Paper, thin and fragile, like my lips against yours,
I forgot how to articulate the poems of my fingertips when you kissed me.
Regret the words I didn't say, too shocked, too scared,
to realize the gravity of the sky when you are in it.
I should have whispered kiss me again.

I was ok but I was anxious
I tried to rest to stop twitching, stop groaning, stop my head from ******* pounding
It wasn't worth it
Once my brain stop ticking like a broken clock it settled back down here again
Depressed again
I wondered why this keeps on happening
Not the obvious reason, my bipolar condition isn't the interesting part anymore
But why down now?
Why have things changed?
Then I look outside and am reminded the glaring sun feels so exhausting alone
I only felt better and laid down my crazy head when rain was pouring
I wanted to go outside and drown in it
I was cold
I was lonely
But rain has always made things feel better when everything swings
SAD
Most people hate the winter but for me its the opposite
The burning sky
The heat
The loose skin
I'd rather be wrapped up in my sweater and have the sky not remind me how unbright I can be inside
Its hard to pretend to be brighter than you are next to the sun
In the darkness its easier to be bright
But
Its also easier to feel like the entire universe isn't watching you fail
Easier to feel like even the sky is sad sometimes
I've always felt worse in summers, haven't I?
Funny I never noticed it until now
Funny it fit well with school and college
Now it just makes me feel broken
But a lot of things make me feel broken, don't they?
Guess this is just another

Today, I sat in Spanish class. We watched a cheesy soap opera made by academics to help teach us the language. It was cringe-worthy, and I was often only half-listening, having watched the majority of the soap the semester before. But then the teacher paused the story, and I looked up.

Someone raised their hand, and the first thing they said was, "What does Lo Extrana mean?"

"I miss her."

There was some sort of heavy weight in that moment, one that sat on my chest and had me staring down at the questionably drawn squirrel on my paper. I miss her

Sometime lately I have gravely understood I have to slowly pull myself away from my parents. The pain they gave me, and the expectations they have of a person I never really was, is not worth the little joy they bring. They loved me as their daughter and legacy, not as Grace.

But the heavy weight was not for them, its an acceptable ache by now. The words in my head and the weight were only from the realization that without them, there was no her.

No more slobbery kisses or sneaking into my room to see if I'm ok. No more cuddles and begging for food and long walks while singing way too loud. No more defending her against my harsh father, or giving her treats when no one was looking. It only makes it worse the fact I know she misses me.

My mother tells me she sleeps in my room now, with her head on a blanket I left behind. Every time I leave she lays sad in the closet or a bed, giving me the eyes that beg me not to leave. When I come home she runs around and jumps on me and gets so excited I ignore everything for her. But I think she knows I'm miserable there, too. She seemed to want me to walk her every time I was starting to sink lower.

I feel harsh wanting my baby puppy more than my family, but when all the world turned on me she was the one who would try to lick my tears away. And it cuts me deep to think I left her behind in a home that yells at her a little much and give her the things she needs, but not the connection she wants.

Mom and I always joked that she was the mother, but I was the best friend of that beloved dog.

And now I've left her alone, and it breaks my heart. Yet there"s nothing I can really do.

Lo Extrana.

I've seen you in my past and in my memories, but now I see you reaping tears from my best friend's face. I've been like you, I've been in love with people like you, and funnily enough you're my friend so I hate to throw stones and things that have kept me afloat.

But get your **** together.

She is funny and understanding and lovable, and you cannot just throw her aside with no explanation and no sympathy like a rag doll. I want so badly to slap you, me, anyone who has done this to someone. People deserve to know why someone looks at them and doesn't think they're enough. People deserve to be respected and cared for. Hearts are heavy burdens to bear alone, and I'll be ****** if you let her stand alone in the rain with her shattered in her hands because she thought you could be someone to her.

Get your **** together.

I'm your friend, but I don't deal in being dishonest and confusing and never making up your mind about the important things. I don't want either of you hurt, but don't pull *******, don't string her along, don't keep changing your mind. Make decisions, act, and stop being so afraid for five seconds to do something for yourself that could make you happier.

Get your **** together.

You both deserve better than silly fears of change. I'm afraid of everything and I cry and get anxious but I get over it. I don't let them ruin me and the relationships I have created. I am not just critiquing you, I understand so well fear and doubts and pain, and I used to let it eat me until I wasn't me anymore. I'd make decisions based off safety and being alone rather than connecting with people and being a better me. But that left me suicidal and dead inside. Maybe you won't be so extreme, but don't be so **** afraid. It'll **** you far faster than caring.

Get your **** together.

Not just for her or me or anyone. Mostly for yourself. Because I see you, in the skeleton of my pain, in the shadows on my walls, and no one deserves that. I'm asking you to get it together because I care and I understand. I'm asking because I see you.

I've never heard more people in my life insist they are good at something more than driving. Nearly every person I know has insisted to me that they are a great driver. And when its an off day? "I swear, most days I'm great though". I'm never quite sure if its because no one is often there to judge them but themselves, or if its hard for them to accept they are only adequate at something they do day in and day out.

As someone who has only ever held a permit myself, I am fascinated by this phenomenon. Its as if its unthinkable to accept that you're only okay or average or even bad at something everyone does. I've found similar results with cooking. Anytime I tell someone I'm good at it, they burst in with their own stories of their good cooking, though I never was comparing them.

I don't understand the inability to accept inadequacies. They are a part of who they are. Mind you, I conversely also believe to accept greatnesses. But Doesn't it diminish those greatnesses if you don't fully accept your misfalls?

Myself, as an easy example. I can't legally drive. I love science but hate research and laboratory processes. I can't stop myself from questioning math long enough to understand it. I get really obsessive about making lists, and I have to do them before doing things, even if they end up wrong. I write novels inefficiently, because I prefer to write them out of order, which ultimately tends to lead to wasted scenes. I hate citrus. I'm near addicted to weird things. I'm fiercely independent and protective of it. I like to stay up late and get up early and struggle with enjoying sleep.

But I have greatnesses. I am a wonderful writer, particularly realistic fiction novels. I am great at technical writing, because I love science but understand rhetoric and audience-driven communication. I am super intelligent artistically, and have a level of creative innovation and drive that baffles even me sometimes. I am wonderful at questioning everything and giving good insight. I am adaptable. I like vegetables.

I feel like accepting these inadequacies makes me inadequate. I think they make me human. I would never try to tell someone I'm good at driving. I'm not. But i hope to be passable. I want to get better to the point of making me a better, functioning person, but good? C'mon. Inflating myself won't make me better. It'll just make me bloated.

Sometimes being inadequate is kinda okay, as long as you have your own personal greatness too.

My revelations occur to me in the morning now, while the darkness haunts the night, in which I wish I had someone to hold me, to wash away the fright.

But, I digress.

I told you I'm not sorry. I meant it and I never mean to take it back. But as it swirls on the tips of my tongue, I know its not fully true, that I'm not sorry doesn't apply to all the dark enchantments of my heart, to all the parts that have accosted you.

So I'll start here.

I'm sorry that I hurt you. That this action I have done has broken you so wholeheartedly you feel nothing will ever get better and nobody cares. Because people care. I still care. I just couldn't handle being your friend when everything we were turned into a competition instead of the loved as if in love emotions we had in the summer. I only would have hurt you worse, I only would have learned to hate you, if we stayed close, and I couldn't bear the thought of that.

I'm sorry that you feel you have lost to me, but it only proves my point we turned into competitors in the game of life instead of friends. Friends don't vie for the same affections, they love equally and share. We didn't share, not anymore, not in any facet.

I'm sorry you feel I took him from you, if you do feel that way. It was not my intention for anything to happen between us but... it did. I never thought anything would happen. But he smiled at me one night and it seemed he finally noticed me and I... If he didn't make me so happy, if you hadn't made me feel like I had lost a boy to you before, I would have stepped away. But he does make me happy, and you had done that to me before, without even stopping to ponder upon how I might feel and how it might break me.

I'm sorry about her. She loves you more than life, you know? But you're not helping yourself, and its killing her. She wants to be there for you but she doesn't know how to when all you do is scream and cry and not try to get better. Times like these I want to wrap you up in my arms and shield you from the world, but I can't just be around when you're sad and ignore the happy times. That might be even more ****** than only being around in the happy times. I wish I could do something, anything, to help you, but I can't, not after what I did. Its not fair to you. I can't give you glimmers of hope of a friendship when I know there never will be one again.

I'm sorry I can't be your friend anymore. Especially now, that you're hurting and angry and simply need something tangible, when it seems all you want is things to be back again. But they can't be. Not after what I said, what you said, it can't. I just wish i could honor the last threads of our friendship and help you feel better.

I'm sorry for almost everything. I hate hurting people, especially people I still care about. But you've got to see in the end, I had no choice. It was let you go or hate you. I hated either decision, but I couldn't stand to hate you. I'll always love you.

I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you, anywhere I would have followed you, say something, I'm giving up on you... And I'm feeling so small, it was over my head, I know nothing at all, and I will stumble and fall, I'm still learning to love, just starting to crawl... and I will swallow my pride, you're the one that I love, and I'm saying goodbye, say something

I'm so sorry for all I have done to you. But at the same time, I don't know what to do to help you.

I'll try. That's all I can do.

I'll try to help, just for you.

But I'm still don't regret my decision. I'm sorry, so sorry, but not about that.

What a fickle thing
Pull me on the other side
Save me from the things I want
Such a pretty way to go

In a dream, in a life, in a future yesterday, the world is completely different from one lily-pad step I took on the fourth of May. 21 years spent ogling these maybes, these otherwheres, these fantastical infinite people and these wild infinite loves and intense infinite failures I could have had. I spend much time pondering them, but never wistfully, just thoughtfully. I regret none of the nowhere I am, so I wouldn't wish it away, but because of my reckless mind I wonder regardless of reason and logic.

But today, I wondered what if I stopped letting myself wonder and started letting myself dream.

I spent most of those maybe 21 years locked in a tower were maybes were the only hopes I had. But, below the tower as I now am, maybe maybe isn't all I have anymore. Maybe yes can be my new maybe. Maybe why not can be it.

As a writer, by condition i ask what could have been, what maybe could happen, but I struggle with why nots. With the bravery of a careening carousal ride or the average person of my age. I have let an inkling suspection that the world may **** me deter from all adventure. I've worked on it, but the acidic pinpricks on my skin make me cower like all alien-fearers should.

But funnily, I feel like an alien. So why not brave the danger by brandishing a hook and baring my own blood?

Today, I listed all the maybes I could be, and decided I should try some. Maybe I won't do them all. Maybe I'll hate them. But maybe I shouldn't give a ****. Maybe I should stop looking back and seeing all the turns I took that culminate in a loss of some wild experience, and look towards what is happening and see the maybes that lie before me.

Maybe I could have been a crack addict. Maybe I could have fallen in love with a different him/her. Maybe I could have drunk acid and be staring at my skeleton bones from the smooth waters of hell.

But  didn't.

So maybe, instead, I could be a yoga lover, and maybe my hair could be green, and maybe i could get over my fears of being even a little bit cool.

Just maybe.

I'm not sorry.
I'm not sorry that your heart beats to drums of bells or whatever it is that isn't mine.
That I've grown out of the little pocket in your jeans that you put me in, thinking I was too small to get out, and that I may not be the person you want so desperately anymore.
That I have offended you by finally letting myself be me.
That the wind beats on you windows at night and makes you wish we could go back to who we used to me, entwined so wholeheartedly, loved as if we were in love.
I can't be sorry.
I'm not sorry.
I never will be.

Its a heavy feeling, on your heart, when you realize your manic ravings have some harsh truth to them.

I am dangerous.

The pills help for now, holding my insanity deep within, but what when I grow tolerant? What when they stop working? What when i forget, like today?

I could hurt people. Break them, tear them, maim them, **** them. Maybe **** me. Its devastating and terrifying to realize the monster under your bed is none other than the reflection in the mirror.

You were once a little girl, Grace, full of dreams and hopes and promises of forever and rainbows and smiles and happiness. But then experience and biology kicked in and you became... this.

You would be so scared of this, little Grace, so scared of the hallucinations and the voices and mood swings and the hatred and the sadness and the anger. You are using so many ands and you would hate yourself for it, you do hate yourself for it, but you have bigger fears at the moment.

You're going to hut every person you love. You'll try not to, little Grace, but you're going to. Every day you forget, you get closer to becoming the monster you know you are in your heart. The one who doesn't know right from wrong and is hyper and screams. The one who is killing herself slowly from the inside out without even trying.

You hate her, Grace, the girl you grow up to be. Parts you love, the sane parts that love so deeply it hurts and cares so much for others, but the parts that could **** everyone? You hate that.

God help me I'm coming undone.

My wonderland is terrifying. I'm terrified of it, of me, and you will be too, Grace. Never forget who you were.

Its the only possible way you may be able to survive this, to survive wonderland.

Its our only hope, you and me, and we have to take it or everything we love?

It'll die.

Don't.

Don't see her and think its me.

She is the heart of darkness, the shadow of fear and doubt taking residence in my body. I hate her. I hate everything about her, yet she is apart of me, a part I cannot seem to shake, like a fever that's a tad too strong or a burr that's a tad too stuck.

Don't look at me and feel fear, look at me and see me, however clouded that vision may be at this point. The monster who wants to destroy itself and those I love is not who I am.

I will not be defined by my depression.

Don't forget my smiles and my tears and my history and our story if I ever lose. If I cannot control the atrocity within, the  vortex of despair, don't forget who I want to be.

Don't remember me for the pain, for the ticks and the tocks as I wear down the clock, drawing tragedy closer to me. Don't see me as anyone but Grace, the girl who loved too much and self-preserved too little. I never was quite good at it, anyway, I was always much better at caring until it hurt.

Don't juxtapose my illness with me, it is one facet of my heart, not all of me, and even if I break your heart, know I never wanted to. I never want anything that hurt those I care for, but sometimes I simply cannot stop myself.

Don't think of me as the monster I think I am, believe in me more than I believe in myself and maybe, just maybe, one day I can believe in me too.

When I was 15 I had no real friends, and that was okay. Being shut up alone inside was fine as long as I didn't give myself time to think. I had some laughs, and I had classmates, and I wrote and wrote and wrote and it was alright.

But then the **** boy had to sing.

Not just musically, though god knows he did that wonderfully too. He sang to me with his weirdness and brains and odd duck humor that I relished in.

We even really met in a musical, as poetic as it is.

I spent every afternoon around him, and I thought he just laughed back at me in his confident, beautiful, lyrical way. I was a little in love with him.

One day I found myself shouting at him about being prying, and him at me for being secretive, and somehow it ended with me telling him that he was my secret. That the way I could close my eyes and picture the road map of his heart through the words that he sang was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

It was the first day I ever heard him stutter.

After some awkward verbal fumblings and confused wires, we collided, two insecure children thinking we were artistic adults. We saw ourselves as some grand creative romance when really we were two weird kids finding infatuation under bright stage lights.

After a few weeks more stumbling, and harsh words around, that initial fizzling collision just kept on colliding until our heads were jostled a little too well.

I broke his heart in a high school hallway, only a month after we began.

Like the artist he was, he poetically asked me for a final kiss before letting me go.

Also, poetically, it ended up not being our final kiss at all. But trust me, despite my desperation to try the collisions and passion again, he made sure that second final kiss really was the last.

That was the end of our love story.

You deserve
So much
Better
Than
Me

Smile in the darkest hour, where the weeping willows cry their song,
while the blood drains from my face, while the funeral procession marches on.
Smile when I'm dead and tired, sleeping in my wooden home,
remembering these forlorn years, when I lay in your arms.
Smile as I die tonight, weep no more my dear, for summer delight is drawing close,
death becomes nothing to fear.
Smile when I close my eyes, a final whisper goodbye.
Smile when you dry your tears, for forever I will be near.
Smile.

I'm a walking disaster; a ticking time bomb.

Yet they still want to be around me. Why?

Don't waste your heart on a wild thing.

I walk alone.

I should walk alone.

All I do is hurt and scream and cry and damage. No one should put themselves through such torture for love.

Love isn't worth this.

There's a million questions swirling in my head, screaming at me to do something, to be something, but I don't know what that is.

Miss Independent?

Somebody's somebody?

My heart is giving out. I don't know what to write anymore. So much screaming, so much pain, so much fear. I'm afraid of everyone and they should be afraid of me.

I'm suffocating in my own misery.

And I don't know how to stop it.

I don't know if I can.

Funny how a poor choice in words has become a part of my reality. I have a new medicine to treat this for now too, don't worry.

There's a madness in having to learn who you are without the monster. I felt ever alone and painful when it was breaking down my door. But now without it, some days its hard to tell what my toes look like. I can't even explain the reason I fixate on toes, and how they look at feel. Perhaps because they are the only thing that keep me on the ground.

I got so good at understanding monsters and demons. Its hard to look in the mirror and understand the human that was behind the yellow eyes and ****** nails.

I feel an emptiness at night. I dunno if its because my head isn't screaming or if its because no one's here with me. Everything's just so **** blurry. I don't know as much as I wish I did.

I think I know who I am. I know the words keep me grounded and they are what's closest to my heart. But past that? it gets hard. Past the words its like I'm not I'm a person. I'm just anthropomorphic fingers across a keyboard, stringing a story together. Possibly even mine.

My eyes are so blurry.

I want to figure out this human I reside in better. I don't know her nearly as well as I should. I know the demons that possess her, but when we sit alone at a table the words that keep her sane and the monsters that keep her not are the only things that tie us together. Its hard to carry a conversation when both of those are too far out of reach.

Should I manage my time better for my writing? I already feel like I plan everything more than I should.

Should I try new things? It already feels like I have far more on my plate than I can handle.\

Should I keep forward, hoping this will pass? God knows letting things pass almost killed everything once before.

I said it too well. I don't feel grounded. Just drifting. I need to feel stable and on the ground, instead of in this floating plane of uncertainty. It feels so unknown and unsafe and makes a sick feeling overtake my stomach. It attacks best while I'm alone, while its nice, while my mind has less to distract itself from what's happening.

I want to feel right again.

I guess I just feel very left right now, and not in a great way.

Soon enough I'll be home. Well, full home. I've got 75% of it. Now just need the last bit left to feel like there's an anchor to the mortal plane.

Hunting for the human within can be a little disorienting. I just need my human, with his loving hands, to give me a tie back to the world. I've been without him far too long already.

I'm somewhere around here. Just need a little more help to find her.

Soon.

Funny how a song I hate could be thudding in my ears with a resounding pound that only I can hear.
Just a kiss on your lips in the moonlight.
I don't know what it means, if it means anything. But for a moment again I feel alive, for the first time since that spring in which my heart grew three sizes and was crushed simultaneously.
Just a touch of the fire burning so bright
I'm terrified of you. I haven't been so scared of someone in awhile, because once again I realize I could fall for someone. I could really easily just dance, trip, and fall into you.
I don't wanna mess this thing up
And then you held my hand and walked off into the moonlight, and I know its the beginning and an end and an everything to anything.
I don't want to push too far
You've made me magic again, with intoxicating tendrils of texture running across my tongue, texture of words to create something beautiful once again.
Just a shot in the dark that you just might, be the one I've been waiting for my whole life
I will never know in the present where this will go, but for tonight, this is enough. You are enough,  I am enough.
*Just a kiss goodnight

About that soon?





Nevermind

Its happening, all over again.

Nothing is wrong, nothing has happened, there just feels like there is a gaping hole in my heart and nothing can repair it, like there is a part of me missing and I have no clue what it is and where to go searching.

I used to think the missing part was friends, or family, or anything I loved. But as time goes on, it seems to hit me that the exact problem is not that its anything I am able to find; no. There is simply just a part of me missing and there is nothing I can do about it.

It breaks my heart. I sit here at my desk crying, uncertain what to do, because it appears there is nothing i can do. Its just a section of my heart is missing, always will be, and nothing can ever fix that.

The words do not come, I have not much to say, except my heart is missing and I know it won't come back today. Or any day for that matter.