Another year has past
Time still runs too fast
Many times I failed to catch up

But I found those who wait for me
For it is they who has saved me
I am grateful for all who I came to love

For I still struggle to let them in
Because my inner child from within
Is still frighten from all she was deprived of

I am not the brightest star
Nor do I have the kindest heart
But I thank those who made me feel like I was enough

Why do you inflict harm upon yourself
When outsiders do it for you
As though there is power in pain
Self-harm gives the power to choose

When the pain starts to when it ends
How much pain is given willingly
Open wounds turn into battle scars
Of the demons who wish to control me

At the end of pain is numbness
Nothing more left to miss
Empty and a hollowed out shell
An embodiment of an emotionless abyss

The warmth of my blood reminds me
Of the warmth I still hold inside
Heart beating, hard breathing
All the essence that I am alive

He lives in days
I live in decades
His world in constant change
My world struggles to be sane

The master of his ship
Unbothered by the sea
I am the waves, the current
All the chaos underneath

How incompatible are we
Only now I've come to see
He was made for adventure
But he was not made for me

He can tolerate the harshness
He can understand my depth
But tolerance is still not love
Or else he wouldn't have left

Our paces are mismatched
They cannot intertwine
How do I catch up to him
If his pace outruns mine

His seconds are my moments
So little that he forgets
Locked beneath my trenches
Like a buried treasure chest

Love encased in words
Traveling from one mind to the next
Your pen draws out feelings
As an offering to the recipient

How does one capture warmth
And release it on to paper
Where a piece of a heart's soul
Folded so neatly by its maker

I open my heart like a letter
That used to be sealed in secrecy
I feel love in words, written and said
I love each letter significantly

Each line I read gradually builds
With every word, like a puzzle piece
Creating a simulation of those I love
Giving me comfort in times of need

When a flower wilts
The flower isn't at fault
It is due to the lack of care

You give more love
Improve the surroundings
Why is it still dying there?

What more can you do
The flower is still not at fault
And neither are you to be fair

Its roots were rotten
Hidden death underneath
Life was too much to bear

Sometimes it doesn't feel like me
What I'm living in is foreign
What I want versus what I need
In a way it feels distorted

I was use to deprivation
In a way it was my pride
I didn't need or wanted as much
Even now I still don't mind

Overwhelmed with newfound freedom
I am free. Still, I am lost
I'm no longer trapped or controlled
But that was all I was ever taught

I was raised by maps and manuals
Now you give me a pen to write my own
Opening various paths around me
Paralyzed in anxiety to take even one alone

If recovery meant burning all of my maps
And rewriting all of my manuals
Letting go of strict rules and superior words
To be mortal than something mechanical

I want to keep my inner child alive
The more mature I become, the faster he dies
I want to keep his wonder in my eyes
As my curiosity blurs along with time

Who he is, is getting harder to define
Losing his small hand's grip from mine
Maturation is going to make me blind
The vibrancy of my colours subsides

His childish traits are falling back inside
The outside world and him do not coincide
Hardening my heart that use to be kind
Leaving with his pieces that use to be mine

He retreats to the corners of my mind
Burying himself in memories of time
Because that is where his happiness lies
In my childhood when the world was wide

I place myself behind too many lines
Building a box using all the right signs
Growing up into expectations assigned
Resorting to a life so simplified