We're almost touching.
we were walking side by side,
you're talking about cabs in your hometown.
I can feel the gravity of your hand, calling my fingers
whispering "it's alright."

We're touching but not quite.
you held my shoulder to protect me from the passing cars.
and for the first time in a long while, I felt so fragile.
In this world where I find it hard even to breathe,
you believed me.

I almost said it.
All I need is one ounce of strength to tell you every single thing that I have ever felt about you.

I want to find home in your collarbones.
Would you be kind enough to let a stranger in?
I want to seep in your being because I'm cold.
The world is harsh and my cracks are aching.

Almost.

I used to stay awake until morning
because I knew the monsters under my bed
would disappear with the sunlight.
it always worked back then, but now,
there is a monster that has buried itself
under the skin of people I love.
I've been waiting for the sunlight.
I've been waiting for the promise
that this will come to an end.

when I think the sun is coming out,
the tyrant finds another person to attach strings to,
another person to throw on a stage,
forcing them to tell their audience
I don't have a problem.
sometimes there are stars littering the sky,
but there's never enough light to drop the curtain
on this perpetual nighttime.

I am stuck at a funeral procession where bodies
are being rotated in and out of the casket.
I don't know how to let go of this grief.
it is said that exposing someone to a fear
is the best way to help them overcome it,
but that never taught me to be less afraid.
it only taught me why I am.

"Please, daddy!"
You were walking so fast.
Too fast for my little feet to keep up.
Was it that easy for you to leave me?

You heard my tear-filled screams, but you never stopped.
You just kept going.
Farther and farther away, not even trying to get one last look at me.
I punched, pulled, and pushed trying to make you stop.
You didn’t.
You just kept going.
Leaving me behind.
"Please don’t leave me!"

Pain.
I remember it too well.
The heart throbbing pain.
We watched as you left.
Me and mommy.
My eyes were wet.
Hers were dry, cold.
As if she knew this would happen.

I looked into mommy's eyes.
Her brown eyes tangled with lies.
Lying to me for you.
How long do I have to wait for you before you realize that what you did was a mistake? What was the reason you stayed away for so long?
Was it all the stupid crap you did in the past or is it because you don’t want me anymore?

Since you left, I dreamed of your return.
The day you would wrap me in your arms and whisper in my ear,
"I'm sorry for what I did. I promise I will never leave you again,
my little Cookie Monster."
Then I wake up, hoping to see you.
Praying that it wasn’t all a dream.
But reality soon caught up, and the dream quickly died.

I remember all the tears I had rushing down my face
as I saw you leave me and mommy behind, to never return.
I'm so incomplete without you, I need my daddy back in my life.
You deceived me, you said you would always be there.
You pinky promised.
You broke your promise.
How can I trust you again?

Do you still think of me as your "cookie monster" or
a daughter you never loved, a daughter you could leave behind without a single goodbye in the blink of an eye? I wish you were here to watch me grow up but we both know that will never happen.

"I miss you so much! Won’t you please come back to me, daddy?
I just need to see your face one last time."
Am I that disappointing I need to work to make you love me?

“Hey, daddy even if you don’t love me I will always love you no matter what happens.”
I bet you didn't even think about how I would feel when you left.
No, you only thought of yourself like you always do.

You missed all my birthdays, first dates, father-daughter dances,
and you may even miss my wedding, not that you even care.
Did you know that I would wait for the postman to bring the mail and check to see if there was a letter for me? But there never was.
I eventually stopped going, knowing nothing was there for me.  

"Well, daddy looks like you really didn't care about me buts it's in the past. Now I have a family who loves me, stays with me, and likes for who I am.
I don't need you anymore.”

Daddy, I still need you. Please, come back.

I keep my old pill bottles.
not because I plan to reuse them,
or fill them with extra beads,
stray sewing needles
random coins,
a travel pack of Q-tips,
or tiny paint tubes that I might use to somehow make my mental illnesses art.
I keep my old pill bottles because they are me.
I keep my old pill bottles because they are one month of me.
they are not me because they have my name,
address,
medicine,
doctor,
pill quantity,
pharmacy,
Rx number printed on them in ******* ink.
they are me because they held the chemicals my body could not dream of creating.
What they hold is not beautiful. it is not deep.
it is a second leg you have to re-stitch every day because your body didn't know how to grow one.
Those bottles hold the pills that make me, me.
I feel because of them,
I sleep because of them,
I live because of them.
Before them, I was not human.
I was a body with partial instructions.
Every Month I have to get another extension of myself from the local CVS.
Every month I put an empty bottle in the box on my nightstand because that bottle held what I was last month.

it's strange looking at a small white pill knowing that someday this month, that pill will be the reason you react to something important the way you did or the one you forget to take causing a break down in your English class.

It's strange how I can be manufactured so easily.

i'm Sat here contemplating existence
waiting for my family to rise from bed
my heart pUlsating
stIll hating those in power
always stating my beliefs
thoughts of suiCide rotating In my minD
concEntrating on my poetry