I wrote a poem
and named it after her
because it ends too early

Being mentally ill is draining,
so is breathing,
so is staying alive,
so is being hopelessly hopeful

But I will decay gracefully
for this pain is more than I can bear

They reminded you
that you are still here,
still one with the livings,

and now you sleep
with a knife in hand
to feel safer from the ghosts
that perch on your bed

And later you will use that
knife ‘cause you will never
be safe from your ghostly self

And on a bleak morning you
will search your bed for that
knife with your scarred wrists

You see,
you have already swallowed that knife
after years of starvation, but you still
couldn’t satisfy your hunger  

It is now stuck in your throat
along with every lingering word
you buried inside your foreign heart,
and now it cuts from under your skin

And this is why you have no tears
And this is why you cannot sleep
And this is why you hate love

You teared yourself apart,
and forgot that you could heal

She madly loved you,
and now she loathes you

You told her the truth
about your soul, and
how you don’t have one

How your heart has died,
but started to rapidly beat
when she held your frigid hand

She tasted the pain you’ve warned her
about for so long, yet she stayed

Till you poisoned her pure heart
Till you suffocated her by breathing

He loved you to death,
but his hurt brought you
back with the dead

You’ve forgotten them,
and yourself too

I might’ve inhaled her scent
when we were making our
soon to be last goodbyes

Her scent filled my lungs
So I held my breath
and counted to ten

Countless tens,
I lost track

Suffocated,
I inhaled the smoke

Broken,
I buried what she felt like

Abandoned,
I exhaled her out of me

When breathing felt
the same as drowning—

and I’ve drowned myself once

—I gasped for her scent
with each breath I took

All my years, I’ve been preparing to die,
and now they’re forcing me to stay alive
Claiming they can heal my wounded soul
by shocking my brain causing more trauma

How do you go back
from being buried?
How do you find peace
when you know what’s awaiting you?
How do you love
when your heart has stopped?
How do you remember
when you’ve lost your mind?
How do you cry
when you don’t have tears?
How do you overcome your past
if it’s still your present?
What do people do with their lives
if their whole being didn’t yearn for its doom?

How do I start?
Where do I begin?

This is the first day of my life
where I’m not suicidal, and
I don’t know what there is to do
when death was my only salvation

I don’t know this new version of me;
the one who doesn’t find it impossible
to stay for another day,
another endless night

I’m scared of shifting back;
I’m scared of being buried
by my own deadly psych,
I’m scared of dying again

Things are more lighter now
The elephant in the room is no
longer perched upon my chest,
and my wrists are no longer
bleeding, only the scars remain

What if I get hungry again, and can’t
find anything to feed on but my own blood?
What if I woke up in a casket again?

I can’t help but wonder
for how long is this going to last?
How long am I going to last?
I hope this lasts,
I hope I last

I can hope like others do!
I’m hoping again
which is a sign of life!

Am I deluding myself?
Am I better or worse?

I need someone to squeeze my hand
just so I know that this is real
It’s dangerous to get stuck in
a state where nothing feels real
No matter how deep
you went to draw blood,
you still don’t feel like you’re here

In my head I’ve already
killed myself, long ago,
and now my corpse is
somehow trying to breathe, again?

This goes against logic
This goes against my own head,
my head is going against
its own suicidal thoughts

Am I going to look back at this,
and not believe that one day
One day I felt alive enough to breathe,
and not wish I wasn't