I'm okay right now
Which is a big deal for me
I have fake candles in my bed
And even though it's just a flickering light bulb
Not a real flame
I have the candles balanced on my pillow
A few inches from my face
And that wavering golden glow
Is somehow comforting
Because as I watched the candles
I realized
No matter how dimly they flicker
They always flicker back to shining
So I know
No matter how bad I get
Even when my "shattered moments" kick in
I will be okay
I just need to wait
While the cold and icy hands of depression and numbness grip me
Because they WILL let go
I will be okay

We crumble and fall
While trying to prove we're alright
We live behind a wall
Because we're scared of the outside
We breath in our tears
So we can smile
We name others as fake
To replace the name
We're taught to fight
And we forget to love
Only as we die
Do we learn to live
Because living is less accepted
Than to merely exist
And living is just the start
To defying this game
Because to live as we want
We have to rewrite the game

The family all together over the holidays
It's always been a happy time
And that
Is really all I want
To feel that pure joy I always used to this time of year
Once again
Without those broken moods
Interfering
Because my inner demons
Have already taken every other joy in my life
And wrecked so many things that should have been perfect
PLEASE
Don't let them take Christmas too

Oh please
I'm bad enough sober
And I don't want to lose who I am
I get high off life
I don't need drugs
To be a happy lunatic
I can find a different escape from myself than substances or inhaling smoke
It's called writing

Psychological issues?

Sure.

I've got plenty.

I don't know exactly when it started
But some time ages ago
During elementary school
I just felt so worthless
Like I was numb
I wanted to feel
But I didn't know how
And it wasn't a sharp pain
I would welcome a sharp pain
It was dull ache that wouldn't leave me
I froze in my own icy thoughts
Maybe it was the loneliness
Or all the things those girls said to me
Maybe it was the insults or the whispers
Or maybe it was just my twisted mind
But whatever the cause
I tried to **** myself
When I was just a little 11 year old girl
When some girls were still playing with Barbies in secret
I was secretly playing with knives and ropes
I would take that blade
And scratch a cut into my wooden headboard
One slit in the wood for every moment that I wanted to die
Because I was too young back then to even think of my wrist
That came later
A few years later
And still
There are days where I just feel so horrible and sad and broken
For absolutely zero reason
It doesn't make sense
Nothing bad is even happening
But I feel shattered
I spent a year feeling so. hollow.
So f!cking hollow
I felt like I couldn't breathe
Like I wasn't alive
I spent entire days
Not speaking
I still miss the cuts sometimes, honestly
I like my scars
Which sounds terrible
But I trace them with my fingernails absentmindedly some days
During the darker nights
It comforts me
Because even though I’m not going to cut myself ever again
I can jolt myself into remembering the pain
And it is a form of relief in itself
I don’t know
Not something I can explain
Is that depression?
Probably not though, I feel bad suggesting it in front of people who actually for sure have depression when I haven't been analyzed
But still, it's not impossible I guess

I spent 5 years
From grade 5 through to grade 9
Which is pretty **** young
Feeling fat
Hating my body
Hating myself
I can see my ribs but I still feel fat
It’s okay I can fix that
Eating a little less
Skip a meal
Just skip lunch
Just eat a tiny breakfast, no lunch
No breakfast, no lunch but it’s okay because I have a good dinner
I think I’m losing weight
Is it bad that I’m in grade 5 and thinking like this?
This is great
I think it’s working
I’m in grade 6 now
Maybe I won’t be worthless if I become skinny
I can still see my ribs
I could from the beginning
But I still feel fat
Okay, less dinner now
Hide it well
Let’s switch
No lunch, a little dinner and a bit of breakfast
Just enough to stay alive
Although how much to I really want to stay alive?
Fat.
Look at my legs
Look at their legs
My thighs God I hate my thighs
Eat less
Eat less and less
Until I’m basically surviving on snacks and just the beginnings of each meal
Just enough to take a few bites before they leave the room for a minute
Just long enough for me to throw away my food
But I don’t think I’m losing weight
I will never be enough
7th grade
Just a little less
Don’t tell any of them
Losing pounds
Check my reflection
I still feel fat
I try to be less so I can feel like I’m more
But does the number on the scale even matter anymore?
I’m promising and promising I ate before I came
But these pretty little lies are driving even me insane
And they can’t see through my smile they can’t figure it out
I’m slowly killing myself
From the inside out
Pretty soon, “I don’t feel well” is my favorite phrase and an everyday thing
A justification for my small portions that I don’t finish
It’s true though
I don’t feel well
I feel worthless.
It continues into 8th and 9th grade
Worse and worse
Looking up the calories of different food
Surviving on water and tea
Just enough food to stay alive
Though I really don’t care that much about my own survival, really
Is that anorexia nervosa?
I doubt it
But it’s a possibility I guess

I look in the mirror
And I feel so f!cking ugly
I literally cannot find ONE thing I like about myself
I cannot leave the house without makeup
Because I am SO ashamed of my own face
I genuinely feel bad for the people who have to see my face
I cry sometimes, because I look in the mirror and see my own worthless hideousness
I remember that sleepover I was invited to with the popular girls and I wondered why
When I got locked in a closet, got soap sprayed in my mouth and locked outside in the freezing cold snow without pants on when I was just trying to change into my night clothes
That’s when I knew I had been invited just so they could torment me
I don’t like being the entertainment for the party
I tried to just go to sleep because if I called home I would look like a coward
And my mother who NEVER let me go to sleepovers would get to say “I told you so”
And when they thought I was asleep
But I wasn’t
I listened to them talk for a full hour
My eyes on the clock
My ears on their conversation
“Is she asleep”?
I didn’t know they were talking about me until I heard them mention my name
When they talked for a full f!cking hour
In detail
About why I was ugly
On what levels I was ugly
The degree of my ugliness
I didn’t cry
I didn’t sit up and tell them I could hear them
It would be too humiliating
I listened
And I know they are right
But now it’s getting bad
My face doesn’t even look human to me anymore
It looks like some sort of beastly troll’s face
It looks f!cking hideous
My mother is worried about me
Because I can’t even look myself in the mirror when I have no makeup on
Because I Freak. Out when it is suggested that I might have to be in public without hiding my ugly face in makeup
It literally affects my ability to function properly in everyday life.
The thing is, those girls said it
And they ALL agreed
So if I REALLY had dysmorphia
Then it would all be in my mind
And if they all agreed I was hideous
Then I must be
So how can it be imagined?
I don’t know
Anyway
My point is
I suppose
MAYBE
It is possible
I have dysmorphia

But
Depression
Anorexia Nervosa
Dysmorphia

Those possible diseases of the mind
I
Have multiple
Psychological issues

BUT OCD IS NOT F!CKING ONE OF THEM

How dare he suggest such a thing
Just because I
“Always seem to be working towards something”
Excuse me for not getting drunk and high and naked
Putting off work
Not caring about anything
It’s not OCD though
It’s just called going somewhere in life
Because I may as well
Since in my mind
I’m hopelessly lost

In my opinion, homemade gifts are really the most incredible.

If "disposable" is one of the words that come to mind when you think of me, even if it's intermingled with "beautiful" and "lovely"
I don't need you in my life

The problem is I do like him.
I certainly hate him
But I also like him.
I like the way he capitalizes the beginnings of his sentences over text,  I like the cute little crinkles that appear in his forehead when he smiles
The coy way he responds to flirtation with something like "Oh really now?"
I like how he calls things "sweet", the way he says "aww" I even f!cking like his annoying as hell overuse of the phrase "haha" when he texts which ****** me off,
I like how he is the only teenaged boy I know who says something is "quite" fun and how he uses the word "lovely" to describe things because no one uses that word anymore and more people should.
I like how he has an immense love for Spiderman,
How he has all these aspirations of travelling all over in the future
I like how he wants to live in England one day, I like that he is into cooking and drinks coffee and hot chocolate and how his favorite book is "Looking for Alaska" and how he's read everyone of John Green's books and how he wants to be a writer one day.
I just remember the dumbest little things that I still like about him
For instance how he likes Neil Gaiman and loud screamy music even though I hate that stuff, how he is the only one in his fractured family who doesn't speak French but his older sister and mother do. He has a dog named Charlie and when he was a kid he always spelled "subtle" wrong. I just don't know *** is wrong with me I should have known better. I should hate him for half this stuff and all the rest of the reasons I have to loathe him but it's hard to forget those little details about him. I just hate feeling like a broken lock. A lock of dark secrets and completely irrepairable. Though it's not the fact that Im irrepairable that bothers me as much as feeling so... replaceable. Idk. Maybe I need to go out with someone to get him out of my head.

I'm fairly sure I don't need a degree
to tell you what's wrong with me.

It's a pretty long list,
I'm pretty messed up, huh?

I don't need to hire a doctor
to tell me I hate myself and why.
I can name each and every reason why.

I don't need a doctor
to tell me I'm traumatized from my past.
My nightmares assure me well enough.

I don't want to talk about it,
I don't want your medicine.
I'm not alright and that's okay.