Dear Mercy Girl,

I know the nights when the tears come in silent screams
But the screaming music should block out everything

I am the pins and needles in your fingertips, held captive underneath your thighs
As they itch to grasp the cold metal
That cuts hot
Opening your skin like a present on a random day
That isn’t your birthday
But that doesn’t faze you
Because you’ll collect smiles where you can find them


I know the fireworks in your chest
The tearing of muscle and tissue but I promise your heart is okay

I am the knot that forms in your throat
You swallow me but I’ll just grow in the pit of your stomach…

Let yourself write tearless words of someday, one day inspiration,
Vindication that you feel

I know the emptiness,
The emotionless façade
Broken by the deafening muteness of your cries for help
You’re helpless,
Hopeless, but hoping
For anything
Except the numbness that envelops you.

And I know the numbness
That keeps you cold as you open yourself
Hot
Blue burns red,
But didn’t you know feeling isn’t your friend?

I am the stairs screaming in protest under the sudden weight of your mother coming to check on you
Because you are loved.
Hide your knife, the only weapon you need tonight is that smile
Promising you love her too.

I know the nights when the sound of your own breathing is too much noise
So I become your heartbeat
Feel me remind you that you’re still alive.

Because I feel everything.
And I feel you.
So when you need to talk about nothingness, let me be there.
You don’t need to wrap yourself in long sleeves and your scarred arms,
Share with me your troubles.
You’re too young and alive to be dying alone.
-A friend.

At the thought of you with her my cheeks burn red,
And instead of confronting you, I write about it in my orange
Journal.  I imagine her yellow
Hair tangled in your fingers.  I feel myself turning green;
It’s not mature; I know, but it keeps me from being blue
When I think about our love that was once so perfectly violet.

I write to her: Does he give you a single violet
Too?  He always said it meant more than a dozen red
Roses.  You will know if it’s true when you look in his baby blue
Eyes.  I write this in my orange
Journal.  She might have fallen for it too if she was a little more green
Or if she spent an afternoon skipping under the yellow

Sun of summer.  We grew together under that yellow
Sun, and I still have that violet,
Gray now, with its brown stem, once green,
Tucked away between pages I haven’t read
In years in my orange
Journal because it still reminds me of the way the wind blew

Your locks out of your crystal blue
Eyes.  Do you play with her yellow
Hair like you played with mine?  I’m writing to him now in my orange
Journal.  I don’t bring up the violet.
I’m seeing red.
I’m not myself when I wear jealousy’s green.

I’m mean when I’m drenched in green.
But baby, it’s nothing compared to the emptiness of blue
That compels me to reread every note I’ve already read
A thousand times before, that urges me to dig up the Yellow
Submarine music video we made.  We laughed so hard our faces turned violet.
I think it’s time now to close my orange

Journal.  I must put away my orange
Journal and move on.  I was alive and green
With you but, violet
Love only lasts for the season.  I’ll find another set of blue
Eyes, and you’ll get lost in yellow
Hair, just to forget about each other’s red

Lips.  I’ll let my orange journal collect dust because I know the next one will pick me up now that you blew
Me down. I’m a little less green since the trees have changed their colors. I find comfort knowing yellow
Highlights fade come winter while the violet will get lost in the pages, but I’ll stay warm with my new love, burning red.