sometimes I have to whisper
tiny words into my pillow
the words I need to hear
you are loved
you'll be okay
breathe

they don't stay
they crawl from my pillow onto my skin
then more words must be said
don't scratch

I can't tear the words from my skin
they will leave
unlike the words I don't say
the words I need to be make me better leave
but the words that make me worse stay

I pressed my finger to that soft spot just behind my ear above my mastoid process
imagined putting a barrel there
that spot is the best way to ensure death if I use a gun
that’s not how I’d do it in actuality
but I can’t mimic hemlock and sleeping pills with a finger

I whispered ‘I want to live’
over and over into my pillow
as many times as it took for me to believe it

my life is
mediocrity
plainness
inadequacy
weakness
and that is hard to change

I could end it
guns
knives
poisons
ropes
but that has it's problems
so I keep living

I can't fix anything
but it is changing
slowly

is it good change?
is it worth it?
I don't know
I don't really care
it is what it is.

An ugly little girl
in an ugly little  world
Raises a fist to the sky
As the rain ignites
On the face of the last dead leaf
Burning it to a crunch
As it falls from the vine
That circles the bars
In the prison of her mind

it's being alone
it's being judged
by shallow people
who think my worth negatively correlates
with my pant size

it's knowing that isn't true
but secretly thinking I deserve this
as if somehow my outsides reflect my insides
it's being so concerned with making myself better
that I'm making myself worse

it means I have to try harder
to be better at school
to make more people laugh
because I can't rely on looks
I can't just be me
because my fat defines me

it is hard
but not as hard as poetry
not as hard as not writing
not as hard as not letting the characters out
not as hard as keeping my ideas inside my head
not as hard not trying
it is hard writing a novel
but not as hard as the alternative

they are so worn out
but I can't let them go
so faded orange
***** white
and dusty black
my socks peek through
little frayed holes
they've been with me in the best of times
but not in the worst

these are ones I got in the beginning
they ushered in the golden years
they've been bird watching
they've been mini golfing
they've been waiting to slip into
on so many mornings
after so many nights

they've listened to me sing Taylor Swift songs at the top of my lungs
in a little blue car
mobbing through this quiet little town
at a quarter to midnight
summer rain pouring down
with my best friends
with my first real friends
on those nights that are my ideal
the ideal of being a teenager
of being young
and in love

not with a person
but with a feeling

they've absorbed these feeling
absorbed the love
the stars
and the high
the high of being alive
spinning in circles
so close to the edge of adulthood
they hold me on the precipice of something new
and when I fall
they go too