I keep this bottle of pills, filled up to the brim. And I leave them on my nightstand.
I keep the small container without stealing any
Even when my head is throbbing so hard, I can hear my pulse deep inside my ears.
But I keep them; so if I ever want to taste them all in one setting,
The option is there.
I don’t plan to take these pills. I just have them; just in case.
Because you can’t plan death, you can’t sit down one night and say, “I, want, to, die.”
It doesn’t work like that, depression isn’t that simple.
It’s not an impulsive act or feeling; it’s a build down.
And I say build down because it sure as hell doesn’t make you feel good about yourself.
It piles in your head, like ***** laundry that’s been there for days and sits around the floor,
Because you can’t get out of bed.
It adds up, like miles on that old car that seems to cost a fortune every week but you can’t afford a new one.
Because if you could, maybe you’d leave your pillow and see the world,
Travel. Away.
Like a cross country road trip, pushing pins into a board, marking all of the spots in the world you want to stop and see.
But if my arm were a highway, and these straight lines my tourist spots, my blade would be my car.
It’s not a Cadillac or an SUV. It’s been used,
Back when I actually gave a **** about what I looked like.
I don’t cut slashes in my wrist anymore
As if I was a four year old erasing the white ink from her canvas, coloring with a silver crayon.
And I may be lying when I say,
I don’t have a razor blade hidden within the drawer.
Because  I keep that thin, shiny piece of metal that pulls so easily against flesh,
Because,
Maybe someday I don’t want to relapse and start over.
I want to succeed.
But that isn’t something I can plan.

I'm not sure if it was a drunken idea,
or one of ecstatic stupidity,
but finally, from indirect jokes
we took to the alley,
greasy and haunting in itself,
we crossed the deathly narrow lane
to the tattoo place.

Neon-lit and consumed in the atmosphere
of alcohol and some illegal drug somewhere,
we picked out the incomplete chain--
one for you and one for me--
so that when our bodies came together,
we completed each other.

We completed each other.

You got yours and I got mine.

And now a year later,
you have had yours removed,
and are now thinking why you got one in the first place.

But you never knew, did you?

I didn't just love you,
I loved you for who you were,
for all you were,
for all you had been.

I wasn't just a stupid girl,
filled with the butterflies of first loves.
I was in love with you.
Fallen, completely.

You left your scars.
You left your scars.

You would never know, now would you?

That while you were looking away,
I got mine
in permanent ink.

**We completed each other.
Now
I can barely complete myself.

from time to time, I still think of you.

how we used to get by...

how I fell beneath one-thousand shades;
sunrise orange, and dainty red.            
learning we were both
capable of the          
                         tilt,
                               turn,
                                       twist,
                                                 and
                                                             ­    verge.                           

I used to thank you
for spending the nights
in the living-room.
Instead of his room.

You would say,
"I like falling asleep with you,
but waking up next to him."

Yes, the bitterness is
mostly gone.
                                                           ­    
                                                            ­        
I still think of you
every now and then