i breathe you out to breathe myself in,
i love the sun, i love the rain, i love wind,
the pain i feel is what is setting me free,
it hurts, it kills, i feel sick, i feel weak,
everytime i focus on you, i'm not focusing on me,
i want you, i want you to save me,
but you cannot save me, i need to save myself,
i feel sick, i feel like i'm going to be sick,
if i *****, will that get rid of the pain,
i'm shaking, i can't breathe, i miss you,
but i'm missing an even bigger part of me

i want to be sick, i want to let it all out, my stomach hurts, my soul is being ripped apart, i feel ill,
i cannot accept you because i do not accept me,
i want your touch to heal me, i want your kisses, i want to feel your love, i just want to hear your reassuring words and your voice to calm the hurt,
but i can't rely on you anymore, i have to be by myself, i have to do some work

i want to cut you off, i want to cut you out,
like a disease in my body, i want rid of you,
i want the memories to fade and i want the hurt to stop, i want to lie down, i want to give up

i thought loving you would mean i would find myself, but that couldn't be further from the truth, please don't let me go, i can't handle this pain, i can't handle losing you forever again

i know i have to go to the darkness to find the light,
it's a tiny little photon of light, but it'll be my guide, i keep wanting you, oh how my heart aches,
i pine for your touch to soothe me again, but i do not love myself, i am so weak but this too shall pass

you were my bestfriend and now you are no longer my lover,
i have to love myself now, even with the sickness in my body, i will find the strength, attachment made me believe it was love, i'm just sorry it wasn't

you have shown me so much but i am still lacking,
i am here for you,
but i cannot cover this up and carry on like nothing has happened,
we do not work as a team when we lack love for ourselves,
i'm hurting, please pain get out

i'm letting you go now like a child lets go of a balloon, i may want the idea of you back but this pain made me accept it is over forever.

----
1. no beauty

was it beautiful?
like sitting at a desk
riddled with indents from
keeping the scissors away from skin
rocking back and forth
with only one thing circling
through an addled mind
the overwhelming urge to die
feeling ready to write that final
chapter on a life barely lived

was it beautiful?
forty pills that seemed like
enough at the time
choked down with soda water
and so many built up tears
feeling the rot of depression
absorbing the medicine that was
supposed to make things better
*******

was it beautiful?
regretting waking up hours later
younger sibling in the next room
noticing the stumble
the swearing that came from
feeling organs clench and shatter
but nothing coming up

was it beautiful?
admitting to taking so many pills
tongue feeling shredded by the words
being asked to stay awake
but only feeling so much anger
at having failed
at waking up again
at still being alive

was it beautiful?
three psych wards
every time a voluntary check in
unable to stay safe
healing scars
bashing limbs against every hard surface
ripping open old wounds
both inside and out
there is nothing beautiful
in self destruction

2. no romance

was it romantic?
hospital beds and an iv
in the back of a shaking hand
monitored bathroom breaks
too many to count while a body
too young to feel so old
purged itself of so many toxins

was it romantic?
fingernails chewed down to nothing
ragged cuticles
raw and ****** knuckles
because those hurt just a little bit less
than constantly pulling open
scabbed over splits in
gnawed on lips

was it romantic?
looking for love to give to others
not leaving enough behind to keep
not caring about that
too busy wanting to go home
please fix this
make the hurt go away
make everything shiny and new again

was it romantic?
unable to find respite
from the mental onslaught
in the unmarred arms of another
because illness and depression
do not care about
kissing scars to heal them
or boxes of chocolate
or roses
or whispered “i love you”s
because life is not a
teen romance novel

was it romantic?
wanting to die
even while sitting next to
that person that made things
not hurt so bad
and feeling guilty about fresh cuts
fresh bruises
burn marks that could be explained
away as accidents

was it romantic?
mass media certainly seems to think so
here’s looking at you
john green and jay asher
because why should people have
struggles if they can’t be candy-coated
and wrapped up in neat little bows
with complementary
packets of tissues on the side

was it romantic?
smelling of blood
and sweat from so many nightmares and terrors
trembling and shaking
racked by guilt and anxiety
waiting for an ulcer
waiting for something to happen
to make it seem worthwhile
because in mental illness and trauma
there is no prince
no princess
no damsel in distress
no disney movie happy ending
there is no romance
in wanting
to constantly die

i was a ******
12 or 13 year old lesbian
coming out to my friends at lunch
almost choking on my juice
when they said that they already knew
and their immediate acceptance made
me so relieved that i forgot
to chastise them for not
having told me sooner

and i loved my
first girlfriend
like how just seeing her would
let loose a stream of butterflies
into my stomach and i adored every
single one of them

and i loved my
girlfriend even when our
first kiss made the inside of
my bottom lip bleed
but she held my hand
and that made everything alright

but i was a
****** teenage lesbian
because i still felt things
for boys

boys taller than me
and the same height
with their blue
and brown and green eyes
and short hair that i wanted
both on my head
and on my face

and and and i
didn’t know if i wanted
to be with the boys
or be the boys

but my girlfriend with
her soft hands and softer lips
imploring me to crawl into
bed with her on those
early mornings when we
were both a little less than half awake
even she couldn’t make that ache
of wrongness go away

and i was a
****** and angry and
even more confused than before
teenage lesbian girl
but i was just so bad at it
because the part of me
that rationalized i must have been
a queer woman
got so much smaller
that i felt like an imposter
in my own ****** identity

and and and i
longed to be a boy
with a strong jawline
and hair on my face
and a flat chest
and and and i
just didn’t want to be me anymore
because the real me
he wasn’t a girl

and and and the
real me that he
inside of me
for so many years
is able to love boys and girls
and not feel guilty for it
because love is love is love
and i am still alive
to enjoy it

“did you wish you
would have successfully
committed suicide?”

you can’t ask me that
because it is one
hell of a loaded question
and i’ll spend all this time
agonizing over what answer
will make you worry the least
because and ****** anyhow
i just don’t know

it’s just one thing in
a long laundry list of
maybe’s that i took
from therapist to therapist
and psych ward to psych ward
trying to find a definitive answer
on why i was depressed
why i was afraid to sleep at night
why i couldn’t just be happy
why i wanted to die
just why why why

and i don’t know
because my whole life
felt like preparations in order
to die younger than i should have
but that stubborn cursor just
kept on blinking away
saying that my story wasn’t over

but the thing is
that depression has no face
because there were good days
where i wasn’t miserable
but then the nights were hell
and i could never cut deep enough
to find the infection
that made me this way

because even now
almost 20 and terrified
over a life that still
sometimes feels like it should
have ended four years ago
i am still depressed

under the genuine smiling
and laughing where i don’t care
if my crooked teeth show
my mental illness is still there

and i am riddled
with anxiety
and guilt
and regret
though i still cannot
say for certain if that guilt
extends to the fact that i
failed to take my own life
because i just do not know

it’s a long list of maybes
more than the scars littering
my left arm
or the days that i spent
bruising my wrist on
any sharp corner i could
because i can’t say “yes”
and i can’t say “no”
without it feeling like a lie

“did you wish you
would have successfully
committed suicide?”
i don’t know
yes
no
maybe
maybe
maybe

It's been 6 days since my head filled with the impenetrable fog
6 days since the hands
pulling vinyls from their sleeves to place the needle on top of the grooves to play any distraction available
didn't fit my wrists the right way.
6 days since I made the conscious decision to intoxicate my brain to the point of fuzziness
and now the side-effects that embody the alcohol can't seem to stop coursing through each individual vein and artery
infecting my brain cells with rapid dexterity and a hazy heavy cloud that refuses to clear itself from my eyelids.
It's as if my whole body has been violated by a virus that has spread too quickly to identify and now every last nerve ending has ceased to send messages caused by reactions to tangible foreign bodies belonging to the world
outside my own physicality.
The feet encased inside my shoes are not my own
They no longer help me to stand with ease
or walk without stumbling
I am not here writing this
But my weakening limbs have detached themselves from the rest of me and now there are electronic mechanisms and chemical concoctions doing the job my senses have since given up on.
I am simply not me.
My teeth feel like aggressively inserted slabs of cold enamel constructed without consent behind the pair of lips that are slowly fading every day
These are not my nails scraping against the skin I no longer recognise and feel safe inside.
I feel like I am floating and everything happening around this body is affecting what it is supposed to
But I am the exception.
Every single inch of me is now wrong
Out of place
Unfamiliar and uncomfortable
All the physical feelings are now examined down to the most minuscule fragments
Heightened to the point that they are now extinct in the realm I still try to call "my" brain.
I don't want this.
I don't like this.
I want the substance that is poisoning me to drain itself from my blood
Something that now seems impossible to do.
A constant state of surreality in a more literal sense than I could have ever anticipated.
I didn't mean for this to happen.
I will never be able to identify what it was that flipped the switch labelled:
"depersonalise"
I can only make mere guesses and vague estimations as to how much longer I will have to spend inside the physical manifestation of a body from which my title of "proud owner" has been stripped.

It still comes back sometimes
In ebbs and faltering waves.
I move my hand to relieve an itch
Or follow more tablets
with a swallow of water
And for a second
it doesn't pass through my throat
my fingernails miss the bridge of my nose
my hands detach
I float without meaning to

6 days since the haze appeared

I guess I'll keep counting

where do you go when you think of me?
do you go to lying on the wood floor with my head in your lap;
do you go to driving with the windows down and the cold air running past us;
do you go to the songs i wrote down and hummed for you through hour-long car rides;
tell me what you think when someone says my name.
tell me where you go when you miss me,
where do you go?
do you try to drown out evenings where we smoke too much and stumble around grocery-store parking lots
with all the streetlights shut off behind us;
do you try to erase the way my thumb moves over your hand, like reflex, like my hand in my hair, like unconditioned and honest;
do you bite your lip when you hear terrible radio songs and your passenger seat is empty;
tell me,
where do you go when you hear my name?
where do you go when you think,
oh my god,
i lost her,
i lost her

it is late, cut holes in old linen sheets
let light pour through into a space we have designated as our own
"our kingdom," you whisper, "you and me versus the winter."
it is lazy sunday morning, time trails behind us and you count freckles on my face
familiar like old habits, strumming against my stomach like your favorite guitar.
it is tired, staring at glow-in-the-dark stars like a discount planetarium
"a serious question," we know these words are never serious. you dont always have to ask, just kiss me, just kiss me, just kiss me.
it is tuesday afternoons, barefoot dancing in refrigerator lights
like safe habits, like a home to go to when the people you love cannot contain you.
like free space to be completely not contained, like breaking necklaces,
"please dont leave, not yet, a few more minutes."
write poems, i will turn them into songs.
make movements, i will turn them into habits,
running my hand up and down your arm like executive function
hushed whisper, a just-you-and-me whisper;
it is a poem every time you open your mouth.
you are the sunlight coming through the linen,
you are the lazy sunday morning,
you are what i hold onto during winter,
you are my hope for spring.