it’s funny
because while everything appears sound,
i know where the weak spots in the walls are-
in the drywall sloppily smeared with spackle
to make it a bit more presentable to passersby

if i run my fingers over the wall, they skim,
briefly pausing, and then continue

the soft spots.

i can’t see them, but i know they’re there
how could i forget

if i apply the slightest amount of pressure,
i can feel the material begin to give,
to fold into itself

my soft spots.

a gentle reminder
that while my appearance suggests “intact”,
there are holes i can fall right back into
if i let myself

if i let someone else push me
if i let them guide me
naïvely

this is why i keep people at arm’s length

keep your friends close and your enemies closer…
but you’re all enemies
if you're on the other side of my wall

one chance.
one opportunity to determine your place.
no redemption.

i was banking on the third time being the charm

i didn't really have anything else to lose

i let it all slip away- allowed my most vulnerable parts to be taken from me

by soft hands with sickening intentions

maybe they weren't all intentions- but their makers set their own fates

imagine how it must feel
to have someone tell you they care
tell you they know what it's like
to have organs ripped from your chest
to have them promise you
you're safe in their presence
and safer in their arms
only to have them turn into
the person they swore they weren't

it feels like nothing

nothing at all


there is blank space and silence




three times

three times


forgive me if i raise my white flag

it's hard for me to breathe without your heart
but it's harder for me without my own

i break
and then i hear your voice
and it pulls me back out
of what i pushed myself into

and then
i think about
how i wasn't able
to do it myself

how i needed
another being
another body
to convince my own
not to chase the flatline

and
i break
all over again

it's pouring right now
but you'd never know that
nineteen floors up

not sure of the time
but that's okay

the thought of those hands
on the watch face
but your hands
not on my face
cripples me

all of the i's
in the letters i write you
get their dots
but i miss yours
and how i drowned
every time i looked
into them

i've given a few people
shy smiles
on the street
and have received
odd stares
in return

smiles that were not
meant for them
but instead for you
because i'd hear
what i thought
was your voice
behind me

it wasn't behind me
though
it was within me
and i'm not even
certain
it was your voice
i was hearing
because even that
is blurring

it's raining now
no longer pouring
i stand up
and look down
into the night

i wonder if you
think of me
when i think
of you
it's quite often
that i do this

but part of me
fears that if i don't
i'll lose you
in every other way
i haven't already
managed to

that homeless man you passed
on the corner of king and bay
the one yelling furiously into the night
drove himself crazy missing a woman
who hasn’t thought about him
for three decades

the woman who stands behind the counter
filling prescriptions day in and day out
can’t think of anything she hates more
because it's what’s in those sealed bottles
that put her son in his coffin
at just nineteen

the man sitting in a maximum security cell
has run out of clean pages to write on
so he carves his love for a girl
he’s only spoken to once
into the wall with a bent nail
hoping and praying that one day
his words will reach her

a little boy sits on the curb
watering the grass with his tears
and wonders what it’s like to love
and what it’s like to be loved back

so when they tell you
there’s so much to be happy about
i’m not sure where they get that
because no matter where i go
all i see is sadness

this is not a poem. no poetic format would be able to handle this prose, so here it is, raw and real and in the moment (and every other moment as well).

i don’t belong anywhere. i have no purpose, yet i’m stuck. i am being kept here against my will. the resistance is brutal. no house, no street, no pair of arms can be a home to me. i am unlovable, and that is a fault of my own. i have made myself this way.

i used to always long for companionship; now i never let anyone get too close. the amount of pain i will bring you is not worth the fight, i promise. i tell everyone to stay away, knowing it is for their own good. wasting time on an impending doom is no way to live a life. so go on and live yours.

sometimes things move way too fast; other times, they don’t move fast enough. i can feel the crowds push me down the city sidewalks. i can’t find my feet, i don't know how to step forward; my lungs lose themselves somewhere in my body. i can never remember how to breathe. and then everything stops. pause. and then it starts again, only now, the crowds move differently. it’s too slow. go faster, go faster, i can handle this. i can deal with it. but the constant change makes me realize i can’t. no amount of practice can prepare me for this reality. i will never be ready for what’s already here.

there is this growing, black hole somewhere within me. i cannot locate it, and it cannot be seen from the surface. but its presence leaves me with a feeling that can never be forgotten. i have tried to push it out of my head, but this stain has set itself into my white sheets for eternity.

what is morning, and what is night. it all feels the same to me. every day is connected to the previous and the following. it’s just one, big, never-ending day, then, and i am part of the same tragic cycle.

there are cuffs around my ankles and chains anchoring me to the ground. there are rocks sitting at the bottom of my stomach. inside, it is cold and dark; i think it has been this way ever since things became too much for me. i am deserted.

but i am not a walking ghost town. i am not barren. in fact, i’m quite the opposite. i am a fountain, practically overflowing with sadness. there is so much of it, and it keeps building on itself. it keeps pulling me down. life under the water’s surface, they call it- always looking up makes you want to drown.

filled with sadness, yet simultaneously empty. i have felt almost everything there is to feel, i am certain of it. the only feelings i am familiar with now are the ones characterized by falling rain and colorless walls. i have forgotten what happiness is. i don’t even know if i ever was truly happy, and i don't think i’ll ever be given a chance to try once more.

so here i am, feeling everything again, and being miserable while doing it. i’ve gotten stuck in this vicious rotation of feeling different things at once. like when you mix every single paint color you own together. individually, they might be likable. you might have a favorite, and then a not-so-favorite. but when all of them are swirled together, it doesn’t create anything beautiful. it creates an ugly, overwhelming mess. true, you still have all of your colors, you’ve still got everything you started with; but through having everything, you now have nothing. after all the colors have run together, you’re left without a color, with black; the same nothingness that hangs in my chest.

this- this is how i feel. it is such a terribly defeating feeling.

and i think it’s feeling so much of everything at once that makes me want to feel nothing at all.

to miss someone is to
long for them uncontrollably

my mother tells me
she will miss me
now that i’m away
but she will not

she will miss having me
under her roof
to abuse and treat
like a dust rag

i’ve been around her
long enough to know
her threats are empty
sometimes i wish they weren’t

my father tells me
he will miss me as well
now that we won’t see
each other every day
he won’t miss me either

he will miss teaching me
how to be miserable
and he will miss having someone
to be miserable with

he silently swears the solution
to all problems in life
can be found
at the bottom of a bottle

i’ve searched through
all different proofs
and have found nothing
but isolation and darkness

the bottomless pit within
fills me to the brim
but i’m still so empty

a sky full of stars
or an elevator
packed with hot bodies
it doesn’t matter
the nights are still lonely

the people i loosely call friends
always tell me i’m never alone
i try to tell them
my self-reliance is not the problem
but we’re not even reading
the same book

keep your thoughts to yourself
do not speak to me
do not sympathize
i am desperate
but not for your acceptance

let me be as i’ve been
it will always be this way
i’m used to the empty feeling
nothing gold can stay

i can’t speak for frost
i can’t confirm his notion
i’ve never held anything golden
other than you

but my palms
they weren’t large enough
and my heart
dedicated to you
too many of its beats

i scare everyone away
and those who don’t run
i push until they walk
i don’t want company
unless it’s yours
and i will never have that

i try to fill your shadow
but nothing is so priceless
alcohol makes me mourn
sleep does not console

violent silence
it pushes me to the ledge
the thoughts beckon
we’ve been through this before
why do i hesitate

amongst the leaves that fall from the trees in early october
in the sky, your face peeking through the clouds
between the pages of your beloved copy of plath's classics
and in the frost covering the kitchen window
i see you

in your son's face and your daughter's personality
in the morning dew draped over the front lawn
among the crystalline snowflakes as they venture down from the nothingness above
and between the rock and the hard place
i see you

in times of need, mourning, and desperation
in times of excitement, pride, and aggravation
i see you

I liked when
you kissed me
with your lips
instead of
with your fists
a lot better,
but I'll take
anything
over you
being foreign
to me again

thoughts
fears
aspirations
goals
hopes
dreams

reflections
interactions
misinterpretations
observations

i read this list
the list you started
so many years before
back in the beginning

i sit in your shadow
and read it
with swollen eyelids
and a heavy heart
but not nearly as heavy
as the silence
that now fills the room
your room

the space
you can no longer fill
and will never
be able to fill again

i trace your letters
with my finger
and hear your voice
dictating the scribble
on the page
as I try to follow along
through thick tears

i don't know
which is worse
being forced to
let you go
or being haunted
by the memories
taking your place

pen on paper
ink pulses through your heart
and flows through your veins
as you try to liquify your feelings
for the person who refuses
to give you the time of day

the steady noise of city traffic
to give you perspective
and the calm hum of the radio
to soften your worn skin

you let the smoke from your cigarette linger
so the room doesn't feel so empty
and watch the flames of your candles
curl up into the darkness
as your thoughts float out the open window
and down into the street

nothing is how it was before
but it's too late to go back now

the paper sits on the desk
ready to absorb the day's regrets
but it remains blank

despite the extreme intimacy between
the giver and receiver,
your thoughts refuse to move from your bruised fingertips to the sheet

you've wasted all of your ink on him
shame on you for not realizing sooner

I never knew what drowning felt like until I started having trouble
keeping my head above all the lies you had me swimming in

I could no longer feel the ground beneath my feet;
I had once felt so secure, coupled to the earth's surface,
but that security had quickly been replaced with the fear
and realization of who you really were
as soon as you began pushing me under

I could hear myself screaming for help, but nobody else could
my mind had been disconnected from my mouth,
and my thoughts were no longer being transmitted
I felt like I was looking at you through frosted glass;
I knew you were there, but your figure was blurry and distorted;
I could no longer make out the details

what I was seeing (or what I couldn't see),
along with the absence of oxygen, left me gasping for breaths
I knew would never fill my lungs again

it was too late, and this was too much

I wished so desperately that I hadn't let you get under my skin;
I'd never been afraid of large bodies of water
I welcomed the ocean into my life just as much as he had
welcomed me into his, using gentle currents to pull me closer
each time I visited

but he had turned against me, now under your control

you found the breach in my walls,
and I was foolish enough to let you in

the currents were no longer gentle;
the undertow had me out to sea before
I could make sense of what had happened,
and the dark water began to envelop me
your voice squeezed the last breath of air out of my throat while
your empty stare pushed me farther under the surface

the light slowly drifted up past me as the ringing in my ears
was drowned out by the deafening silence,
now suffocating me

I could feel sand beginning to build up,
first in my feet, then in my legs

I stopped resisting and let my eyelids flutter shut,
falling in harmony with my body

there was nothing to do
you were gone

darkness is the only thing I have ever known since