You don't understand
You say you're scared for me but
The eyes are clouded with fear

Can't you see that you're
Precious baby you carried for nine months
Wants to **** herself

And if I can't muster the courage to die
I'll cut up my body from the outside
Because inside my head is darker

I'm only making the interior
Match the exterior, and mommy,
I'm an expert home decorator

So let me paint the shingles red
The door and stoop too
We'll make it ugly and sinister

And it will match the insides
Of what is happening in my head
Then we'll demolish the house

I'll rip the door off its hinges
And wreck the the walls
Take down the sturdy wood inside

We can gut the house and burn
The excess wood
And everything will be ash

Because mommy, don't you get it
I just want to blow the whole
**** house up

I don't want to die

I just want enough cash to survive.
I just want food on the table,
Clothes on our backs,
And a handful of of happy memories

I don't want to die

I just want life to be simple,
I just want to run away from my problems,
I just want
I just want
I just want
I just want to

I don't want to die

I want to not feel selfish.
I just want to take a breath.
To not feel the guilt creep in,
Every time I watch Netflix or Disney.
Every time I try to get a good deal at Walmart or Amazon,
When I buy a burger,
Buy a shirt,
Buy a vacuum,
Buy water
that I'm helping a company further dig it's talons into our soil, our souls,
Our morales trying to take refuge somewhere not in reality
Because this reality can't sustain
A healthy mind
And a healthy wallet
At the same time

I don't want to die

My mind won't stop screaming.
The mind never quiets,
Never pauses,
Never takes respite.

I have locked eyes with something,
I'm not sure what yet.
It waits patiently, though,
At the edge of my vision.

It feels like I can't breathe,
I can't breathe,
"Please, bend the knee,
Get off of me!"

I don't want to die

Gaza is being bombed
Mother's cry out for their children
Father's carry theirs in grocery sacks
The people have been cut of from water, food, electricity, internet

I don't want to die

But sometimes it feels endless,
Feels like I'll never get my peace,
It feels like I'm carving out a place in the world that rejects me at every turn.
An endless fight, rolling the stone uphill.
And yet, I try.

I don't want to die.

I want to keep trying.

I want to keep moving,
Keep making noise
We need to keep making noise,
Now is the time that we resist
Now is the time that we fight back

They can't keep us in the dark anymore
We are seeing the light
Post by post
Video by video
Lived experience, parasocial relationships, live footage
We are watching the horror around the world
As a collective
We can be so much more than individuals, we can rise up
As a collective

I don't want to die

Sometimes it might feel like
I want to die
But I promise, it's not a permanent feeling
We can channel our anguish into passion
Our passion into words
Our words into action
We have the power of transmutation
We can decide where our story goes

I don't want to die

I want to fight

Self harm
When you do it you
Start to notice
Others pain too

The cuts on the arm
The purple and blue bruise
The burns placed so
The control that we loose

It's different
You inspect the skin
Scanning over their arms
Trying to find the sins

You don't judge
But you realise
That in this world full of people
All hurt and traumatized

That you are not alone

Some things have gotten
Mush worse since you left
Like how I can't stop the
Voices in my head anymore

My OCD is at its worse
I can't stop counting numbers
My anxiety won't leave me alone
It tells me I shouldn't leave the house

My parents wonder why I
Don't visit as often
My friends wonder why I would
Rather stay home than go out

My depression says to me
"No one loves you"
And my body feels like
A ******* strangers

I either eat too much
Or nothing at all
I don't sleep for days
Or I don't leave the bed for hours

But other things in my life
Have improved since you've been gone
Like I feel like I'm finally with
Someone who can be honest with me

I can finally write again
I can draw
I can read
I can breathe

You taught me how to love myself
When you never even loved me
You taught me how to respect
Myself and live freely

You showed me many different
Points of view
And how to open yourself up
To the people who deserve it

You taught me I need to respect myself
And to not let others dictate
How I feel
Or how I live my life

You taught me a lot
Like that I don't need you
To survive this life anymore
I can walk on my own now

Some things in my life feel like
They are falling apart
And slowly slipping from me
Like oiled up hands grasping at the edge of the cliff

But some things are slowly falling
Back into place
And maybe
Just maybe

I can live this life without you next to me

Maybe I will be okay in the end

Maybe I can find my way back to the light

Just maybe my life can be mine again