i confess i’m a little in love with my sadness.  the way it flays me open & scours with acid.  how it is the only thing i can count on to stick around.  i can count on my mind to craft its own disaster.  i can count on my brain to betray my body.  you learn to love what is given to you.  so i learned to love what keeps me up at night.  i broke my own heart long before anyone else came around to step on the pieces.  me, i’m a secret you won’t want to keep.  shove me out the door.  secure the locks.  tell me to leave before i strike sparks from your skin.  tell me i’m as worthless as i feel.  tell me i’m nothing anyone would want to have.  tell me there are countless girls you’d find easier to love.  be cruel to me.  be the monster i am to myself.  please.  if you’re going to break me, get it over with.  make the first cut.  i’ll be gone from the moment the words find themselves on your pretty mouth.  but honestly?  of all the things i wanted, you’re the best i’ve ever held as my own.  let me pretend you think of me in forevers.  let me dream a little while longer.

sometimes i talk too fast & my friends don’t know how to handle me, not when my brain races in labyrinthine circles that don’t make sense to anyone outside of it, sometimes i lick the blood from my wounds only to cut them open again, sometimes i want to kiss your thighs, sometimes i want to die.  why does every morning taste like loss on my sleepy lips?  i don’t know why i love you to pieces when i promised i’d never rip you apart like the rest of them.  the coffee i drink these days is too bitter, its acidic aftertaste makes me wince & reminds me of all the times he screamed for me to eat & made me cry too hard to catch my breath.  i’m talking to the spiders on my ceiling again.  i’m talking about new beginnings.  or giving up again.  the truth is i’m afraid of myself.  the truth is i’m asking someone else to take control.  you’ll find me in the space between dreams & nightmares.  you’ll find me if you look hard enough.  just come.  please, prove to me i’m a lost cause worth fighting for.  give me your fragile heart.  give me your tender eyes.  my dear, i would **** to make you smile.  i would spend the rest of my life doing nothing else.

my skin is redolent with the feel of you
your ceaselessly stamped kisses,
tongue dancing over my stomach,
branding my flesh with the seal
of your delicate mouth.  
the scars that traipse my thighs
long for the fingers that trace them
in quiet compassion.  i yearn for you most
when you have long since left.  now, it is
one fifty seven & in five hours
i will rise to meet the morning,
your name still burning
on my lips.
i cannot absolve
my body from yours,
even when the memory
keeps me restless
& awake through
endless nights.

in the moment the cars collided,
i thought i must be dead,
certain the impact could not be survivable,
certain i was finally released, but
the hit should have come harder.

shattered glass & a violent blow to the head
was not enough to sever my tie to life.
the crash left me bruised blue-black
& awash in the aftermath
of sudden exhilaration
at finally tasting oblivion
even if only for a second,
even if i still came through alive.
i didn’t want to be.

this summer, i flirted fearlessly
with suicide.  swallowed poison pills
& played with sharp things
in hopes of writing an end.
when the headlights raged in,
blinding me with light & sound,
i was ready.
i thought, take me.
i thought, let me go.
i thought, set me free.

months later, lying in my bed,
immobilized with my first panic attack,
the tears came bitter & unyielding.
i told you i thought i might be dying again,
but this time, i wasn’t ready.
this time, i had a reason
to stick around
a little bit
longer.

the only difference between august and november
was you.
i wish i had the self-preservation
to want life on my own,
to be self-sustaining,
to need nothing but myself
but the wiring of my brain
is painful & incomplete.

you are everywhere i look,
your sweaters residing in my dresser drawers,
photographs of us filling my scrapbook,
songs i can never listen to the same again
without being reminded of you.

you said, i love you
you said, you are beautiful
you said, how could anyone walk away from you?
all my life, i have learned the art of losing
no one can be counted on to stay.
all i want, all i need, is something lasting
something permanent.
i search for just one indelible thing
& hoping it will be you,
that cracks me open at the fault lines.
leaves me breathless & choking
on dreams that might just
slip away
again.

please don’t think there’s more of me.
i am not what i used to be.
these days, i am just
the palest impression of myself
a fraction of my own existence.

lately, i am any girl
buried beneath clinical diagnoses,
verdicts made by women smart enough
to have multiple Ph.Ds,
but not sad enough to know
how ‘major depressive disorder’
has discolored our years,
left the days stained blue-black,
bruised raw with pain.

this leaves me with my own two hands,
trying to find the romance in mornings spent alone
emptying the coffee ***
escaping into other lives written twelve point font
on well-loved pages
but i am always left wanting.

i am alone & this is not beautiful
my sadness swallows me whole.
when things are bad, it leaves me
paralyzed in my bed as the daylight dwindles,
bent into myself stifling the sounds of sobbing
with my fist
so the neighbors won’t hear.

dealing with depression when there’s no one else around
doesn’t go down easy, but then again
neither is hard liquor
at least it takes the edge off
at least something makes the suffering
of living less of a burden to bear.

call it semantics, but this isn’t living
once we come into being,
once we have consciousness,
we are dying real slow.  
we **** time until it comes back
to throw us six feet under.
karma’s karma.

you are made of many girls,
all longing to be lighter,
softer, sweeter, less hurt,
less intense, not
a burden to bear.

your kiss scalds with the promise
of forevers. you swore your allegiance
to boys who were unsure of you,
left them dizzied & breathless,
yearning for the empty space
you once filled,
the missing lodestone,
left them lost.

you struggled ceaselessly through the fire,
rubbed salt in your own wounds.
i can still trace the story of your suffering
in scar tissue sewn across wrists.
but you need never apologize.
the wildfires burning in your wake
may have scorched & singed your skin,
but you are not yet scattered ashes.

do not say ‘I’m sorry’ for survival.
your brain is a battleground,
marred with years of misuse,
but you need never apologize for what you are.
when they ask about your flaws, tell them
what it took to get from then to now.
tell them you are lionhearted.

remember, you are a cosmic body.
your bones are  made of starstuff
& when you breathe in,
welcome the universe
filling your lungs.

here in my hot sheets,
you are an archangel slumbering;
that holier-than-jesus smile & *******
if you don’t know how lovely you are,
sharp ***** hips & bitten lips.

i just want to touch you,
please, i want to press curious fingers
to your whispering veins & learn the life
racing through them.

you are an infinity of strangers i would like to know &
these bones are not my bones anymore,
i am not my own anymore,
not since you sent earthquakes
through my body, felt
every shiver & shake.

let me bury myself in
your listless limbs,
sleep away the sickness
& the winter.  go ahead.
steal my breath away.
take my heart.
it was all yours
from the start.