I open the window
So I don’t suffocate
But the air doesn’t reach my lungs
As I try to count my breaths

Monday I came in to see you
For the last time.
The last time.

And I never said goodbye.

Wednesday I took a test.
Back at school and then went home.
I don’t remember anything
Beside the PSAT and the moment you were gone from me.
I remember it was 9.

Dad in the hall
Bedroom door opens
“I’m home”
(the last time I believe in miracles as delusion and hope burn all sense of reason).
Is she with you?

“Where’s Mom?”

“She’s Gone.”

Black. Repeat.

I remember how everything got worse from then.
It doesn’t get better
You get used to it.
You get used to cold,
Just the absence of heat.
You get used to the holes when they become a part of you.

I don’t remember forgetting.
Your face gets fuzzy.
I conjure up your voice but I lost your laugh.
I can’t hold on to everything that’s flying away from me
In a thousand different directions
And when someone asked me last week,
I can’t remember your favorite food,
It’s been viciously consumed by the hunger of time.

I remember the look on your dad’s face-
This is what I remember most-
The look as he stared at you
With silent tears
And the face of a man,
A veteran of war,
Who was never prepared for the devastation of life
As he is told his daughter will die.
She will die slowly.
And he can’t save her,
But he can watch
As the life drains out of her.

I gasp for air uncontrollably
Leaning my head out the window.
As I am stuck remembering
Memories block air from reaching my lungs.
Stuck on repeat
Spinning spinning spinning
And it’s been two years.

Delusion?

I exist not as I am:
A mirrored image of glamour.
Trace back through each reflection
Until who I am is but a collection
Of women invented
With no incentive
but to save a man like you.

A would be artist
lost touch with who
Knows what; the scar is
Hidden but still you see;
Whats wrong with me?
Our unspoken debate.

I am reaching for myself
But glass stops true connection;
What if you only want to kiss my reflection?

I can fix this.
I’m always so terrified

That I will fall from the sky
And my wings will snap
Helpless to medicine and hope

Icarus and I (fall from the sky)
We burn
Chasing sunlit warmth
Suspended by devices devised of self-preservation
Crumbling before our eyes
That we can’t hold together anymore

These devices are needless

Let go and hold on

Trust the fall

See how I fly.

Putting together a patchwork home
Watching the water carve out the stone
Getting much better at being alone
Because I’m not.

Not broken but not fixed yet.
And I know now that hurting is healing
And I see the world pass on below me
And I won’t fall

So I soar.
I have fallen before.
I am still
Despite of not because.

I will fall.
And I will fly.

Crash landing,
I kiss the Earth.

You don't have to be happy all the time
to be deserving of love

Part to whole
Less of a whole
Just filled with holes
Filled with parts that don’t fit.

What part am I
If I’m not even whole?
What part is missing?
I ask like I don’t already know

“I am the sum of my parts”
Is an easy explanation
But what if the holes
Outnumber the parts?

Something is missing from me -
Parts that are
Irreplaceable for I don’t know
which parts fit in the
Holes
But I know I lost them a long time ago,
Or maybe they slowly faded.
Maybe I never had them to begin with.

I am a hole.

Pulling scrap parts deeper
As they fall right through me
But my persistence is delusion is relentless
For fear of being empty.

There’s little alarm
Brought on by
my alarm
Spitting its scream at 6:15.

For a moment I was free
From the trouble that is me
Or is it the work that is never truly done?
Nowadays it’s hard to tell.

I should prepare for the day
And break the cycle of dismay
Get ready for what needs to be done,
But I did my time
Last night until 2:09
So I deserve ten more minutes of ignorant bliss.

But the textbook by my head
And the notebooks on my bed
Remind me of what more I should’ve done
An A on a test
Is worth one less hour of rest
But my brain had decayed to an catatonic state.

6:45 and I’m already behind
Just with my first action of the day
I break out of bed
Pull a shirt over my head
Try and fail to hide the circles beneath my eyes

I need to succeed
So I answer my own pleas
For rest with empty replies,
“Work harder, plan more,
Get it done and just ignore
That feeling of needing to stop

For a few minutes

To breathe

And just finally

Think of nothing.”

Now it’s 7:15
I take my advil with caffeine
Leave the house
And do it all over again.

Every day has two mornings
One with the sun
Where beams kiss your cheek
And you’re off on the run

And one with time
Where it’s the middle of the night
Yet today is suddenly gone.
Only artificial light

And your mind is turned on
And you can’t get it to quit
Racing to feel every feeling
That you can’t show the sun.

A twisted version of safe
Comes from feeling so alone
Because here I don’t feel guilty
For just being a human.