tell me how you miss me
I love how sweet that sounds.
as you kiss her neck
as you lick her sweat.
you hate how she says your name
and how her lips taste like wine.
you hate her blue eyes
you hate how they’re not mine.

and you say you miss me.
isn’t that just sweet?
but you’ve made your choice
and your choice wasn’t me.

the hours pass like minutes now
I collect them under the covers
as their pressing persistence
deafens with each dream.
my mother enters the room
in an effort to wake me
from the dead, to try and
mend the broken bones
you yourself left.
why does she have
to clean up your mess?
my own guilt concretes
my chest, paralyzing me further.
to hear my mother’s concern,
her worry. but I have felt
this heartbreak many times
over. your fracture lines are
all over my body, some are
just easier to hide than others.
I stay in bed and dream
of how you stayed. of how
you chose me. back to
Sunday mornings under covers,
our smiles visible by the gray-lit
sky. I can still feel you skin
running beneath my fingertips.
so I stay in my bed. and that
should be none of your concern,
it’s the only way I know
to survive knowing you.

felt your warmth
crawl inside the empty
bones of Springfield
and I offered a sigh
of relief.

it wasn’t home without you
and I couldn’t breathe
without witnessing
a little part of me drifting
away every time.

for a year it sat as
a museum.
and for a year I tried
to trace our old paths
but the streets were
no longer familiar.

it was an empty house
my empty house
that I had once lived in
and each weekend I
would return to it,
trying to figure out
where everything
once was.

i can breathe the smoke
from your lungs
drink the bourbon
from your tongue.

just promise your hands
will never leave my hips
and to keep kissing laughter
across my lips.

my dear, continue whispering
'i love you' into my hair.
and for it to be your voice
that breaks the morning air.

and if you ever change your mind,
to leave with the next sun,
promise to break my heart gently,
my love, i have only one.

I’ve been watching, breathing in your skin
Breathing in the shadow that is left
Breathing in the words left hanging
in the stars above the river. Above the drunken
teenagers stumbling over feet and syllables.
There you left, counting the stars on my own
Counting the steps you take away from home.
Feeling the pull as you strayed from me
Feeling the threads break oh-so easily.
But when I saw you, I didn’t know your face
Your voice had changed. The girl had changed.
She clung where I held, and kissed the lips that were mine
Kissed a smile that I’ve never seen before.
So I will no longer be watching, holding your bones
I will no longer be lurking, waiting for you to come home.

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.

The bullet cracks your teeth, your tongue burns against
the hot metal, cooled down by detached touches and
mute denial. I have never felt such pain as when you painted
my cheeks with your fingertips. The blood still stains your hands.

I hear autumn calling me and I wish to go her way, however
though miles away your hands still hold my waist, asking me
to stay. My mother always said the devil was near.
I never expected him to have such blue eyes.

No amount of bourbon could erase the scars your
lips left behind. No matter how many words pile
on top of each other, your voice remains clear.
And even when I sunk into my old habit, he wasn’t you.

September has always been kind to me.
But this year seems so cold. The miles stretch
me thin. I feel myself drowning, they are saying I can only save myself.
But I still find myself here, drinking the sea.

Tears slip from fingertips
Words unheard, like the apology
We both know you owe me.
No, I don’t want to numb the pain, it’s mine
It’s all I have. It’s what has stayed.
It’s what I’ve used to mark the days of these past two years.
Well, let the tape record
Since this is nothing more
Than what we’ve rehearsed many times before.
New explanations fall out your mouth
Darkening clouds only offering
Shelter from the burn of coming too close.
Seems silly, why do you care if I get hurt now?

Well go on and run, are you finally done?
The game is called, it’s clear that you have won.
It’s never enough
You always come back for more.
And you drag me out, tear me apart
Left with wounds you only heal in the dark
Your touch will always leave a mark
If you’d ever stay around.

Well I sought for you in alleyways
In prescription relief, the back of Springfield streets
Where I hoped I’d see you in your old habit gown.
You lost yourself inside that flame
In pursuit of relief caused by what you loved.
You told me you could see heaven
I guess I wasn’t in there.
But now we speak through gritted teeth
Through cut wrists and sunken cheeks
You said something towards me
I almost wished I understood.

You took my razorblades
Said there’s no use
Now you’ll relieve my pain,
You’d be here to love me
Well where are you now?

Well go on and run, are you finally done?
You disappear along with the sun
It’s outside my window
If only I could look out
And you drag me out, tear me apart
Left with wounds you only heal in the dark
Your touch will always leave a mark
If you’d ever stay around.

And I write and write of awful things
My infected love of haunted memories
Your face follows me down the streets
I will always look for you.
Well go on and run, are you finally done?
The game is called, it’s clear that you have won.
It’s never enough
You always come back for more.

And I fall in love with the one next to me
And the promise to take away my grief.
I know it’s a lie
But at least he tries.

Except I find myself coming back
To this meaning that I lack.
But this is what you chose
At least we both know
In the end you got what you’ve always wanted.

I’m afraid to speak up
because it gives you another item
to add to the list as to why
we are not compatible.
After all of these years
it must hold quite the caliber.
And whatever I say seems to come out wrong
because you dismiss me as being hateful and jaded
and that you no longer wish to converse with me,
as if depression is another term for being
a hormonal teenager and that it is contagious.
You can’t beg me to tell you what’s on my mind
and then close your eyes during all of the unpleasant parts
because these unpleasantries are my reality.
I’ve learned to only offer edited monologues.
You seem to stick around.
But I feel more empty than when you left.

I'm sorry
that I thought
you liked me
when I was laying
on the ground
and you kissed me.

My bad.

Day after day I find my mind drifting back to you. To imagined conversations that we would never have outside of my mind. The kind of conversations where I pour my anger out into the open. Where I inflict pain to regain balance in the situation. Where I make you feel like **** for treating me like ****. Where I make you give one ounce of emotion…more than you ever gave me willingly.
In my mind I had told you that I hated you. That I wish the same pain on you that you had carelessly inflicted on me. That YOU were the one that was bad for ME, yet I am the best thing that will ever happen to you and it's a **** shame that you won't realize it until it's too late.
I would make you aware of all the nights I stayed up crying over you. Of all the sacrifices I made and the lies I told just for this to work. I would point out the three scars that serve as proof of this terrible pain.
I had imagined all of these interactions. Planned out every scenario yet I know how it would really play out.
I would look into those hollow blue eyes where the interest had faded. I would search desperately for the boy I once knew. I know he's somewhere in there. And I would tell you that I still love you. And nothing would ever change that.

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.

i saw i caught your eye
skin like a pearl in the pale moonlight
even though our timing wasn't right
i could tell you were mine.

we ran in circles over again
trying to fight time that was never our friend
as you, fingertips from my hand
don't call it quits, babe, this can't be the end.

but as the days passed on
i could tell that something was wrong
you didn't look at me the way you used to.
you changed the song
and now it's been so long
since the last time i've seen you.

please don't walk away
i asked you to stay
just this once.
i won't be okay
going through the day
with you gone.

brushed your shoulder as i walked by
like your heart, the touch was ice
this is something i can't make right
because you're not mine.

i want to kiss your lips again
mouth to mouth and skin to skin
your white shirt wearing thin
forget the rules and give into the sin.

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.

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.

moving on from you was my hardest task.
is my hardest task. present tense.
my friends’ concern grows with each
day that I spend confined to my room,
each day a word does not pass through
my mouth and they ask me why you were
so special. what about you hooked me.

and it is fair of them to ask cause I would
not expect them to understand the way
the morning sun lit up your eyes.
they’ve never noticed how that curl of your
hair always falls across your face. or
the way the right side of your mouth
raises a little higher than the other when
you’re about to say something sarcastic.
they don’t know how intimidating yet
intriguing you are, that it intoxicated me.
I had to always be near you.

and now you left me here to wake on
my own, to think only about your eyes
and the morning sun and how even you
managed to make 6 am so wonderful.
but you’re not here and the clock reads
1 pm and I still can’t manage to get out
of bed. how can I tell them what I’ve lost?
I’m left with this gaping wound that no one
can see, and drowning in the words I can’t speak.

I confess to be terrified
of the tears across the lines
of collecting wasted time,
left in a room full of ghosts.

the spine of this book has broke
and the edges you tucked away
now broken off, leaving frayed
illusions, that this was how it
was. how it's always been.

I learned to never really talk about it
to take what I can and hide from the light
to feel my face crack beneath my skin.
drunken words escape from half shut eyes.

smoke settles in your shadow
but only I know
about the face behind the mask.
consuming fires were never meant to last
burnt out cause we were the perfect match.

will these scars ever heal?
the pounding, deafening
silence rise me from this
grave, this hole I dug alone
to try and stop the lights
from blurring every time
I get too close? Please burn
me so I’ll feel something.
I’m so tired of this
nothing, this gaping void
that demands to be felt.
but I only feel the
darkness sitting at night,
where you once slept.  where you
told me that you would be.
but there is only the
empty air, your absence
forever hanging there.

“YOU WON,” I screamed. The words sliced the inside of my throat as they rushed from my chest, the blood spilt on the table before I could even notice. I had been trying all this time trying to cover the gunshots with band-aids.
And he picked the scabs with fingernails because he knew he held the power. Kissing bruises into my neck and burning his fingerprints onto my collarbones. He was the most dangerous vandal, breaking me into a function only he could benefit from. And I would have paid no mind, for I thought that I was always meant to be his, but you see, he never meant to return. Only to conquer and collect, placed photograph upon many on his bookshelf.
The funny thing is: he was never competing. He never wanted to win because he never wanted to actually have me, just borrow. And he has yet to realize that it is not the anger that is misplaced, but rather the responsibility.
I should have never let myself get that close to the flame.

people say they are in love
when they stand awkwardly next to each other
unsure of the thought of touching the other's skin.
shift uncomfortably in silence
never daring to meet eyes
or risk blush.
yet they last.
and it's so unfair
because she doesn't know that every time
he listens to oasis he thinks of her
and he doesn't know that for that
she smiles at the sound of wonderwall.
she doesn't know that every time
he bites the inside of his cheek
he is facing the demons
that have stalked him his entire life.
and he doesn't know that
when she scratches the scars
on her left wrist
she is overwhelmingly nervous.
she doesn't notice
how he wears long sleeves everyday
just to cover up the scars
on the inside of his elbows.
and he never bothered
to kiss the angry gashes
she inflicted out of hate
of herself.
she has never taken the time
to watch how his face
crinkles around his grin
and around his blue eyes.
and he never minded
the way she ground her teeth
when she was frustrated.
she never fell in love with
how soft his hair was
and how it curled at the ends.
he never traced his fingers
across the crushed velvet
cheek as he looked into
her blue and yellow eyes.

and yet we never made it.

I want love
to reach his fingers
around my heart
wretch it
enclose it with passion.

I want love
to knock the breath out of me
beat me black and blue
carving me out
til I am empty inside.

I want love
to get up in my face
look me in the eye
tell me the truth
in every way.

I want love
to twist his knife
inside of me
look at me lifelessly
and leave me there to die.

I want love
to turn around one more time
pay respects
to his old friend
and tell her she is free once again.

Does she kiss your hair in the morning with the sleep in your eyes?
And does she whisper how she loves into the sky of grey?
Does she look for your face in the crowds between class?
Thinking how every step further away is another she can’t take back.
Does she read your favorite books in attempt to know you more
And does she sit around and cry for you behind closed doors?

Does she feel a tug as she drives miles away,
Feeling the ache of the space filled with days?
Does she see your face in the bathroom stall?
The mirror’s cracked, but still tells all
Of a girl trying to find a way to live another day.

I carried you with me unknowingly to the places that I went
The corners of the country, you managed to find me then.
I tried to escape with a palm full of pills
But you made me stay against all will
By saying that you loved me.
By saying that you will always love me.

I kissed a boy just to fill the void but he was of no compare
Didn’t set me aflame, he didn’t surround me like the air
But we had wounds all the same, and together we played well
I couldn’t leave myself alone or else I would dwell.
It was a light to distract me, to not let me think of you
But your reflection followed me in his eyes of blue and I cried
For you to just go away.
Why can’t you just go away?

Well the days pile high as the letters collect
Filled with the words that we left unsaid.
But I will not cry for you once more,
For a lost cause, a locked door.
Not for the boy who found another way.

I saw her sunlit silhouette
laced in the whites of the morning.
her cigarette stained mouth escaped
with the memory of her kiss,
of the taste burned on my lips.
I have to remind myself that
she is real,  as absolute as
the air that crushes my chest,
as the words she left on my breath.

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 ******* 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.

Surely, I deserve this. My tears are bittersweet irony; they stain my pillow as a mocking reminder of naïvety. This is what I get for believing that he could do no wrong. This is what I get for committing to a person and believing that I could turn his life around.   For dragging him through rehab twice in vain. For walking into his room on July 5th one year ago to find his unconscious body on the floor. For crying to the god that I do not believe in to save the only thing on this ******* miserable world that I love. To not let me lose him again. This is what I get for calling 911, for trying to hold back the tears so they could understand that my boyfriend overdosed on ****** in his bedroom. For waiting all night in the hospital only to be ignored by him for not letting him succeed on his suicide attempt. This is what I get for believing him each time he came back to me. For being the only security in his life.
These past years I have lost a lot. I have watched all of the closest friends drift away. And I held onto Landon with such consuming fear that I might lose all sense of familiarity. But it is so painful to love something that does not want to feel.
I fear I have lost everything in my life. There is no meaning in this life. I have lost mine.

The number of letters or poems I write to you
Are insignificant.
You’ll never read them.
Never know of their existence.
Yet, for some unexplained reason
I still write them.
Maybe there’s a secret Optimist
Hidden deep within me
That’s still rooting for you.
Hoping that maybe at this moment
You actually are reading this.
That maybe this whole catastrophe
Was just a misunderstanding.
Maybe.
Maybe one day
You’ll look at me the same way you used to.
And maybe you’ll hold my hand again.
The gentle way your hand cradled mine.
Just maybe.
I wrote a song for you,
That some day you might hear it on the radio
As you drive down the dirt roads
In your light blue Mustang that I loved.
Finding it catchy, drumming your fingers
Along to it on the leather steering wheel.
Your head would bob in a rhythmic beat
And maybe, just maybe,
You’ll think of me.
Of what we had.
Of what could have been.
These are the dangerous thoughts of an Optimist.
Scrawled upon a piece of loose notebook paper
In the middle of class.
I hide this Optimist deep within the many layers of myself,
As She takes these thoughts with Her.
Maybe one day, She and those silly ideas
Will be consumed in the surrounding darkness.
It would be better off for Her anyways.
This world is not kind to Optimists.

you are an exquisite pain,
an acquired taste for tears.
to love you and to leave unscathed
is like running through the summer forrest
and trying not to be torn by the thistles.
my flesh split to pieces
yet there is more blood to give
and wolves are howling in the distance,
they won’t give up.
the agony, the ache
of the almost that is ‘us’.
to graze something so wonderful
but in the end, fall short.
to love you is to give you my all
and have you still ask for more.
to drain the light from my eyes,
chasing until vanished
and I am left here, in the dark
with no way out.

The call came
blindsided, heart stunned
eyes hazy from confusion
or tears.

Your habit caught up to you
needle tainted body
dosed with too much
unable to function.

Death inevitable
and I saw how this would play out
but ****
how it stings.

Never to run fingers
across your skin
brush your lips
with mine.

Blue eyes
no longer mine
light fled
as well in my world.

Guess it turned out
I wasn't a reason to stay
and now you have robbed
me of my most prized.

I already miss you.
agony overcomes
as your memory
slips into the abyss.

At least you're no longer in pain.
My sweetheart.
My darling.
My world.

His rosary repeats every chance
the means collect in pocket of his
well-torn jeans held up by a busted
leather belt, destroyed by bicep
binding and makeshift holes.
His meditation is medicated,
his god is chemically composed.
The stigmatas rise in elbows
covered by long sleeves in
July’s heat. He says he can see
heaven, not in glints of white light,
but in clandestine calm. In his
induced repose he repents
to the soft hum of Tuesday’s
sun, and once again,
he wakes.


A.M. Davis

Oh God, they’re coming
Those bloodthirsty hounds.

Tangled roots catch my feet
As I weave through the myriad of trees.

Nowhere to hide.
No shadow for refuge

Where they won’t find me,
Those ******-driven hunters.

Knowing me better than myself
Able to predict every step I take.

Running from them for so long
My feet have grown tired.

Being kept at bay
They have become impatient and strong.

I feel their hot breath on my neck.
I hear the pads of their feet pounding the ground.

I scream out for anyone to help
But my cry falls on deaf ears.

The nasty creatures pin me to the ground,
Stealing the air from my lungs.

Forcing me to look into its cold blue eyes
I feel it overtake me.

Its icy venom seeps into my bones,
Polluting my mind. My soul. My body.

Taking possession.
I feel its stone grasp.

The emotions course through my body,
Flooding the numb temple I had kept.

A silent tear escapes my eye,
That disgusting abomination.

Oh God,
Make it stop.

car alarm lullabies
harmonize with the howls
of the dogs next door.
I could paint every inch
of these beige walls, but
they still wouldn’t feel like home.

you, in your grays and blues,
with eager expectations clawing
my skin from its bone.
you tore me apart just to see
the colors that I would spill.
paint them in every hue
and they still wouldn’t be
the right shade for you.

do you expect me to smile back
after you’ve pulled every molar
from its bed? to lend you my
splintered spine for your knife?

the miles soaked in blood
are now stained for you.
but you would still claim
there is more to give.

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.

I am known for crying wolf
and for holding empty space.
but the cry was very much real;
the wolves have learned my face.

There is no way you could love me if you knew me.
It is not possible to be so self-inflicted
These wounds you dig yourself
But your blood is under my nails.
There is no way you could love me
Love this disease that is in my head
Selfish, consumingly distain my mind
Don’t kiss my scars
You’re only opening them again
Don’t tell me they will heal
Because time has never been my friend.
Don’t love me.
Don’t destroy yourself like this.
Don’t let me do this to you.
Leave while there is still color in your mornings
And cramping smiles in company.
Leave while you can still taste food
While you still have a reason to be awake.
Don’t let me ruin you.

I hold down the
sharp edges once again
to allow you a second chance.
they carve their way down,
you don’t care at all
my pain has always been irrelevant.
after all, as you said,
it’s just my medicine.

we could still be
what we wanted to be
after all we’ve been through
I would still let you in.

you are my medicine.

to wake up to your voice
and to kiss the morning’s
first breath from your lips.
to feel your skin, like crushed
velvet, gliding against mine
under covers, softly lit by
the new day. to remember
your words, to take them
and keep them like a
photograph to take me back
to Saturday mornings with you.

Turn the mirror closer
So there is nowhere to hide.
No veil of explanation
Just what cruelly meets the eye.
Feeding yourself lies
Day after day
Searching for any way
To alleviate the pain.
Swept under the rug
Hidden from the light
Danced around on toes
But tripped over at night.
Searching for a way out
The easiest of ways
Hoping for the best
And waiting for the day.

But the day never comes
And the numbers pile high
And I’ve been standing all alone
Can’t even say goodbye.

Don’t tell me this is the end
When it never even began.
All I wanted was to have you
But that I never can.

You never wanted love
Just something to fill the hole
Where your heart once beated
Before your soul grew old.

his lips made scars bleed
fingertips traced over the
pocket knife, the razor blade.
his blue eyes clouded my heart
and it sunk into the graves
of silenced words and emotions.
his tears wrapped around my lungs
and stole the comforting lie
from my tongue.
I wanted to run. to join
substance with the chair
or drift away with the air
just so he couldn't look
at me anymore. to remove
the sadness from his eyes.
but I stayed there, visible,
where he could see me.
he could finally see me.

I will forever look for you in crowds
the sea of faces look all too familiar
they always look like you.

And in every dream I will ask where you are
Your name repeating off my tongue.
Why do they say you don't exist?

i visit your grave
every single day.

relive the day
that you went away.

before I knew it,
the words came spilling out
and fell onto the
dining room floor.
they took each tooth
inside my mouth
as they poured,
bare cavity collapsing.
stare at the mirror;
there’s nothing left.
there’s nothing here
to see.

Please forgive me for my lack of meter and form of a paragraph. Let me take you to a day in my life, of what was supposed to be the conclusion, on February 9th, 2013. I was on the floor of my bedroom, the cold wood no match for my fevering body. My hollow gaze melting into the green walls, the picture collages of magazine cutouts I spent whole weekends arranging. There were no tears. No feelings beside this hungry ache of emptiness. The clenching grip of depression enclosed around my ribcage.

There were no tears because my mind was made up.

I drew the razor blade  across the fair delicate skin on my wrist, perpendicular. I just wanted to feel something. One. Two more times, crimson paint flowing down my arm, onto the wooden floors. Steady stream, throbbing pain.

It wasn't until my head was light and vision blurry that I noticed my mistake. I cut too deep. But there were no tears. No feelings. Besides acceptance that my time has come. I slowly closed my eyes involuntarily, giving into the soft waves.

Feeling the grip loosen.

i abandoned god before he abandoned me.
his scornful eyes cast down
and furrowed brow of contempt
as i walked out of the pearly gates
into the unknown darkness.
he did not lift a finger nor called out the name
of this beloved child of christ.
purged in water and marked by oil
formed the shackles on my wrists and ankles.
lifeless words from a glorified book
empty prayers from empty hearts and thick tongues.
infinite petitions laid on deaf ears.
the throne is too high for him to hear you.

i expelled the devil from my soul
tried to cut him free
but little did i know, with each saw of the blade
he possessed more of me.
setting fire through my veins
oppressing my senses
i could taste the emptiness
hear the falsities
feel pure and utter hatred
see nothing but bitterness
in this disgusting, infested world.
he whispers in my ear and forces his way into my mind
he becomes me.
when i look into a mirror
he is staring back at me.

i closed my eyes before night fell
and the darkness crept in.
before the monsters crawled out from under beds
and the nightmares took their stage.
i couldn't escape them
there was nowhere to hide.
because my monsters live inside.

i beat death to the punch.
opened the door before he knocked.
one, two, three, sixteen
blue little fairies waiting to guide me home.
he cradled me as i drifted off the final time.
my tired eyes and my tired body
finally laid to rest.
i found no comfort in his embrace
nor in his false promises.
there is no place for me to return to.
my home is not some holy kingdom
that i was promised at such an early age.
there is nothing for me there
yet, nothing will make due.

"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."

the paper blank
there's nothing left to say