I know where you are right now because I have been there too, I know how it feels to be so sad for so long that you can't imagine being happy again, to be so sad for so long that you stop trying to be happy again and so you just feed the sadness, just try to give it what it wants in the hope that it will be content enough to spare you, but feeding it only helps it grow. You have to starve it out. You have to lock it up, have to tell it "no", have to fight it. It will claw at the back of your eyelids, it will moan and howl so loud that you cannot hear your own thoughts, you will ache because it is aching and you and it are one but you have to remind yourself that it is created entirely of you, but only a portion of you is made of it. You have to make it shrink. It will not be easy. There will be days when you give in, when you feel bad for it, withering away, and so you throw it scraps of food under the table but there will also be days when it is silent. It will have grown so weak that it can no longer pound on the door, it will lie still there in the dark and you will forget about it, if only for a moment, and you have to hold onto that. There will be good days, days when you think to yourself "this is how happy people feel on a regular basis," days that remind you why you are fighting this beast in the first place and the next day may be bad again, you may not hear that silence again for weeks but when you cannot see an end to this torture, you have to remind yourself of the good days, you have to keep them tucked underneath your pillow and reminisce about the way walking felt easy for a day before you go to bed, you have to keep telling yourself that although this is an uphill battle, it will be so much easier on the way down the other side and the view from the mountaintop is breathtaking. You have to convince yourself that you want that mountaintop, have to tell yourself that the good days are worth the fight, that the sadness will not last forever, that you are not made of darkness although it is made of you. You have to starve it out; it is so much easier to live when you only have to feed yourself.

I have been told that a love left untouched will never disappear; that because the corrosive oils from our fingertips have not dissolved its coloring, it will, theoretically, endure perpetually. This love, left in its shrink-wrap casing, looming over the heads of the meek and the caustic feels like a scarlet letter hidden behind the robe, a feeling so foul none are to know but, Oh, what if it begins to fester, there in the moist dark?

This worry had been sitting in my stomach, churning with the bile and swallowed blood, coming up acid in my throat; I could feel it radiating out. Thought: it must be nuclear, must be radioactive and glowing, eating through me one layer at a time, but love –this uranium longing– has a half-life.

When first the reaction began it boiled and popped like lye on skin, singed off my eyelids so I could not help but see it there. I found myself woozy from the fumes, a high I had never experienced before so I inhaled, let it torch my lungs and leave me gagging. My hair began to fall out. I was soggy from the chemotherapy, tried pumping this bitterness into my bloodstream to remove the evil that already existed there, unaware that they were the same entity. It could not survive on a diet of itself and obsession, and so it began waning.

An exponential decay, the intensity of this passion varying directly with the frequency of contact and inversely with time, yet it will never be gone, entirely. It will decrease incrementally every time I say good bye, every time I see scarred knuckles, every time I want and he does not. I have counted the days since the day I counted on him and he was accountable and the number is growing larger and getting more difficult to remember. I have scribbled it onto scraps of paper and it has only browned the edges, no longer burns all the way through, and this love –this radium affair– has been losing its toxicity.

His tales of a place he once called home, now reduced to ruins and smolder, carry a weight he has become accustomed to straining the muscles of his back against. He keeps postcards in his wallet, folded and creased in the center to the point of perforation, pulls them out when he is homesick or when anyone asks about his origins, always tucks them back into the pocket with more spite than he cares to portray. Most observers simply nod their head, "how beautiful it is," –was– "you're lucky to have been a part of it." He smiles, the genuine kind of smile that takes precise attention to detail and years of practice to counterfeit, says "I know." Some bold and curious or ignorant and inconsiderate listeners poke their furrowed brows into his upturned palms, ask him, "did you see the fire?" They want to know –must know– if he could smell the smoke from the next town over, if he could see the sky illuminated in the distance, the red hue seeping into the blue-black night, they want to know how big it was, a house fire or a holocaust, if he tried to put it out or if he stood idle, looked for faces in the flames, if it left anything but charred floorboards and fireproof safes, the combinations written on scraps of paper now insignificant. You can see him fuming from across the room, his face illuminated, the red hue dripping down his neck, his voice becomes victim, tries to keep it steady but you can see losses on his tongue, he trails off into silence, leaves nothing but stubbed toes and sentiments, "I'm sorry I asked." When he talks about the people he knows –knew– there, he always starts with a chuckle, a little grin as if something had just reminded him of them, they were all kids back then, his eyes turn child again while he talks about how they played in the storm drains and then he snaps them shut, remembers the cigarette butts, remembers the lighters they bought at the drug store, how they had loved to see things burn until they couldn't stop it. He talks about this place he used to call home, doesn't know what to call it anymore.

It is a strangely intimate thing, to touch another person, for your skin to touch their skin, the warmth of blood flowing within two separate bodies to intertwine.

It is a strangely intimate thing, to touch you, for my thin fingers to catch on the callouses of your palms, to trace the scars on your knuckles, for the cold of my hands to mingle with the warmth seeping from the veins in your wrist.

It is a strangely intimate thing, to want you, for your hands to burrow themselves into my cerebrum, for the air in my shallow lungs to flow in unison with the cadence of your voice.

i just took a lot of cold medicine (a lot of cold medicine) and i think i love (love) you and i know you do not want to hear that now and i am sorry (i am sorry (i am sorry)) but i do not know what to do, i am losing faith in everything (everything) and now you are losing faith in me, too (you are losing faith in me, too)

Please understand that when I say these things it's not really me talking, it's the concrete in my stomach, it's the staples in between my toes, it's the zip ties around my wrists, it's the scars around my wrists, it's the coals in my throat, it's the liquor in my throat, it's the liquor in the cabinet my mom never had to put a lock on until I started hiding in it, it's the noose around my neck, it's the smoke in my eyes, it's the bullet in the barrel, it's the gun in my dad's closet, it's the gun in my hand, in my mouth, when I say these things it's not really me talking, it's all these things trying to get out.

Jesus Christ I swear I'm trying it's just not working, everything keeps falling through, keeps slipping through, and maybe I'm not doing this right, maybe I'm just making mistakes, but I don't even know where to start, I'm trying to take it one step at a time but everything happens all at once and I'm not fast enough, I'm not strong enough to carry on like this, my feet are tired and I don't care enough to try any harder, I'm giving up, I'm sorry

I'm doing the best I can but I can't do this anymore, I keep crying in my sleep, keep having nightmares. I thought I saw a ghost yesterday until I realized I was looking in the ******* mirror, I'm haunting my own house, possessing my own body, I'm ******* the life out of myself. I tied a noose around my finger just to prove that I could do it, I keep a razor in my purse just to prove that I could do it, to prove to myself that I'm strong enough to not do it, but they keep whispering my name. The bottle of mouthwash with 5% alcohol keeps screaming at me and I can't use it anymore, it leaves that taste in my mouth, tastes like hangover and relapse and accidents, and they're all teasing me with promises of making it all just stop and God it sounds so sweet, sounds so sweet, I know it's not.

Hi, I'm sorry for texting you so late it's just that everything feels like it's falling apart and I can't even recognize myself anymore sometimes it feels like I'm not even the one living my life I'm just watching it like a movie I'm just going through the motions and I don't know who to talk to anymore because I just keep making more problems but I need help I need someone to hold me and tell me it's okay I don't know how to make it through this on my own please just come save me

i’ve never had feelings for anyone who could be good for me. i’ve never been interested in someone where a good, healthy relationship could’ve resulted, and maybe that’s why i’m so jaded, because everyone i’ve ever liked has just been a distraction or a house on fire— someone i know i shouldn’t be involved with, but i’ll give myself just a few more days to run around frantically with my hands over my eyes, peaking through the cracks between my fingers, searching for things i know i don’t really need, and then i’ll dash out and run down the driveway and the smog will linger for a little while, and the neighbors will complain, and i’ll sit on the curb with my forehead on my knees, holding nothing but intangible regret. next, i’ll either get over it, or obsessively think about him and the ashes smudged on the inside of my eyelids for longer than my sanity. i’ve never really liked someone and been able to daydream about the real possibility of us turning into something greater; of tire swings and painted mailboxes and overgrown, green lawns. it’s always been pretending and fake hope and melodramatic doom. i think it’s messed up my perception of having feelings for someone, because i can never take it seriously— either i know he’s not right for me, or i know the circumstances prohibit the possibility of us. it makes me never want to give anyone a chance (i can’t even see anyone worth chance-giving) because i know how it ends. i don’t like having this closed off heart so early on; i’m too young to be this bitter.

Her voice echoes through the empty hallways. She is loud but alone. The tears that you see are only a fraction of all the tears she actually cries. Her hair is long and blonde, but she despises it. She wants to shave it all off, to tattoo her skull to show that caring is superficial and WRONG. She lines her blue eyes with a liner called "denim". She throws on jeans that hug her body and a t-shirt stained with hot chocolate. She covers the brown stain with a scarf. She puts on chapstick because who knows? Maybe someone will think she's important enough to kiss her. Her brand-new bangs cover her forehead and eyes. They cover the hoop earrings that feel too girly, too pretty. Everything about her today just feels WRONG. The boy she likes is just one table over, and he doesn't glance at her once the entire hour. She hurries out of the room , not looking back. She bursts into spanish class, out of breath and ready for the boredom that will be the next hour. And then it is back to study hall. It is all too repetitive for her. It is her first day back and already she looks out the door, ready to go home. It isn't like she's got any friends there either, she's an only child and her dad works overseas. The rest of the day is a blur. It passes and she doesn't notice or care. And that boy still hasn't noticed her. No one has. She is but an empty shadow of a heart in a hollow shell of a body that wants to be warmed by another.
But it isn't meant to be...

I was always told that I was star potential. If only people could see what I have bottled up inside of me, I could be famous. I'd be world renowned. I'd be a star. But I was his whole galaxy and now that he's gone, I don't feel like a star. To go from a universe to a star is so abrupt. One day you're someone's everything and the next you're no one's anything. I want to be a galaxy again. I wish someone could see stars in my eyes and taste cosmic dust on my tongue. To see a universe in a single person. I wish I could know what it's like. To look at someone and see everything, right there. But I know that everyone is someone's everything. Every person is someone's universe. Their planets, their sun, their moon, their stars. I am my own universe. I am the sun, the moon, the stars, the comets, the asteroids, the dust of what is to be. I am the future, the present, the past. I am my own everything. So I'll wait. I won't settle for someone who doesn't make the world turn, who doesn't have stars in their eyes, whose tongue doesn't taste like the cosmos. I'm waiting for my other galaxy ☾ ☼  ☆

**♛all the powers in the universe are already mine. I just can't see them♛