I turn the shower water on to a piping hot.
Hestitant but without backing out I enter.
I cringe a little as the droplets ambush me.

I allow the hot to hurt me.
I deserve the pain.

I sit in the middle of the tub and close my eyes.
The pit and patters of the water sooth my soul.
I close my eyes before the boiling water burns them, I can still feel it against my eyelids.
My makeup runs down and as if cued..
So do my tears.

I try to remember what it was like to feel love from another and I can't recall it.
Every time you made me smile was replaced with every time you made me angry.
Every time you called me beautiful was replaced with every time you made me feel hideous.
I silently cry to avoid anyone from listening.

Each water drop a memory of ours.
Good and bad.
All ending the same however;
down the drain.

The steam became too much to handle and I am suffocating. Unable to breathe anymore.
But the feeling is similar to how I felt with you.

The piping hot water may sting and burn and leave me sore, but it's the only thing I can feel anymore.

These feelings of hopelessness
attack me constantly like a tidal wave
And when they do they leave
me feeling like I will forever live
my life being trivial.

It’s something I can’t explain
Like how the wind blows
suddenly and violently and in
it’s aftermath leaves nothing but
pandemonium.

I feel overwhelmed by my own emotions.
My ability to control them
diminishes everyday.
If my future is something that
is in the cards
I want it now.

This feeling of longing for distant places and different people is consuming me.
I long for a life I have never had…
Not something better…
Something different.

I miss someone I have never met…
Someone I am not sure even exists.
I cannot accept that this is all I will
ever be

There is a possibility that things
will change and a possibility it will stay the same.
The odds are it will get worse if
I don’t stop digging myself into a
bottomless pit.

I am screaming silently only I can
hear the harsh sounds of my
stifled screams
The noise is deafening.

I feel like I have been falling off a cliff since the day I was born..
When will I finally slam onto the ground
I am not afraid anymore..

Maybe I need to reach an even
lower rock bottom
before I can stop fighting myself
It comes and goes in gigantic
waves and it leaves me feeling
like I will never be more than this.

             12 September 2013

Tell me where I can go, he said,
just get me out of here.
Give me truth in every form, he said,
be the answer to my prayers.
Listen to this man, she said,
his poison words will taste so sweet to you.
I'm not going anywhere,
anyway.

Hero's the wrong word,
but it calms his mind.
It's what's steadying his hand.
A rationale so absurd,
he'll take what he can get to silence the voices in his head.

Give me something to believe in,
cuz I don't believe in me.
Give me something to hold on to,
and I'll cling tenaciously.
Listen to these men, she said,
their words of death will seem so wise to you.
I was never taught to care anyway.

Hero's the wrong word,
but it calms his mind.
It's what pacifies the guilt.
A rationale so absurd,
he'll take what he can get to silence the voices and he says,

I'd buy anything so I don't have to grow up poor.
I'll go anywhere for you, I'll walk through any open door.
I'd do anything to feel a part of something more.
I'll **** anyone you say to feel fear nevermore.

Hate is a strong word,
but to him it comes as easily as fear.
And fear pervades his soul. He's so far gone.

when I say that people make me anxious
I don't mean it in an I don't like public speaking way
or in an I'm nervous around groups of people I don't know way
both of those are very true
but my anxiety encompasses more than that

it's when 3 times within an hour I texted my best friend, who had assured me 17 times previously that he loves me, and he didn't text back and the fear that he didn't love me anymore because I am too clingy became an all consuming ache in my stomach
it's when after spending ten hours talking with a girl who'd told me that she avoids people she doesn't like and saying 3 stupid things in those ten hours that I couldn't fall asleep for hours afterward, not because of the residual butterflies of our interaction but because the weight of my sheets was the weight of those 3 things and I was trapped as my mind fluttered over them, over and over them, I convinced myself that that beautiful person would never want to spend time with me again
it's when I spoke one poorly worded sentence in class and my face burned like a forest fire and for days I smelled smoke every time I thought about how much my classmates must abhor me for speaking at all
it's when I  chewed the inside of my cheek to shreds while I didn't tell my brother that his misogynistic jokes weren't funny because I thought that criticizing his humor would remove me from the spot of favorite sister even though I'm his only sister
it's when I'm afraid that cutting my hair short will make me too gay for my mother to keep loving me despite the fact that drunk texting her on thanksgiving about a crush I have on a girl did not
it's when I don't wave at people first because when I do wave at people and they don't wave back I assume that they didn't wave back not because they didn't see me but because they don't like me
it's when my hands shook as I apologized to my doctor for being sick all the time
it's when I did't tell my therapist all of my problems because I don't want him to hate me for being so weak
if I were rain I'd apologize for falling because I apologize to everyone for everything that I am

people make me anxious because I love people and I want them to love me back
people make me anxious because I feel that I am too much and not enough
people don't make me anxious because of people, people make me anxious because of me

i want a messy eyed boy to
drag his tongue upon my sun filtered skin
and lay me out in a field of wildflowers with
wide fingers and veined arms
wandering all over my aching body.

i want him to whisper things to me
in a light voice as wavering and deep
as trickling water
and windblown leaves.

i want him to feed me vines and fungi,
psychedelic plants,
and watch me trip into the
winking sky,
a wandering abyss.

i want him to growl all over me,
holding my bare body in his arms,
fitting his skin in every crevice that is possible
in these mundane bodies.

i want sweat sliding off me,
and the feel of bodies in motion. i want
him to
stroke my skin and paint it lavender
with crushed flowers and
put soil in my hair, while i
wiggle my naked feet
in the air.

i want him to swallow me
like i am overfilling liquor
in a crystal bottle,
desperate and excited.
i want him to leave
pink bite marks on the waiting flesh of
my collar bones,
and breathe into me;

i want him to write on my skin
in the fire of the dwelling night,
my soul is enigmatic and
it draws him in
like art.

i crave hands around my waist,
colors on my tongue,
the earth in between my toes,
and somebody to kiss me under
the lightning storms.