i’d rather write about the freckles on your back than think about all of the ways in which you quite possibly don’t love me.

i feel sick at the very thought of you picking me apart the way you did; fingers grabbing and stroking in a catastrophic symphony of skin and vulnerability.

let’s read between each other’s lines; share my sentences and punctuate my paragraphs with your mouth; because i can breathe easier on the mornings where i wake up wrapped around you.

because my moods change like the ******* seasons and the spinning in my head doesn’t want to stop.
                                         you tell me that i should probably get a therapist because no one that thinks about all the ways in which they could **** themselves has an ounce of mental stability.
                                          i tell you that i have been to four.
                                          names faded into a blur with hazy snippets of conversation remaining.
20mg.
                    30mg.
you tell me that trust issues and scars aren’t endearing and i tell you that neither is counting up the potential number of pills needed to dissolve your body into the living room carpet.

let me sink inside your skin and make a home in your flesh;
i tell you about the nights where i lay awake in the bath turning the water red.
                       tragic, isn’t it.

you tell me that this isn’t how my head should work and i tell you that i already know. everything you could possibly tell me i already know.
i know that 400 calories a day isn’t normal, and my hands shouldn’t shake all the time.
                                             i know.
please let me stitch myself into you, even just for a while; until i no longer feel dizzy and my world stops spinning.
i don’t need you to tell me that it will be okay, because honestly i don’t think it will be and, that in itself, is okay.
                                                                ­                 let me stitch myself into you, because my own skin can’t take it anymore.

let me call you back when my voice stops wobbling and my vision straightens out, but honestly, i’m terrified that it never will. what if this is it. headaches and tears and shaking and blood.
                                             and the debilitating, gut-wrenching feeling of pure and euphoric emptiness.

                                              tragic, isn’t it.

A boning knife was found behind the bed
to keep my older brother's hands at bay.
The words would not be heard, so none were said.

The little brother, trying to hide, played dead
beneath her blankets in a certain way;
a boning knife was found behind her bed.

She didn't fight me off before, instead
she let me, never spoke about my play.
The words would not be heard, so none were said.

The father, puking till his eyes were red:
"When I come to, there will be hell to pay."
A boning knife was found behind her bed.

He came out, knife in hand.  To her, I pled,
"Momma, please...".  Her look caused me to stay;
the words would not be heard, so none were said.

My daughter's plea was ringing in my head;
my father's hands still linger to this day.
A boning knife was found behind her bed,
the words would not be heard, so none were said.

A field of daisies
Is where you began
And ended in a drawn out suicide

It took you
One night at a time

Drop by drop
Out of the ocean that
was you

Is that house in the woods still there?
And is that where all of the ghosts have gone?
To wait for me in the cracks in the floor
In the closets
And under the beds

But wait!
I had forgotten
You never got that far
Before life decided it didn't belong to you
And took it back
Into the void

"Come inside, everything you love is here with us now"
That is what it screamed
Day after day
And when the night came too
Only then louder when it became dark

I can't blame you for your homecoming
To the party that was waiting
On the kitchen floor...

I had a panic attack in an American Eagle dressing room recently.
As I sobbed quietly
and begged my racing heart
to please slow the **** down,
I listened to the chatter in the adjacent stalls;
other girls proclaiming their depression because
that top did not come in their size.
My mother stood
on the other side
of the locked door, suggesting
that I just
"stop."

While I struggled to catch my breath,
my mother went out to the floor,
feeling the need to tell the tale
of her poor daughter who lost everything
to the sales clerks and managerial staff.
They brought me water
and a cookie
and cleared out
the dressing room.
It's too bad that my demons didn't really give a ****
about their kind gestures.

Eventually, I was able to **** in air long enough
to call out to my mother and tell her
I needed to go home now, please.
I hid my face from the customers in the store
casting condemning looks in my direction.
I was ashamed, because I knew
everyone else knew
and I never want
people seeing me
like that.
But,
at least we got
a 50% discount.

Like this stone
of Monte San Michele
as cold as this
as hard as this
as dried as this
as stubborn as this
as utterly
dispirited as this

Like this stone
is my unseen
weeping

Death
we discount
by living

Giuseppe Ungaretti, 1916

...
And in that moment I realized
Her pieces shatter more quickly
Than she can glue them together
And in between the broken seconds
That her universe is in chaos
Those pieces of her soul
Break down to mere dust
And float away in the winds
Of what once was
Joined by the false notion
That her future could be brighter
If only
She gathered her pieces
A little faster.

Broke out of town and left everyone
To spend a year and a half
Outside myself and in the sun
But now I hide in the wake
Of closed walls
And only think of home when it rains
(It rains all the time but it does not last long)

The armor of discovery lost its weight
Like love lost its chains
So there was nothing to keep my kite-string heart
From buffeting in the ionospheric storm.
Now there is no light
It is all shadows, uncomfortable heat
And night as black and harrowing
As a scorpion in fear

Now I am always careful where I tread
I have learned to make a room full of fast friends
And enablers without any words being said

Quit the drug so I could finally
Fill those endless spaces
Took it up again once
I had squandered all meaning
And sunsets were no longer enough
Could only watch the lotus pools bleed
On the wrong side of dawn
Red-eyed and watching pilgrims
Reach absolution on the screen

Used to envelop myself in poetry and art
But now all words spoil
By page or by mouth
And no scream is enough to reach
This distance I feel
All emotion recorded long after
The feeling has gone
Everything I knew
Only realized after the fact

A familiar transition
Broken embankments
Where old scars bleed ancient terror
Into everyday humdrum moments
Crawl from the pit
Cowered in a squat
Bones jutting out amongst
The first smoke of the morning
The impending disaster woven
Into the tapestry of routine

Always had a strong will and bloodied wrists
I’ve washed my hands a thousand times
But they never emerge clean
Thought an omnipresent sun
Would remove the painful seasons
That decimate my progress every winter
But the sun only gives energy
If you are rooted to this world

Now everyone is pregnant
Or promoted
Confident or at least competent
Sharing easy conversation
Whilst I sit and struggle to breathe
Part of me got on the plane
In the hope someone
Would tell me not to leave
Now time has moved so fast
I’m 6000 miles from home
Yet it is I who cannot move on

It is I who trades sleep for chemicals
Fleeting feelings of calm
Passed through anything I can
Sniff, snort and swallow
Another half-cut legion
Chained to the mast
My endless depression
My humdrum delusion
My panic attack