Mom says it's teenage hormones. Dad says I'm over-dramatic about it.

But I'm getting worse, not better. I'm anxious constantly, suffering from attacks ranging from small to so severe I grow ill. Thinking I could end my life should any of my fears become real was my only comfort, but even that has abandoned me. For I am a coward who cannot take her own life for fear of the unknown. A craven, afraid of deaths pain but still longing for his freeing slumber.

Apparently this is something all teenagers go through. Wanting to stay in bed all day playing dead and pretending the world can't hurt me when it can break through my windows and torture me to death whenever it pleases. Apparently every teenager sits around, wanting to die but too afraid to end it. We all cry from our pure terror of things we are too afraid to speak of, too afraid to make real with words, too afraid to even think of for too long.

I've been practicing this breathing exercise. I do it in sets of 3, sometimes sets of 5. It's funny, because usually when I do things in sets, it must be 4 or 14 or 24. Move my fingers from pinky to thumb 14 times on both hands in synch. Things like that. I don't like 3, and 5 is iffy. But the breathing exercises that distract me from wanting to rip my own flesh off must be done in 3s or 5s, apparently.

My mind is not my best friend, but sometimes, it pretends to be. It tries to convince me that mother is right. That I'll outgrow suicidal thoughts spanning as long as I can remember and severe anxiety and depression so intense it eats me alive and makes me want to gnaw my skin off, but it makes me want to float to the bottom of the ocean or fly off a cliff and be free in much quieter ways.

Falling from a cliff wouldn't be quiet. It would be messy and the wind would be in my hair and I'd make a splat as I hit the ground. But I imagine drifting down like a feather, my soul leaving my body before the destruction and my body dissolving like dust, scattered to the wind.

I am thinking of flying and vainly wishing my parents are right, that I will outgrow mental illness and that I'm over-dramatizing it somehow, because my feelings and thoughts are overdramatic and counselors and therapists are liars, since according to father they're wrong when they say they're afraid I'm becoming a danger to myself, because mom and dad say they're wrong, mom and dad say I'm not dangerous to myself I'm just stupid and senseless and an attention ***** who is too scared to die, while other, much more vibrant and amazing people are dying and deserve the air in my lungs and aren't getting it.  

This is turning into a mess, like the one I'd make if I threw myself off a cliff. So I'll stop here and wonder if my heart can stop from the empty hopelessness choking it, as well.

And you know what's insane? Our method of beating time was setting the broken clock in my room to the time he got there, closing my black curtains tight, and then sitting in my bed, pretending everything had stopped. Pretending like the sun wasn't going down outside, like the world wasn't still moving around us. Acting like every clock in the world didn't exist, because my room was suddenly the only world in existence and there was nothing else. Because that moment is saved forever, in both our memories and the book of the universe, and that clock won't tick until he's back for me. That moment is going on forever in my room, time stopped until his return, and I want nothing else.

i hate endings and i hate closure. because closure means accepting that it's all over, that it's the end. and seeing the end hurts worse than leaving blank pages.

and right now, i just want to hold you so tightly that you fill the spaces between my ribs. i long for you to become the blood in my veins and the air that i breath, because i want all of you...even the parts invisible to me.

3 a.m. and my demons are dragging me in.

I really should stay away from boys like you.

Who take me to their rooms and don't go anywhere near the bed, just put their arm around me and tell me about themselves. Who touch my cheek and look at me for a moment when they talk about things they love.

The beautiful, innocent ones with stars in their eyes. Who introduce me to their parents and hold my hand and hold me and don't try anything in the dark.

Boys who I really, really don't deserve, who eventually see that for themselves and leave, taking a piece of my heart with them.

Boys like you, honey.

Dr. Pepper and memories of you.

and if i were ruled by something other than my heart, i swear, i wouldn't be doing this.

today was the last day i may ever see your face.

*and i am having pretty mixed feelings about that.

dear S.

I hate you. I really, really hate you. Every time I see you, I want to break all the bones you have and light your paper flesh on fire. I want to shatter your dreams like you shattered my happiness. I want to take away anything you have ever loved and will ever love, because you took away the only person who ever had my heart. You cracked three ribs ripping him out of my chest, and it seems you bruised my lungs as well. I am left with broken-glass memories, puncture wounds from snapped bones, and scars beneath my skin. So *******. ******* for being the springtime girl he always deserved. ******* for being the lamb he always wanted to protect. ******* and your big blue doe eyes and your fluffy blond hair. ******* for being the innocent little ***** he always deserved. ******* for being my complete opposite. For being a daisy while I'm just a thorn. For not having devious, hazel, almond-shaped eyes and long, wild brown hair and pale, fragile skin. ******* for offering him something I never could.

******* for pretending to be a friend when all you wanted was to steal the only person who ever made me feel.

And I especially hate you for making me into an angry, bitter harpy. Because I was never a violent person. Never this vicious. But you've shown me a jealous, furious side of myself that I never knew existed.

Someday, I hope some pretty girl who is nothing like you rips him out of your chest and breaks everything you try to hang on with. I hope she flaunts him in front of your face and leaves you with destruction and ghosts of things you didn't know you could miss so much. Then, you'll be just like me.

Another broken, beautiful thing, dead at his feet.