I’ve written my suicide note disguised
Too many times in too many text messages.
I can’t understand why no one is trying to save me
When that’s exactly what I’m waiting for:
Someone to tell me that I need help.
Someone who doesn’t just listen,
But takes me to the hospital.
Because I can’t bring myself to drive with scars lining my wrist
Through traffic lights under the stars to the emergency room.
But I can’t swallow the number of pills, I lost track of count
To take me out of my misery either.
Kissing a bullet through my lips
Is too much noise and clean-up,
But at least I’d be gone; guaranteed.
Thoughts don’t guarantee anything,
But they set the idea in motion.
Thinking of my funeral from afar,
Watching everyone dressed in black,
Crying their mascara down their cheeks,
Almost would have me fooled that they care.
The very thought of imagining my own funeral
Makes me think that I might just be able to create it.

I shaved my head this morning.
The sun hadn’t yet conquered the horizon
But the birds outside the window cheered for me
As I pulled the shaver from my forehead to my crown.
My tiny fingers gripped the electric razor,
Holding on for life,
As it were much too big for my nervous hands.
I cut my skull three times before allowing myself to cry.
I peeked at the blonde clumps of hair that rained
To the cold bathroom tiles and puddled around my feet.
After finishing, I went to lay in the arms of my blankets,
While my pillows kissed the back of my head,
Healing the nicked wounds scattered over my skin.
I left the hair to sleep in the sink and over the floor.
Welcoming the sun rise, it felt warm against my bare skull
And I wondered if this was how heaven felt like,
Walking up to the gates.

I cut myself again for the last time the night before last, proceeding to fall asleep, hoping I wouldn’t open my eyes this morning.
Waking up to a floored mascara line so straight down my cheek, I didn’t know tears could glide so unbent.
Ruler aligned cuts stand ***** like railroad ties over the flesh of my wrist.
I walk around, careful because I’m concealing a secret that only I can possibly know.
The bracelets hugging the veins in my wrist are nothing but a fashion statement working to disguise the cuts that haven’t yet turned to scars.
I walk around, half hoping someone notices, but still praying they don’t.
The feeling as if everyone around me can hear the thoughts whispering inside my head as they grow louder the more I try and look someone in the eye.
Can they see that the dam inside my eyes broke and was put together when I focused on keeping the blood contained from my wounds?
Gambling with the idea that the people I walk by and next to and towards know that I tossed and turned too many times to remember.
Risking and hoping the **** Band-Aids won’t draw attention to the damage I’ve done to my skin,
Until I take them off, allowing the cuts to breathe,
To heal into scars.

Do you know how many times my mother coughs so hard in an hour that it still surprises me she hasn’t lost a lung?

I wonder if all the money that she spends at the gas station on that tiny cardboard box was saved instead of spent, if she could manage to pay the bills before the late notice arrived in the mail.

How many times do you think she tries to quiet the change being pushed around the tabletop as she counts out the quarters, the dimes, the nickels, the pennies before she has enough to slide the coins across the counter at the station?

How many times is her anger thrown at me because nicotine is absent from the house?

I can only imagine the color inside her chest, protecting her lungs with a black tar after too many years of flicking a flame to a thin white candlestick stuck between her lips.

The house smells of smoke and the yellow filter lines the walls, around the frames that hang themselves by nails.

I clean the mirror and see the paper towel golden from the lingering tobacco.  My clothes reek of a stench so strong no amount of perfume seems to be enough.

I’m paranoid that every time I’m in a room of people and someone mentions that it smells like smoke, if they know I harbor such a scent that I pour it off second handedly as if I inhale the drug too.

I open the mailbox and the temptation to “lose” the coupon booklet addressed to her grows stronger.

The business cards labeled with a barcode on the back subtracting a dollar off when you buy two packs strengthens the urge to scrabble up the silver coins or summons the question, “do you have five dollars? I’ll pay you back when I get paid on Friday.”

Friday never comes.

I often think about how much longer it will be until all the money spent on tiny cardboard boxes will be split between tobacco and medical bills.

How long can you smoke a pack a day and still be cancer-free?

And I wonder how it’s fair to watch your mother gamble with her life each time she places a thin cigarette between her lips.

Russian roulette with cancer is a game she’s become too good at.

******* isn’t the same;
My collarbone doesn’t peek up through my skin how it used to when I removed my shirt.
I can’t see my ribcage protrude over my flesh under each breast like it used to.
My hourglass figure has too much sand; it’s spilling over.
The mirror seems to hide its eyes and turn away and the scale screams for me to scram.
The numbers glare up at me as I look down over the overfilling sand to where I wonder what it’d feel like if the ocean washed up over my toes in a skimpy bikini,
My hair blowing in the wind as I let the sun kiss my cheeks.
How it feels to be kissed by the glass watching me strip into the dim bathroom light,
Instead of slapped by the picture I see in the mirror.
When I bend over to finish removing the clothing,
I have to look away from the extra bulge of sand that sits directly above my waist
And haunts me by the rolls that hang on to my fattened skeleton.
I wonder how it feels to be loved by the reflection staring back at me.

If I could write you into the walls of my home,
I wonder if it’d still be standing.
Would the candlelight dancing on the wall
Remember the way your lips danced with mine?
The kitchen where we watched the birds
Dance through the trees, chasing one another
Similar to how we played tag through the hallways
And bedrooms of our house.
The bathroom where the tub fills with water like
How my anatomy filled at dusk and dawn with your love.
The living room where we fell asleep so many times
Watching our favorite movies in nothing but our skin
And the light illuminating from the TV screen.
I leave the screen on, the images flashing against
The wall where our pictures still hang.
I blanket myself in make-shift flesh and tell myself
The threads of the cover are your hands and arms.
The sheets over our bed hold your absence
Like an infant child cradled in his mother’s embrace.
Your pillow, covered in cologne and aftershave that lingers
Rests in my arms as I hug the object and pretend it’s your body.
The shower head rains water that blends my tears
Down the drain with the heartbreak I’m left with.  
But your voice still sings from inside the painted walls,
Behind the picture frames, blowing in the curtains that
Cover the windows. Most importantly, you linger in the
Floorboards and inside the beams that hold my house together.