words.
You have not even tried.
Wrote me off, a lost cause
What is there to lose when
I am the only one who invested.

But you can hurt me with silence.
You yourself carved your name into my wrists.
It was your hands around my neck as I screamed.
It was a slap across my face that summer night
when I asked you to stay.

But if you were to stay, all would be forgiven.

This morning I awoke clutching your name
with such reckless devotion that it turned to dust,
each letter fell to the floor. I know where you went,
long before you vanished inside of your name,

long before the grave. You sank into your body
like a river, guided by the low light burning
on the horizon. I know how you found us:
the pipe is a beacon. The pipe is a lighthouse.

You wanted to know how to remove the emptiness
from yourself. We never understood it cannot be
removed. It is not a pulsing seed in the gut, or a peach pit
run into the mud. We weren't drug addicts, we said

we were scientists. We experimented each day.
Sent the smoke down into the deep mine of the chest
as though it were a rope with a hook at the end of it
to pull the emptiness back out. We partitioned ourselves
away to the dark piece by piece, we did not remove
the emptiness but further became it.

The mind of the addict is cunning enough
to convince the body it is not dying.
Houdini doesn't have **** on an addict,
he was able to convince everyone but himself
he had vanished. Addiction is the ethereal art
of forgetting that you are still here.

I know where you went, before the syringe perched
in your arm and whistled through the vein
like a steam engine, before the crack rock broke apart
in a blaze of light as though it were an egg hatching fire.

I know what it is to walk down an unlit street at midnight
and have a gun cocked in your mouth. I know what it is
to discover the gun shaking in your own hand.
The most dangerous neighborhood
is the one in my own head.

This is a game of masks.
A Rorschach test of the mind.
QUESTION: what do you see?
Anything I want.
This is the magic of perception.

The difference between an addict
and one who is drowning
is the one who is drowning knows it.
The addict will drink the sea until it becomes him.

Even now, five years sober and when I smell whiskey
from across the room my mouth still waters.
I have not fed my skin a blade for nearly a decade
for fear of what I might let out.
What sleeps must one day wake,
even when you sneak through your own life like a thief.

I having spent whole nights lying awake asking why
I made it and you didn't. I can still hear death pawing
at the outskirts of town, as you vanished inside
the needle in your arm and I swayed
from the edge of a bridge, neither one of us
was any more deserving of this life.

I feel ill to even think it, but I have to thank you,
some days your death is all that stands between me
and a drink. There were days I went as far
as to hold a bottle in my hand,
but couldn't bring myself to swallow
because your name was stuck in my throat.

There were weeks I couldn't walk two blocks
from my door without being asked
if I wanted some kush, some glass, some white,
some snow, some jack up, some jelly beans,
some dust, some rock, some good ****.

And each time I heard your voice ask me,
"how badly do you want this life?
you didn't deserve it then, but you got it,
so what are you willing to do, to keep it?"

I am the girl who cried wolf.
I am the girl whose current existence is a joke,
a library book over due
a movie being charged day by day for staying
longer than it should have.

People sigh in prologued patience in my company.
No longer of relief.
Biting their tongues, choking the words of confrontation.

I am the girl who is dead inside.
And finally, those words no longer hurt
but now power dances on my fingertips
of nothing left to lose when all has been taken.
Those that cared about me the most
float in the thick water of indifference.
They are waiting for the body
to follow the lead of my soul.

I am the girl whose funeral will be mundane.
When the time comes, and most likely soon,
that I do pull the trigger, silencing my cries.
They will find my body and no tears will be shed.

I've been dead for a long time.

I am tired of being alone.

The words' icy edges pricked and prodded
the insides of my lungs, ******* the dry air,
leaving with an aching hollow chest.
Each letter etched itself into the sky,
morphing into the surrounding fog.
Feet sealed in place, minds of their own
refusing to forge on to my desolate pilgrimage.
So tired. Bones crying from exhaustion,
eyes sighing with relief as I shut them.
My only company, the thin air and
damp fog, embracing me.

I am tired of being alone.

i am a daydreamer, naturally. it is the only release I can feel that has the capacity to break the ties of depression that continue to anchor me down day by day. but I have one fantasy that reoccurs over and over, not a typical sunshine and green grass landscape though. Although, I was never a sunshiny person.
In the midst of my parents yelling at me. Of reminding me of the burden I have been for these eighteen years, of talking over me every single time I had something to say, I imagine myself standing up. I would disappear into the kitchen, returning with a silver blade in my hand.
In front of all of them, finally the attention on me, I would seek my revenge. I would carve the blade vertically up my arm, bursting the veins that nearly kissed the surface of my skin.
And finally, my voice would be heard.

I am not afraid of the night; I am afraid of its obligations. That tight fist of knowing that I could not have been born this way. For every fear there is said to be a triggering effect, someone holding the gun saying, ‘this may be my fault, but it’s still your story.’ A fear of sleep is a fear of losing control. In my hometown, there was a boy up my street that knew every part of you is a mouth. Look at you, how open you are. How your body can only say ‘yes’ to me. Look how your fight forgot you. I can never land a punch in my dreams, never can rip my attacker apart, nail by nail and see how helpless that house was. I’m not a fair fight, I don’t know a lot of words,  I don’t know how to say I slept with every man after you and woke up on fire. I don’t want to say everyone in my dreams is born out of you. I don’t know how to say you cannot have me. Not now. Not again. Don’t sleep by yourself. There must be some part of you that doesn’t trust the rest of you. Try to find someone who don’t want to gouge out her eyes just to make sense of the dark. This was never about finding a savior to share the bed with.

I am not lonely. I am not the weak calling my sickness the tyranny. What I feel is what I can’t hold, what I would win the world for.

I cannot forgive you
for your past mistakes
because they are wrapped up inside my chest,
burning like the summer sun.

I cannot forget
the nights when I felt like nothing
and I held a bottle of yellow pills in my hand
because you pushed me over the edge.

I will not forgive
this feeling of absolute sadness
wrapped up inside of me,
I will not forgive
the stab wounds to my back
that the words you couldn't speak to my face left.

I will not forgive the person I became
because you said I wasn't good enough
(and I still never will be).

I'm sorry my words come out
when I'm neck deep in alcohol,
but drunk words are sober thoughts
and I've never been known to keep my mouth shut.

You are everything I never wanted to be around,
a disease of the mind, body, and soul,
and I cannot forgive you
for being the decay that is my demise.

Rehearsal’s meant for perfection, but this is another stage.The act of doing. Blinded by the spotlight, struck still by the paralyzing heartbeat in my throat. And this is not the first time that I have been here, I am not proud to say. And I am unsure of which part I am more ashamed of: the fact that I felt the need to do, or that I lacked the courage to follow through. So here we are again, brought together by the forces of the wind. Being pulled together by the strings of our hearts, playing each other in the selfish game this has always been. It’s physics, no matter how far we run from each other, no matter how much blood was shed when I tried to cut you free, no matter how many cold shoulders we rested on at night; we always return to the same place, this same state. A vicious cycle that every time steals more and more of my sanity. I feel it slip through my fingers quicker each time and I claw and I claw my way to regain it, but there you are, holding it in your hand. A trophy. You’ve claimed everything of mine; maybe it was unknowingly so. But I have no tears left to shed, ducts dried and shriveled. I have not felt the knife of anger and sadness in my side for a long time, nor the relief of laughter and happiness; even on Friday nights when I’m laying next to you, under your covers. Just this terrible, aching numbness. This inhumane indifference that curdles at the pit of my stomach. I cannot daydream because I always somehow return back to you. And most nights I can’t fall asleep, but I’m more so afraid to. Of believing that you really are in front of me, brushing the hair out of my face and kissing my neck, just to wake up to a bed filled with haunting memories and a body aching with the desire to be held.
This cycle has to come to an end, and here we are. I stand there before you, silver blade of the knife shining from my hand. For the first time in an entire year, I finally evoke emotion. Your eyes grow wide with shock and fear like I’ve never seen before. I’m sure a while ago, accomplishment would have coursed through me. But I am only here to end this. To end your prolonged chapter of my life; overdue.
Give me an hour or so, I could name all the wrongdoings you’ve ever done. I could document and chronicle the periods of pain that have filled these past two years of my life, only to be broken by short bursts of shallow happiness. Although this is all true, I still love you. And I know once I walk away from here, the thought of you will continue to haunt every step of my life. Only worse, there would be no possibility of ever seeing you again.
There is no freedom from you in this world. Miles away, everything still reminds me of you. There is no killing you.
So I looked into your eyes, one last time, as I drew the blade through my throat.

will you please open up the door
this time I'm ready to come in
I know what I've said before but
there is nothing more left that I can give.
all those years you left it open
all those years you called my name
but I was a child then, yet to learn
that things don't remain the same.
I will be here, waiting
it's okay to take your time
and I know if I were you
in your shoes, I wouldn't give
a second chance, I'm not going to lie.
but I really miss my friend here
he was all that I had left
I was too stupid to realize you,
out of all, were the best.
oh, just to see you smile
even if I'm not the reason anymore
just please, old friend, please
will you open up the door.

Elementary days colored in sunshine, filled in its rosy shades. We were just two kids, you and I, running around the playground. Playing tag and soccer and more so often, sitting underneath our favorite tree in the graveyard, picking the wildflowers that grew around the cracked exterior of the headstones. We were just kids, inductees into this crazy role of life. It had just begun for us. Two young kids laying underneath the shade of elders, cozy in the resting place of those much older than we.

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road.
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go.

In middle school you fell for me. And to this day, I am not sure whether that was good or bad. But we filled our days in classrooms of Catholic Schools, passing notes and mix CDs, filled with Green Day songs. Sneaking into PG-13 movies and playing guitar at your house. You were honestly one of the closest friends I’ve ever had because everything felt so natural with you. I remember my father driving me home from swim practice, American Idiot blaring from the radio. I still have that CD to this day.

So make the best of this test, and don’t ask why
It’s not a question, but a lesson learned in time.

In eighth grade, you began missing school quite often and I found myself lost amongst the crowd. I had no one to sit with during lunch. No one to entertain me during Math and Reading. You said you had the stomach flu. How I wish that was so. A month later I received a phone call from your mother, informing me that you had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. My end of the phone was quiet, and she waited for a reaction, but all I could do was fall to the floor. Shocked. My dad caught me and answered the phone. She told him everything. I silently got up and walked to my room without a word. And so I laid in my bed that entire weekend, no emotion, just this terrible numbness freezing my veins and paralyzing my mind. Now that I think about it, that numbness never did leave.

So take the photographs and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time

I didn’t see you for an entire year. You practically lived in Kansas City. You practically lived in that hospital. And the thought of you, confined in those four gray walls, assembled with wires and tubes, killed me. Because that wasn’t how you wanted to live. Every night I prayed for you and every night I cried. I begged for it to be me, because you did not deserve it. And when you came back to school, you came back with a victory and I was so happy to see you. But something had changed. You were not yourself and you didn’t want anything to do with me. Your parents told me it was natural for behavioral changes in your condition, going through as many surgeries as you had. I just wanted my friend back.

Three years later that ******* returned, trying to claim your life once again. And this time, it won. It succeed and I had to do something that horrified me for the past 4 years. I perfected my stoic facade. And I sat in the back row at your funeral. But then Mrs. Durbin, our Social Studies teacher, sat next to me. Embraced me, weeping, saying how sorry she was that I lost my childhood friend. And then your father came up to me and hugged me. He asked me how I was and I said “okay” because it would hurt too much to say the truth. But then he held me at arms length and looked into my eyes and knew. I crumbled, breaking the emotionless mask I had been hiding behind, and he held me as I sobbed.

Tattoos and memories and dead skin on trial
through what it’s worth, it was worth all the while

That night, I had laid to rest one of my own. My childhood friend. My brother. And as you would like to know, they played your favorite songs, ranging from the Ramones to Green Day and I couldn’t help but to smile. I’m not a religious person, but because of you, I hope there is an afterlife. So hopefully I will be able to see you again.

It’s something unpredictable, but in the end that’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

"Hello?" the feminine voice answered on the other side of the line. I was pacing back and forth. A little upset that my cell phone had no phone cord to fiddle with as I pushed down my anxiety.
"Um, yeah, hi. Is this Kathy?" Of course it is. She gave me the number to her cell, after all.
"Hi, Anna. How are you?" I could feel the all knowing smile spreading across her face, 80 miles away. The smile that three months ago I hated with a passion. Mistaken the smile for arrogance. For indifference to my situation and my needs even though she didn't owe me anything.
"I'm good," I said automatically. Jesus Christ, I just said that to a psychiatrist. "Honestly, I am. It's been the first time in a while that I can genuinely say that....How are you?"
"Relived to hear from you again!" she said. I don't know whether she meant it. It didn't really matter.
"I just wanted to say," I started. Might as well get this over with. "Actually, I want to thank you. Today is the one year mark from my suicide attempt and well, I know you get this a lot, but you really helped me."
There was silence on the other end. Still listening.
" You were the first one that actually listened. A stranger. And I honestly think I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for me accepting your help. So yeah, thank you."
After a few moments of silence, I heard the wavering tones of breath. With tears in her words, "My dear, hearing you say that means so much. But it was all you."
We both smiled. Two strangers, 80 miles apart, held together by one of the strongest bonds.

I'm happy for you. No. I'm proud of you. And it feels weird saying that, as if I stand on the podium of a proud parent but no, you are in fact the one that is raised to the light. Our eyes have never met level anyways. As a friend, I am happy and overwhelmed of what you've become.
I'm afraid I do not have beautiful words to say to you. I've misplaced beauty a while ago. All I can offer is a smile and a goodbye.

you were not meant to stay here.

"I hate you."
That phrase hung there in the bone chilling air.
To me, the weight had lifted.
Or more like I finally heaved the overbearing
luggage, twisting my spine
or finally decided the horse was, in fact, dead.
But I saw the effect in his eyes.
And I feel disgusting for saying that I felt
the light fingertips of happiness for the first time in a while.
To finally awake the slightest remnant of emotion out of him.

"You don't mean that"
It played more as a plea than a statement.

"I do," I laughed.
I laughed out of relief.
Out of embarrassment of allowing abuse in my life
once again. But this time it was not with the strike
of the hand, but of the sharp blades of words
and the blunt impact of neglect.
He then asked, "Then why are you here?"

Laughing through tears,
"Because I have no one else; I'm stuck with you.
I not only destroyed myself but every other
relationship I had with people just so
I could hold your attention.
But I'm not your child and I shouldn't have to beg
when sixteen months ago, you couldn't keep your eyes off me.
But that's not the worst part.
The worst part is that I only want you.
No one else.
And you destroyed any chances of me trusting you."

let me say that i love you. and let me say it not as a means to put a leash around your neck but in attempt for closure as i toss you into the air, hoping that where ever to which you choose to fly, you will eventually return back to me. i love you as a promise, that not a day goes by that i do not think about you. that i choose life today because that means im only closer to seeing your face once again.
let me say that i love you out of appreciation. i was stuck in a dark cave, my pleas for help were just echoes ringing around down into the abyss. but you heard me because you right there with me.
let me say that i love you for being there, my 17th birthday. for being the one that got involved. you were the first one brave enough to. and you didn't even know me. you didn't own me anything. but you took those pills and the razor blade from my hand. you told me that i deserved to live and i cried because for the first time, i believed it.
let me say that i love you for the dimples in your smile. the light blue waters of your eyes. the softness of your hair and the way you hold me in the night.

let me love you.

i have found myself in a club. not established out of intent, but the tugs of the earth and its circumstance have strung us together. we found ourselves, brows beaded with sweat and hands bloodied and calloused. we did not mean to form, but we were meant to. to meet each other’s exhausted eyes, glazed over with indifference from the constant prejudice of cards dealt, and no words were spoken. none were needed. we met each other’s eyes and we knew that finally we had found someone.

we are the conquerers of the forgotten. we are the collectors of broken glass and innovators of redemption. we are artists of absurdity. failure is face all to familiar. but we are not bitter. failure is the reminder of the ultimate goal.

this was not of intent, but what beautiful people.

im afraid i have lost my touch.
try to crack the stone stoic surface
skin crystalized to rock of
the most expensive yet mundane
shine stolen diamond.

i find myself here, alone,
sitting in the study room of
a school i never wanted to go to
in a town i never wanted to call home.
alone, picking at the surface,
pricking the tips of my fingers for
just a single drop.
by the ax will not crack the exterior
the uniformed exoskeleton
will not harvest any value.

whatever is in here is deeply buried,
swept away in the black currents
and silenced by the quiet smile of
'really, im fine.'

expression perfected by painted porcelain.

Kisses trailing along his collarbone. Lips blanketing his golden skin. Mesmerized by the slopes, dips, valleys of his body. Fingertips electrifying trace every open space of flesh exposed. Thumbs resting on the carvings around his smile. Sweet taste on my mouth, venom coursing through my veins. Settling in the pit of my stomach, dripping to my toes. Slowing the beat of my heart. His palms burning holes into the small of my back, body magnetized to his.
I swear at that moment, the world itself ceased. The angels above, if their existence is certain, looked down in envy. For something this good cannot be true.

that was when my habits just got worse. i was so incredibly angry with everything. i was so confused by my feelings and wants and needs. i became so self destructive that even others who didn't know me could see the effects. one day, senior year, a blonde girl in my photography class grabbed ahold of my arm for closer observation. the gashes stung and they ripped open anew.

"why do you do this to yourself?" she asked. it was so blunt. this girl i didn't even know asked a question that my closest friends were too afraid to even mutter. i was so shocked, i did not know how to react but gather my belongings and leave.

i became someone other than myself. i no longer recognized the reflection in the mirror. the eyes hazed with indifference, body aching and weak from the constant loss of blood. for safety reasons i will not describe everything i did out of confusion. but it got to the point where sobriety was like an itching wooly  sweater, clinging to my neck.  

i was called to the office by three separate teachers over those two semesters, i was able to beg two of them not to call my parents. they were 'concerned' because i 'was not acting like myself.' i was such an angry, hateful person. angry that the man i loved didn't want to be alive, to stick around for me. angry that my parents never spoke up. that was all i needed. just for them to tell me to stop.

nothing particular sparked the suicide attempt. just a continuous dissatisfaction with the world, i suppose. so vertically i drew the razor blade, releasing me finally.

the paper blank
there's nothing left to say

I've been up three days
adderall and red bull
this call is a mistake
there's something strong in this water bottle.
I hear you've got a new chick
a dancing little barbie doll
i feel so pathetic
but you still haven't heard it all.

**** that new girl
that you like so bad
she's not crazy like me
I bet you like that.
I said **** that new girl
that's been in your bed
and when you're in her
I know I'm in your head.

I'm just saying you could do better
I always turned you out every time we were together.
once you had the best, boy, you can't do better
baby, I'm the best so you can't do better.

I ran into your homeboys
they're all ******* idiots
you're not even my boyfriend
but they're trippin cause I'm in the club
yeah, that's right, I'm dancing
and something cool is in my cup
Imma send a **** picture
to remind you what you've given up.

**** that new girl
that you like so bad
she's not crazy like me
I bet you like that.
I said **** that new girl
that's been in your bed
and when you're in her
I know I'm in your head.

I'm just saying you could do better
I always turned you out every time we were together.
once you had the best, boy, you can't do better
baby, I'm the best so you can't do better.

so maybe this whole thing was my fault, from the start
For falling for someone that cannot love
for giving all to who had none.
I gave you my heart.

and I close my eyes
to escape the world
where you're no longer mine
to hold you in my arms, to feel your warmth
'til the morning light.

And all along you knew that I
would follow you into the night
All along you knew that I
looked at you as if you
put the stars in the sky.

You said it was best for this to come to an end
before we are both hurt
How could you ask me to
walk away from you
when you are my life.

All along you knew that I
would follow you into the night
All along you knew that I
looked at you as if you
put the stars in the sky.

And all along you knew that I
would follow you into the night
All along you knew that I
looked at you as if you
put the stars in the sky.

my psychiatrist tells me to find the source of my hate in order to defeat it. in order to manipulate it back into a positive effect.
my source of hate is in myself, of myself. of the stupid, childish things that i mistakenly and purposefully do. like letting people in. getting attached to them and exposing them to...well...me. i'm embarrassed of myself and i don't want other people to be punished by my presence. i hate myself because i get to know these beautifully ugly people just to push them away...or let them slide through the creases of my fingers. i hate myself because i drove myself insane. i refused help when i knew i needed it and then lashed out because i was all alone. i hate myself because i couldn't even succeed in suicide. i hate myself because i hate living. i hate myself because i loved him more than anything. i hate myself because i allow him to continuously abuse me. i hate myself because i chose arkansas. i hate myself because i had the chance to live with him and so i'm the reason why we're not together. and i have to live with that. i have to live with wondering whether he's using again or if he returned to that *** crusted blonde *****.
but most of all, i hate myself because i can't be happy with what i willingly chose.

i love myself.
i don't need a reason for that.

i'm training him
not to say those
three cruel words.
that tug on my
heartstrings, playing
along to his childish
game.

the words with the
ability to paralyze
me in mist of angry
tone.

i told him
i could not love a liar.

so he no longer tells me
'i love you.'

i consist of countless
shattered shards of glass
that pass left up the ground
cause no one wanted
to claim their mess.

i myself picked these
pieces one by one
slowly collected the
parts of me before they
were lost.

i glued them together
fingers bleeding and splintered
but they held and i looked
the reflection was cracked
and distorted in many ways.

but ****, it was beautiful.

aaron carter
my slobbering , always smiling labrador
the words of sylvia plath
the cold metallic feel of razors
and death.

but now, i think myself might be a candidate.

when his poems are no longer about you
the songs are not yours
and his eyes gaze past your body.

to cut. to open up veins and let the reddened river rush, releasing me. to have the sobering throb of sliced skin dull the agonizing ache from within. it was my little secret. self-harming is a taboo subject. viewed as having no control over emotions or thoughts...well, i guess they weren't wrong. in the davis household, we do no have room for feelings. we were trained not to bring unpleasantries to the table because heaven forbid someone became uncomfortable. heaven forbid if someone caught a glimpse of the tiresome face behind the painted porcelain.
in middle school, the sickness started. the tumor grew inside my chest, making the task unbearably difficult to just simply live. impossible to drag myself out of bed because i couldn't find one ******* reason to pick myself up and face the day. it metastasized to consume my body. everywhere the darkness touched. blinded my eyes and deafened my ears to where i was left alone with it.
i became bitter due to the obvious state i was in. scars and fresh gashes striped my wrists and legs, razorblades and knifes left on the nightstand. few would ask and fewer i would tell, offering half-assed coverups. but they bought the weak stories because if they didn't, they would become involved. heaven forbid. and my parents didn't notice a single thing as i was destroying myself before their eyes. all i needed was for someone to reach out. someone to care enough to tell me to stop. to grab the blade from my hand, look into my swollen eyes, and tell me that i deserved better. that i was worth more. to say that they loved me. they took me to therapy because i needed to talk when i have been screaming this whole time, they just never listened.
so uncomfortable in my sobriety, i searched for any escape. anything to distract me from myself. and i sought for love, because i thought that was what was going to save me. but all paths, rocky and disastrous, led to dead ends and i found myself more alone than ever. i needed love. but i looked for it in all the wrong places. i would not find love in the stranger laying next to me. i would not find love in the meaningless touch of another. i couldn't. i had to find it in myself.because the love of yourself offers the sturdy foundation on which others can build. without that, the wall that they had constructed would be in vain, collapsing with the slightest gust of wind.
we were taught that to be alone is a failure when in fact, the real failure is being unable to be alone.

I wrote a poem that is so painful and personal that I'm afraid to even put it on here for anonymous people to read.

"Some catastrophic moments invite clarity, explode in split moments: You smash your hand through a windowpane and then there is blood and shattered glass stained with red all over the place; you fall out a window and break some bones and scrape some skin. Stitches and casts and bandages and antiseptic solve and salve the wounds. But depression is not a sudden disaster. It is more like a cancer: At first its tumorous mass is not even noticeable to the careful eye, and then one day -- wham! -- there is a huge, deadly seven-pound lump lodged in your brain or your stomach or your shoulder blade, and this thing that your own body has produced is actually trying to **** you. Depression is a lot like that: Slowly, over the years, the data will accumulate in your heart and mind, a computer program for total negativity will build into your system, making life feel more and more unbearable. But you won't even notice it coming on, thinking that it is somehow normal, something about getting older, about turning eight or turning twelve or turning fifteen, and then one day you realize that your entire life is just awful, not worth living, a horror and a black blot on the white terrain of human existence. One morning you wake up afraid you are going to live.

In my case, I was not frightened in the least bit at the thought that I might live because I was certain, quite certain, that I was already dead. The actual dying part, the withering away of my physical body, was a mere formality. My spirit, my emotional being, whatever you want to call all that inner turmoil that has nothing to do with physical existence, were long gone, dead and gone, and only a mass of the most ******* god-awful excruciating pain like a pair of boiling hot tongs clamped tight around my spine and pressing on all my nerves was left in its wake.

That's the thing I want to make clear about depression: It's got nothing at all to do with life. In the course of life, there is sadness and pain and sorrow, all of which, in their right time and season, are normal -- unpleasant, but normal. Depression is an altogether different zone because it involves a complete absence: absence of affect, absence of feeling, absence of response, absence of interest. The pain you feel in the course of a major clinical depression is an attempt on nature's part (nature, after all, abhors a vacuum) to fill up the empty space. But for all intents and purposes, the deeply depressed are just the walking, waking dead.

And the scariest part is that if you ask anyone in the throes of depression how he got there, to pin down the turning point, he'll never know. There is a classic moment in The Sun Also Rises when someone asks Mike Campbell how he went bankrupt, and all he can say in response is, 'Gradually and then suddenly.' When someone asks how I lost my mind, that is all I can say too."

"I told you I loved you. It was the first time I had said it out loud, but I don't expect it to bring you back to me. I say it more like lighting the last match just to watch it burn."

I'm not asking for them to care.
I'm not asking for any of you to care.
I just want them to let me decide
when and how I should die.

"when was the last time you were truly happy?" she asked, finally looking up from her notebook. making eye contact, i discovered i much preferred her nose buried in whatever she's writing.
i looked away to break the tension, but that only did so much. her beady eyes bored into my soul, trying to pick apart the girl that sat before her.
it would be an exaggeration to say that i never felt true happiness. i'm sure when i was young, naïve, and unscathed by the world, that i was a happy child. however, to be perfectly honest, i could not remember a specific instance.
in middle school the sickness started and grew inside my chest. concreting my heart in its paralyzing notions. it metastasized to consume my body, everywhere the darkness touched. blinded my eyes and deafened my ears to where i was left alone with it. and it owned my life.
granted, there were days where the sun had managed to peak through the thick blanket of clouds. and there were times where i would smile, i would laugh, i would forget about life for a while. but its presence was constant, following me wherever i went. when i would get lost in daydreams, it was always there to tug me back to reality.
when was the last time i was truly happy?
"i honestly don't know."

fallen leaves crunching under the weight of each step. i was accompanied by no one, but i was not alone. chorus of chirps and the rustle of the squirrels scurrying from one tree to another flowed melodically through the empty spaces, bringing life once again. despite, the chill of autumn air, the warmth grew inside of me. to be interconnected in this godly setting.