Mom says it's teenage hormones. Dad says I'm over-dramatic about it.

But I'm getting worse, not better. I'm anxious constantly, suffering from attacks ranging from small to so severe I grow ill. Thinking I could end my life should any of my fears become real was my only comfort, but even that has abandoned me. For I am a coward who cannot take her own life for fear of the unknown. A craven, afraid of deaths pain but still longing for his freeing slumber.

Apparently this is something all teenagers go through. Wanting to stay in bed all day playing dead and pretending the world can't hurt me when it can break through my windows and torture me to death whenever it pleases. Apparently every teenager sits around, wanting to die but too afraid to end it. We all cry from our pure terror of things we are too afraid to speak of, too afraid to make real with words, too afraid to even think of for too long.

I've been practicing this breathing exercise. I do it in sets of 3, sometimes sets of 5. It's funny, because usually when I do things in sets, it must be 4 or 14 or 24. Move my fingers from pinky to thumb 14 times on both hands in synch. Things like that. I don't like 3, and 5 is iffy. But the breathing exercises that distract me from wanting to rip my own flesh off must be done in 3s or 5s, apparently.

My mind is not my best friend, but sometimes, it pretends to be. It tries to convince me that mother is right. That I'll outgrow suicidal thoughts spanning as long as I can remember and severe anxiety and depression so intense it eats me alive and makes me want to gnaw my skin off, but it makes me want to float to the bottom of the ocean or fly off a cliff and be free in much quieter ways.

Falling from a cliff wouldn't be quiet. It would be messy and the wind would be in my hair and I'd make a splat as I hit the ground. But I imagine drifting down like a feather, my soul leaving my body before the destruction and my body dissolving like dust, scattered to the wind.

I am thinking of flying and vainly wishing my parents are right, that I will outgrow mental illness and that I'm over-dramatizing it somehow, because my feelings and thoughts are overdramatic and counselors and therapists are liars, since according to father they're wrong when they say they're afraid I'm becoming a danger to myself, because mom and dad say they're wrong, mom and dad say I'm not dangerous to myself I'm just stupid and senseless and an attention ***** who is too scared to die, while other, much more vibrant and amazing people are dying and deserve the air in my lungs and aren't getting it.  

This is turning into a mess, like the one I'd make if I threw myself off a cliff. So I'll stop here and wonder if my heart can stop from the empty hopelessness choking it, as well.

have you ever believed
in something so blindly
so genuinely
that the moment you realize
it isn't true, something inside you
changes forever?
i wanna tell you a story, see
seldom do i ever
go swimming in drinks
deep enough to drown in
but when i do
i speak in tongues
about things that none
of my memories
are allowed to talk about
like that christmas
at the isthmus
where my girlfriend
plucked a conch shell
whiter than gods teeth
out of the sand
held it to her ear
and stopped time
that day she was a shade of blue
the could've made the ocean sick
see, she loved to play jokes
when she held
the sea shell to her ear
she gasped, called my name
and said "i want you to hear this"
i said "yeah, right, everybody knows it's just the same old sea"
she replied "no. not this one. this one is special. listen. theres music in this one"
she handed me the shell
like a promise she couldn't keep
and i held it to my ear
with all the potential
of seeing shore
after being stranded
at sea for years
only to hear
a tired dirge of silence
spill from its emptiness
i guess she didn't know
how desperately
i wanted to hear it too
because ever since
something inside me snapped
now sand pours out
of every post card i open
i hear seagulls
in telephone static
sometimes i have dreams
where i bury my hands
in every beach
i've ever been on
and exhume this graveyard of noise
every time i try to sleep
i spit up fishhooks
and i guess i'm obsessed
but maybe
if i hold my ear
to enough vacant things
then i could have back
the time stolen from me
since it happened
maybe they would get it
if they knew what i wanted
when i blow out birthday candles
maybe they'll find me
face down in a wishing well
i watch eternal sunshine
of the spotless mind every day
pretending i can forget too
because this sea sickness
has followed me for years
because yesterday
i walked into a music shop
and all the pianos broke
but the only thing
i can think to say is
*do you know how bad
a memory has to be
that you fantasize
about forgetting it?

I am addicted to rain, to the sunset, to the sound of water over rocks.

To the crackling of the fire, to the breeze on my cheeks. To the feeling of someone else's fingers running through my hair.

I am addicted to the way he smiled, to the way she kissed, to the feeling of my fingers laced with someone else's.

I am addicted to the quiet pain in my heart, to obsessing over my fears, to apologizing for things beyond my control.

I am addicted to this boy who has eyes like the sky, to this boy who makes my heart jump into my throat and my cheeks burn and my legs go numb and who makes it hard to breath. I am addicted to this boy who doesn't really know who I am, who just knows who I want him to know, who has a smile like perfection and probably doesn't even know it.

I am addicted to writing. About my heart, about my dreams, about my sins and agonies. About how other people view me and how I view other people and how I view myself.

I am addicted to cuddling, to thick blankets and fluffy pillows, to lazy mornings.

I am addicted to wishing I could share all the things I love most with that boy, the one who I wish I could look at all day.

I am addicted to turning things into him without ever intending to.

If I was her I would be better
less tortured
and prettier

If I was her maybe you would love me more
hold me when I cried
and stay when I told you to go

If I was her maybe you would see me
not the mask that I put on
but the face I’m afraid to show

If I was her maybe you would care
when I told you I was leaving
that I wouldn't be long for this world

If I was her maybe you would see
how broken I truly am
instead of telling me I’ll be fine

If I was her maybe you would need me
all day every day
not just when you want to

If I was her maybe I’d be better for you
instead of the girl with fire for hands
who burns everything she touches

If I was her maybe I’d learn a thing or two
about the world
and care enough to change it

if I was her maybe I’d live my life
instead of sitting in my room
wondering how to end it

If I was her maybe I’d still be here
and not a body in the ground
wondering what might have been