IF THIS BODY
WEREN'T MINE
WOULD I STILL
HATE IT?

1.
A boy dropped his pen on the floor next to me
and I took it.
I said it was mine when he asked about it.

2.
I didn't cry when
my cat
or my dog
or my great grandma
died.

3.
I read the text.
I just didn't want to talk to her.

4.
I broke up with him
on the phone
because I thought he might cry
if I did it in person.

5.
I stopped talking to him
when I got a boyfriend.
I started talking to him again
when we broke up.

6.
We flirted for 2 years.
He told me he loved me.
I told him he was like a brother.
He started doing ****.

7.
I knew his dad hit him.
I didn't tell anyone.

8.
I told her to stop talking to me
because she was too depressing.
She went to rehab for self harm.

9.
When he told me he wanted
to **** himself,
I told him a million reasons he shouldn't,
but never once said
*don't.

I'm fat
I'm ugly
I just can't seem to do anything right
Why can't I look like her?
Why can't I get a guy or girl like him or her?
Why can't I be interesting?
Why can't I be happy?
Why can't I be normal?
Whatever that is
Will I ever be happy?

I want someone around, but I want to be alone at the same time
I want to cuddle up with someone, but I don't want to be touched

Why do I hate being touched?

It's weird
Touching someone
It feels weird
Especially when they touch me
I get aggravated when someone does that
      even angry sometimes

But then I think: who would love a girl who hates herself? How can anyone love a girl who hates herself?
Who would want a girl when she doesn't even want herself? How could they?

They can't

I don't know how to to love myself when all I've done was hate myself
I don't know how to accept myself when all I've been doing was trying to reject it

*How do you change yourself to look beautiful in your own eyes?

I've lived through roughly six thousand five hundred and seventy sunsets,

Yet nothing compares to the light you have shined upon my face in only two very long days.

I tell you, you gloomy ones,
that life is beautiful.
Life is beautiful
in all its depths of
suffering and misery and pain
in all its depths of
striving and joy and pleasure.

I tell you, you nihilists,
one draws breath only once,
passes into and fades out of life only once.
Yet you are to tell us it is worthless,
this gift given to us all by chance?

I tell you, you Christians,
and all your compatriots
who hate the flesh and the earth,
who promise more life through
sons of virgins and husbands of children,
that nothing awaits after death.

"Memento mori!”  
Why must you always
chime this in our ears?
Why must you fill
men with such anxious fears?
Many a man rules his life to this,
dreads and gasps and despairs to this,
prays that he may never come to this,
but you delude him on,
promising life after life.

I tell you, that
when we die, we cease ourselves to be.
Our senses stop their feeling,
our hearts stop their beating,
our brains stop their thinking,
and without those functions,
there ends a man.

So there are no souls
to greet gods in heavens,
nor any demons
to meet in hells,
only the ground we stand on,
and the caskets underneath.

Is this frightening?
Maddening, to think we must one day
cease to be and become nothing?
But death is not nothing;
Death is only a new dance of atoms.

When one thing tumbles,
it returns to the earth,
through one step or another,
to waltz and dissemble and collide
to make new things and again asunder.
With death, one only  
plays one's part
on the grand stage of things.

Do not be afraid then,
of death;
do not let it frighten you,
that you will be
pointless, forgotten, or condemned.
Do not let it terrify you
into leaving your life unlived.

And so I tell you,
you gloomy ones,
you Christians, you nihilists, you sufferers,
remember that you must live.
Embrace life,
this shortness of time,
love every moment of your being,
in all its depths of
suffering and misery and pain,
in all its depths of
striving and joy and pleasure.

Quick steps
hurried
breath
like
frosty
clouds
transparent
between the
stars
where
the moon
once
resided
iced in
heartache
and
sorrow.
Love
is
lost.
No deep
footprints
to guide
it home
and snow
has covered
our lungs
not
a word
uttered
on the
tundra
not a song
sung
in the
northern
lights
where guides
walk
like spirits
transformed
into
shadows
lingering
on
the
edge
of
consciousness.
I scream
a
guttural
call
reminding
me
of
the
animalistic
beast
lurching
across
the
bareness
of my
joy
I accept it
accept
the
thoughts
that
roam
tug
pull
push
****
at my sanity.
I’m no
longer
a
part
of
your
summer haze
the
bitterness
of
winter
has
set
deep
in my
bones.
Deep
in
my heart.
A
permafrost
that no
one
can thaw.
I
am
only
a
hopeless
soul
to
wander
alone
in
the
cold.
And
I
accept that.