Birds twittering
I name some
Not all
Yet they are all familiar to me

Squirrels chatter
Small things burst through brush
Fern fronds unfurl
The air smells so new

All windows open
Gazing outside
Taking in the scent of growth
Watching a moth beat against a window

Overcast patches
Knitted with blue sky
Those sporadic rain showers
Followed by little spasms of sun

Everything is green
The forest is coming back to life
A new reincarnation
Of Mother Earth

The streams will sing
The grass will grow
Something shifts
As geese cry overhead

Don't let me be lonely
Or should I say
Do not let me become more lonely
Because in a house full of people
I am utterly alone
It doesn't matter if someone
Is two feet away
It doesn't matter if I can hear their laughter
Footsteps overhead
A glass breaking
Anything
I am alone

Please don't let me be lonely
I'm sure that's foolish because
Ask anyone
They'll tell you that
I want to be alone
And I know
I know
That I push people away
And I do but
It's not because I want to be alone
I deserve to be alone
But I didn't ask to be lonely

Don't let me be lonely because
When no one else is there
I can't find a reason to do anything
I can't eat
I can't sleep
I can't do anything when I'm alone
And I know that
You can't do anything to help
But please
Don't leave me here
I'm not where I am because
I am lonely

Don't let me be lonely
I've always wanted to be
One of those beautiful people
On a screen
Those people who find peace
In empty space yet
I am not them
Maybe it's because even when
I am alone I am not really alone
I'm still here
And out of everyone
I am the one I hate the most

Please don't let me be lonely
This is something that I can't escape
And I don't know how to cope
I don't know how to deal with this because
There is no way to deal with this
This hatred of me
And I try to change
But the more I change the less I
Recognize my own reflection
Then I am not alone
There is someone else there with me
That is so much worse

Please
Don't let me be lonely

Warmth
On the edge of a field
That flat grey sky
Slashed through with beams
Of hazy light
Little red flowers
Spreading like a sea of stars
High grass
Dark green fronds
Winding trunks of
Taller trees
Thickets of bracken
And briary bushes
All green
With leaves like teardrops
Sun upon my golden legs
And the sky
Breaking

One night I was delivered
Birthed from the womb
Of a hospital car
Into a dark room
With a chipped wooden desk
Where I sat to cry
Without light
Without hope
I read the walls
And quieted

"Love you will be okay"
Scrawled above my bed
In jagged strokes
As jagged as the edges
Of my broken mind
Sharp shards that cut me
Loose from my family
Stitched together
Only by the words
Of the walls

Crude were the scratches
That held me together
For so many days
They were borne of the same desperation
That I was
Sometimes, just knowing that
"You are not broken"
Was enough to keep me sane
When the doors screamed
And the moon kept me awake

How many times did I break
Behind thin and lapsing walls
With only the comfort of
"You are enough"
To beat out the chill
Of frosted windows
And Portland rain
With red eyes
And chapped lips
I turned to face the wall

Building up a broken will
Packing bags
With papers
Of a journey not so much travelled but
Fought I laid for the last time
Upon that bed
Taking pencil to plaster
Trying to let them know
"Someday you will read these words for the last time"
"This is not the end"

My eyes, they weep, from bitter wings of fear
My fate is sealed by torture with no end
My soul, it cries, from icy streaming tears
The angels cry but no good luck they send

My will, it breaks, with harsh and brutal steps
My ears, they bleed, as I witness conceit
My back, it aches, from dread and hate I've kept
The demons shriek but give they no replete

Test fire and heat, as I journey through hell
Hold my head high and sing a battle song
The force I seek, all fear it shall dispel
With one fair cleave, I sever right and wrong

My fevered foe no longer posing  threat
So long, goodbye, none mourn the great sonnet

You
Are a light
You shine brighter for me
Than any star in the sky
But I don't even know you
And that's okay

You
I picture you under brilliant skies
The stars on your cheeks
Moons in your eyes
I think of you as Jupiter
But really, you're much more

You
You're an ivy lane
Leading to the future
That I only dreamed of
You're sweet like peaches
And salty as the sea

You
You're perfectly beautiful
Yet so flawed
I love you anyways
No wonder you fit perfectly against me
Like a puzzle piece

"I'm sorry"
I say
As if I ever chose this
As if I ever wanted this to happen
I know it's hard for you
It's hard for all of us
But out of all the people who cried that night
I probably cried the least

You don't understand what it's like
To sit up in the middle of the night and look
At your own reflection
In the fourth floor window of a hospital room
And think
"I've lost my mind"
Because that is the worst it ever gets
And I got there

And my thighs were stained
Red for so many days
From the chaffing of the hospital scrubs
As I am carried  away
In a car with a locked glass division
A bag of all my things and
The only thing I'm sorry for
Is the fact that this didn't happen sooner

People say that death is so bad
That death is a horrible monster that
Comes in the middle of the night
And steals away their children
So what if those children were meant to be stolen?
So what if that is the only way to truly move on?
So please
Continue to villainize my only escape
And I will be sorry
That you can't understand

I know that I am different
Say that that's good
That things needed to change
But truth be told I can't recognize myself anymore
That girl in the mirror isn't me
Because part of me did die that night
How can I be expected to come back
And look at you all as my friends
When I can't even look at myself?

I guess I am sorry
I'm sorry that I made you look at me
In that way that broke anything close to the trust
That we never had
I'm sorry for all the cuts and the scars and
I'm sorry that they are all there for a reason
I'm sorry that I am never going to be the same
I'm sorry that I am never going to be okay and
I can't change that

I'm sorry that all those nights that I couldn't sleep because
I knew that I had lost everything
Cannot be changed
You say those nights were wasted
My mind is wasted
But is it really a waste
When we are all going to the same place
Six feet underground
Then
Maybe
My mind will be wasted

I'm sorry that I'm angry
And bitter
And that I don't back down even if I should
And if I'm not right, I hurt people
If I am right, I hurt myself
I know that it seems
Like I am doing this on purpose but
It all comes back to killing the thing
That says it is me
But is not

I'm sorry that I looked at him
When I should've looked away
I'm sorry that an hour in the backyard
Of all the broken and forgotten people
Is the closest I've ever come to happiness
And I'm sorry that if getting better means
Leaving them
And coming back home to here
I don't want to get better at all

I'm sorry that I couldn't stop shaking
I'm sorry that the wheelchair rattled and
Nurses asked if I wanted a blanket
As I sat in that waiting room
With all the people and their broken bodies
It was me alone
With a broken mind
Did I embarrass you then?

So I'm sorry that
You have a perfect sob story
You can write your poems and
Tell your friends all about
How a perfectly good girl met such
A tragic fate
I'm sorry that this had to happen to you
Sorry that I happened to you

"I'm sorry"
Are you happy now?