Who will be there when the civil war starts?

When your mind can't see past itself and your heart wants to stop
Will anyone notice that your smile falters when you hear your own whispers.
That your eyes tear from the squeezing of your heart.

When you stomach refuses to hold food down
And your kidneys start giving up
Who will be there when your mind is too heavy for your body to lift up?

Will there be anyone to lift you up off the floor?
Will there be anyone to wrap the red paintings on your wrists?
Who will even be aware of any of it

Will you, yourself even be aware?
Civil wars always end up with casualties on both sides.
And most of the time
Nothing is left worth fighting for

You were not my first
Nor my last
But you did the one thing no one else has done
You loved me fiercely and let me love you back
You loved me in a way I didn’t know was possible,
I grew up in a home filled with tight smiles and forced laughter

You showed me what made life magical
How being loved and loving could transform the world and make it a little less scary
You taught me to communicate emotions and how to cry
You let me love your parents and have them take me into their hearts
You showed me what a family could feel like

The days you skipped classes with me so we could lie in your bed and talk, cry and laugh, I felt your love surge through me the most
You never got angry that I would just get sad and refuse to eat even though I needed that more than your arms
I miss your arms

It has been 4 years since we broke up.
I have loved and lost some since then
But letting you go still haunts me
Your eyes, smile and hands still haunt me
The memory of boardgames with your brothers, baking with your mother and the sound of your dad playing the saxophone through the house still taunt me late at night.

I should not have let you go.
I should not have been so afraid of such an intense love.
But as you know affection frightens me
Your family’s love frightened me

So here I am simply reminiscing about the days when I had everything I wanted but couldn’t allow myself to keep it.
I still love you.

I was the girl with the sharp tongue
and the overly seductive smile
the one everyone wanted to get to know but couldn't
I was the girl that made boys weak
and made girls talk

The girl that had a sense of humour
ready to hang with the boys and get ugly
the girl who could be friends with everyone
she knew when to be kind and when to be cruel

I was the girl that bets were made about
that never played by the rules
the one that made you shine when she was around
the one girls wanted to be
the one that stood out
Because she wasn't just any girl
She was The girl

I was everything to everyone
except who I actually was

She will  knead you and need you
Willing you to agree
You will know you have a universe brewing
But she will convince you that
it is only a lowly branch scratching at the door

You will grow up wanting to throw up bits of colour
Because it makes you something she is afraid of.
You will constantly fight to find yourself within her constraints
Always falling short

Never sure where you lie.

She is
The type of mother that lets you know
Your beauty is fading with your worth.