Mom, do you remember all of the times I confided in you?
Crushes, school, and how to be “cool”  
I needed your advice.
You have always been there for me. My rock. My support. My superhero. My friend. But it seems that kryptonite hit superman and my rock has turned to dust.
You know, I have always been a carbon copy of you.
All your flaws, your attitude, your dimples, your insecurities,
The way you can’t move on,
Your rigorous mood swings,
Your smile.
I’ve never wanted to be anything other than just like you.
Mom, do you remember how close we used to be, it seemed we were inseparable.
We used to be able to finish each other’s sentences,
But now it seems like I am speaking a foreign language that you can’t comprehend, as I watch our relationship bend into something that even I cannot recognize.  
We were each other’s support when things got tough
You taught me that life was not a perfectly paved road.
Life is Michigan roads after a hard winter, covered in potholes filled with disappointment and speed bumps of living happily never after.
And I could handle it as long as you were around.
Our family has always been dysfunctional, split in two.
You know dad and I never got along, he’s always loved your boy, his son.
It’s always been us- just us
And that was enough.
But the day that she passed
You left me.
Not in body but in mind.
And now I’m alone.
I was there when she died too, you know.
Watching your closest grandparent die isn’t easy. And neither is feeding her, changing the bedding, helping pick out the casket, helping write the obituary, speaking at the funeral, being a pallbearer, laying roses on the casket, the list goes on.  
I haven’t gotten one good night’s sleep since she died. 7 months ago. Every night being tormented by nightmares.  
I was 14.
Mom, do you remember how you became silent, building up walls to protect us so that you couldn’t hurt me like grandma did when she left.
And, as always, I followed in example.
Every silent stare, Look of disappointment, Frown or Broken promise you slung at me helped me to build up my wall brick by brick until my hands were calloused and my heart was cold.
You gave up.
And I don’t want to follow in example, but it seems like that is my only option.
The role of mom was cast by different actors.
My counselor.
My friends.
My teachers.
Myself.
The words I love you became non-existent. Replaced with echoes of: it’s all in your head, things will get better, or nothing.
No amount of slits on my wrists, failing grades, fake sick days, or pounding fists could make you act like you care again.
Mom do you remember me saying, help me. If not, I will say it a million more times to get you to listen to me.
I am starting to doubt my ability to save our relationship.
Can’t you see that I am struggling? When I say I want to give up please don’t look the other way. It is my way of saying as politely as possible that, that I want to die.
I can’t manage to be strong anymore.  
Momma, do you remember the day you got angry and left? I cried for hours until you came back home but it feels like you left me and never came back.
Please tell me you love me and tell me you care.
Give me one reason to hold on to this world I have grown to hate.
Just, please save me.
Mom do you remember when I said goodbye?
I meant it.

In 72 hours,
1,782 minutes,
103,680 seconds,
How many times can you tell someone you love them?
How many prayers can you pray?
How many tears can you cry in three days?
Too many.
Your world can change completely,
Being thrown off its axis, spinning loosely into insanity.
72 hours: she has weeks to live, the doctors all say.
We can’t do much, but we still pray.
Believing in miracles seems like a waste of time.
But yet we can’t bring ourselves to stop trying,
Hoping that someone in the sky will hear our prayers and wake us all up.
From this nightmare.
I make a pact to myself, I will fill every second, with thoughts of hellos, not goodbyes,
Until the second that she dies.
60 hours: not much to say. She’s dying.
50 hours: Her kidneys failing fast.
48 hours: In a crowded room, I have never felt more alone.
30 hours: Hold up, slow down, you say she only has twenty-four hours to live? What happened to weeks? Every tick, tick, tick of the seconds passing by becomes unbearable. Watching as your mother weeps, trying to hold in the tears, trying to be strong, but, now, what’s the point?
24 hours: Time flies by as your holding on, but passes so slow it is as if you are in slow motion. You hold her hand as tightly as possible as if the second you loosen your grip they will be laying her down in the grave
15 hours: I cannot sleep. I cannot sleep. I cannot sleep, I repeat and repeat as if sure willpower will keep my body going. I tell her “it’s okay. It’s okay to leave.” The words get caught in my throat and I am barely able to breath, or spit out a sad, “I can survive,” knowing with every inch of my soul it’s a lie, but I know I can’t admit this to her, because, it’s time to go.
6 hours: Time is up according to the doctors, just a waiting game now. It’s three in the morning, my hand still in hers. Willpower isn’t enough, I drift off to sleep.
1 hour: I can’t do this...
30 minutes: Memories flooding my head of the words I never said, of the things I never did, never had the chance to do.
10 minutes: Like, go dress shopping for homecoming.
9: Or have her approve my fiancé
8: Or sleepover when I got in a fight with my dad.
7: Or tell her enough times that I love her.
6: Or be a bridesmaid as she married the love of her life.
5: Or hold her hand as my first baby was born.
4: Everyone leaves the room. I can feel it’s the end.
3: Someone, please come in, I can’t do this by myself.
2: I am trembling, trying to find my vocal cords, terrified, I squeeze her hand.
1: Mom walks in the door, breath in, breath out, flat line.

If it was just for attention, we wouldn’t try to hide it.
If it was for attention, we’d do it on our face.
Take the razor and paint a pretty picture
Of the life we never wanted.
If it was just for attention
We wouldn’t lock the door
Of our bedrooms, our bathrooms.
We would do it,
At the dinner table
With a butter knife.
If it was just for attention, if you noticed
We’d say “yeah, feel sorry for me yet?”
We wouldn’t say “it was the cat”
Or “just a scratch.”
If we did it for attention,
Why would hurt this bad?
Every day you wake up with a constant reminder of the things that you did,
All of the tears that you cried,
All the fights that you lost to the monsters screaming inside your mind,
“Help me!”
Help me, two simple words.
A cry for help most people never heard
Before she buried herself in the ground.
But yet we knew,
We could see it behind every bracelet stacked on the next.
The way she always wore long sleeved shirts in the summer.
The way she grew silent as if her soul was being crushed into a metal form.
Like being put in that casket.
What people don’t realize is she was one of 13 million kids from 6-17 every that **** themselves every year.
That is 13 million people that needed help,
But yet, in our society if someone wants to die,
They’re crazy.
But what is crazy?
Crazy is killing your best friend by ignoring her cries.
I am crazy.
She had schizophrenia.
And bipolar disorder.
And dysthymia, which is basically just a complicated term for depression that doesn’t go away.
And yet, she never knew it.
She never knew that it was curable
Because every second she thought about herself.
All she thought was “attention seeker”
She never got help because she didn’t want them to know how bad it was,
Or how much she needed them.
And, I know she told me once before,
“I want to die.”
But yet, I heard stuff like that all the time,
Not from her, but from people who don’t know what it’s like to wake up every morning, but yet never wake up.
To be addicted to the razor like a drug
Every cut, every little bit of blood that bleeds out.
Is one less thing, you have to worry about.
So don’t you dare tell me I am an attention seeker!
Because, if I wanted you to know.
I’d do it, on my face.

A little girl,
Ten years old,
Who knew nothing of *** or ****
But that didn’t matter
When he picked her out.
It wasn’t because of her nonexistent figure,
Or her my little pony tank tops,
It was because of what he saw in her eyes,
The first time he touched her.
As she winced and couldn’t meet his eyes,
He knew right then and there she would never be strong enough to stand up for herself
So that boy,
Two years older,
Thought it was okay
To steal her innocence.
A ten year old girl
Buying a pregnancy test from the gas station,
Paying the clerk a little extra,
So that he doesn’t tell her mom,
Burying it deep in her pocket,
Until she gets home.
Feeling criminal for her deceitfulness,
Paying with the money,
She had saved in her piggy bank for an American Girl Doll.
The one she would never get,
Because she was more worried about being touched again,
Than being a little girl.
She sold all of her toys,
To buy those bras that hook in the front,
Hoping that he would be too stupid to figure out what had happened
And stop doing it.
A ten year old girl,
So afraid of love,
That she beats up on the other kids
So that they will stay away
And won’t hurt her.
A ten year old girl,
Coming home from school with bruises on her chest,
Because his friends helped him grab her.
Terrified that her mother will see,
And that she will get in trouble,
So she spends all the money she has left,
On makeup,
So that nothing looks wrong.
A ten year old girl,
In fifth grade,
Stapling her bras for the sense of security,
Until she realizes she is only helping his game.
And she can’t understand why he laughs when she cries.
She cannot understand why he laughs when she begs him to stop.
A ten year old girl,
Thanking God she wasn’t pregnant.
A ten year old girl,
With cuts on her wrists,
Because she didn’t have anyone to go to.
The brightness and curiosity of her eyes drained,
Resembling an ocean without water.
Shaking as her father touches her,
Hugs her,
But she can’t tell him why
So he blames it on himself.
She can’t explain why she turns up the music,
To drown out her heart wrenching sobs as she gives up her last piece of life.
A ten year old girl,
With a suicide note in one hand,
A bottle of pills in the other.
A ten year old girl,
With nowhere to go,
Because of what he saw in her eyes.

Some people think that they have the right
To go throughout life pointing out imperfections
Everyone has their own flaws,
But people need to think and realize: I am the perfect me

I might not be a Barbie doll
I might not have perfect hair
I know my body is not ideal
Sometimes it just isn’t fair

I might not be the brightest girl
Sometimes I struggle in school
I might not be Valedictorian
But I’m sure not a fool
I know I am the Perfect Me

I might not be the most athletic
Sports might just not be my thing
I won’t always get first place
But in a competition, the best is all I bring

I might not be the perfect daughter
Sometimes I speak my mind
Some days I’ll admit I’m a little lazy
But I have never gotten behind
I am the perfect me


I am not the most organized girl
Some days it’s a balancing act to get everything done
Some days it would be so easy to give up
But I know sticking to it will pay off in the long run

I am not the most valued girl
Some days it’s as if I weren’t there
I am not always the one they go to
But nevertheless they still care

I am not the most popular girl in the school
Nor do I have the favored styles
I might not have the best ideas
But with individuality by my side, I can go miles
I am the perfect me

I might not have the best self esteem
I don’t walk with my nose in the air
I will admit, your words do hurt
But I try my hardest to realize, I shouldn’t care

As you can see I have my flaws
I am not afraid to be one from the crowd
Some days I feel a bit insecure
But I have every right to be proud

Shoot me down
But I will only stand higher
Tell me I am wrong
And that I don’t belong
And I have one thing to say, I am the perfect me

Tell me? Is anyone perfect?
Does anyone have the right to judge?
I know I am far from perfect
But I will continue to stay strong

We have all either been on one side of the story
Being bullied or the bullier
And I want to ask you, what made you feel good?
About telling someone their not good enough?
-=
All of us have fought our own battles
And some of them have been lost
We have all had our bad times and struggles
But still we only stand stronger

Be a hand when someone has fallen
Be a shoulder to cry on when someone’s upset
You never know how much it can help them
Or how much they need it in the end.

I only stand stronger when you say those things
My scars only seal open wounds
They are within my sheet of armor
One that I’ll never undo



White, black, Hispanic
Blue, brown, green or hazel
Short, tall, thin, thick
We are all beautiful

Love me or hate me
Judge me or criticize
Blinded by seeing
Only what’s on the outside

Everyone in this world is imperfect,
Everyone is a shining star cocooned, ready to fly
Everyone has their own flaws, even though some want to deny,
The next time someone tries to point out your flaws, tell them, bold and strong
I am no less than the perfect me!

Playmates since the age of three
Hide and Seek is the favorite game
Between two best friends.
For ten years secrets were traded like Pokémon cards
And I thought I knew everything about her.
I could have told you her favorite color was blue
She always wanted to be a teacher
And her worst fear was to not fit in.
But I couldn’t tell you who she had a crush on
Because that was one secret that was never traded with me.
Or any other soul.
Had she trusted me
Would she still have looked down the barrel of a gun?
With her own finger dancing with the trigger?
Trembling hands shook as bad as a stage 10 magnitude earthquake
Complete devastation.
As I was handed an envelope with my name signed as carefully
As the love poem it contained.
About the girl that she was in love with.
Since the age of three
That she had been playing hide and seek with
For ten years.
But
Little did her parents know that every time they sent their child over to play?
They were sending her off to war.
Filling her with such strong post-traumatic stress disorder that she couldn’t cope with her own identity.
And I always wondered if my parent’s words echoed through her self-loathing mind as she pulled the trigger
To silence their conservative “opinions”
About
*******
And lesbian feminazis
Or man hating queers.
Echoing
Through my mind since the first time she came over.
Because my parents never felt “right” about her.
At her funeral
I sat in the last row.
I was silent.
Because I didn’t have the courage to say goodbye,
Especially in front of people who would never understand
What it is like to be alienated against the rest of society
Because love can only be defined by the attraction between a man and a woman.
But today
Sitting in the field we used to play hide and seek
The goodbye finally escapes my heart that hasn’t beaten right in a year
Because I have been wishing I had had the courage to tell you,
That you are the only one who has had my heart for ten years.
And I never loved anyone the way I loved you.
But I was so lost in my soul
The words couldn’t escape from pressed lips sewn together by my parent’s misguided hands and the fact that they would NEVER understand
That liking girls was not a choice
And I have spent every day since the day you left
Trying to find where it says in the bible that gays are ****** to hell,
But I am praying that you are now cradled in Gods embrace.  
Because no matter how many times we played hide and seek
Neither of us were found buried in the closet.
The two man hating queers,
That my parents could have never accepted.

The Boy.
His smile.
I had always been caught up in it.
He was far too good for me.
And I accepted that.
It was the middle of seventh grade
My life was ripping apart at the seams.
I was alone.
My friends had left me.
The boy, my “boyfriend” hurt me.
Physically.
Mentally.
Emotionally.
Cried. All the time.
But that’s what I deserved.
I was alone.
I couldn’t smile.
My life. Was. Ruined.
Mom was in the hospital.
Cellulitis.
I had had enough.
Given up.
Suicide notes.
Typed hundreds of times.
Cutting.
Contemplating suicide every night.
My life. No meaning.
Struggled to even look myself in the mirror.
I went to the talent show.
To read my poem.
He was there.
Perfect.
Just who I wanted to talk to.
We had grown close.
I sat down next to him.
He started playing his guitar.
Days later.
I got the courage to tell him I liked him
He “liked” me to.
Wow.
Days later we were “going out.”
He gave me self-confidence.
Even though he had little for himself.
He mended my broken life.
Getting cut once or twice himself.
I was happy.
Disaster struck a year later.
Fighting.
Broke up.
Crap.
Lower than ever.
Dad’s cancer.
Grandma dying.
Grandma dead.
Best friend’s suicide attempt.
Best friend’s cancer.
Crying.
Cutting.
Suicide attempts.
He was there.
Not in the way he used to be
But as a friend.
Came to my grandma’s visitation.
Helped me when I couldn’t smile myself.
Courage.
He helped me to live through every day.
Stopped cutting.
Counseling appointments.
Put on the right meds.
I might still be unable to look at myself in the mirror.
I might still want to give up.
I might still struggle when things get really bad.
But.
Whenever I want to give up.
I know that he would hate me.
He can’t hate me.
Razor in hand.
Tears in eyes.
I cant do it.
Not now. Not ever.
He wouldn’t want me to.
He is one of my best friends.
Could tell him anything.
And have him not bat an eye.
No matter how horrible.
Without him, I wouldn’t be here.
Without him, I would’ve been six foot under.
Without him. I would’ve been nothing.
Life is far from perfect.
Nowhere close.
Cry. Often.
Still struggling.
Not as bad.
He saved me.
He saved my life.