Who can possibly stomach
Food after crying for over an hour?
That is why I have always found
Eating after a funeral
Just a tiny bit awkward.
They always buy tons of
Cookies and sandwiches and sodas
But what is the point?
Are these earthly luxuries
Supposed to bring us some sort of twisted comfort
In this time of deep grief?
Therefore,
When I am offered food following a funeral
I will politely say
"I'll pass."

Falling for someone you can never be with
Is like looking through a window.
Watching from afar and pining
Wishing I was five years older
And that he was not married
To someone beautiful.
Beautiful people tend to attract each other.
Sometimes I lust for him
Through this broken pane
And wish he was not such a good person
Not such a nice guy
Not so madly in love.
Whenever people ask why I don't date
I simply tell them I am over high school boys
But I don't explain that there is a man
Who enters in and out of my dreams.
My fingers run along the cracks
And I begin to bleed
The chipped glass punctures my once thick skin
My calloused heart has been ruptured
By a tiny shard
That I call
*Love, unrequited.

He tells me that this is a normal reaction
So why do I feel so slimy?
I hate getting upset, I just do
Plus he doesn't know everything

I suppose I could tell him
How all I do is sleep and cry when I'm at home
I suppose I could show him
My writing, my poetry
The areas of my mind in which bulimia and self harm make themselves comfortable
In my thoughts

Then, maybe he would understand
How broken and crazy I really am
But then again
I guess crazy is relative.

He acts like I'm a sweet kid
He treats me like I mean something
Like I have potential
I wish I could get that thought through my thick skull.

All I want is to tell all these people
Who, for whatever reason, believe in me
That I do not believe in myself.
I wish I could show them
The scars on various parts of my body
And the ones that etched themselves into my mind.

They do not know that I am insane
For if they did
Would they still care about my well being
As much as they act like they do now?

Sadly, I think not.

They see it
Suddenly the mold I am trying to keep begins to crack
And the clay is ruined from the creases that form
As the pieces begin to fall away
Because life is chipping at each and every one for every second that I breathe
Every single day

Now, the exact people who I was trying to keep out
The ones who I wanted to respect me
Because I respect them so much
The ones who I kept putting on this face for
This false confidence that was the type of bravado a high school football player exerts when he says
"I got this" on the day of his first game
And he puffs out his barrel chest but really he is shaking in his cleats
They are the ones who know how not okay I am.

My extremely attractive (and married...but attractive nonetheless) teacher has seen me sob over my grades
Another, who reminds me of my grandpa, has seen me break down during a movie
That stirred up feelings of anxiety due to my current situation
And still a guidance counselor who, over the years, has been more of a father figure to me than my own father has been
Has seen me completely depleted because I cannot pull myself out of this situation that is draining the color from my skin
And the life from my soul

They do not get it
How am I supposed to just sit here and watch my best friend in this ungodly amount of pain
Because her father just died
And realize that I can do nothing about it
Without wanting to fall apart and come undone at the seams of my very being?

So now,
All I do is cry and sleep
And sleep and cry.
I can feel the remains of depression
Trickling down the back of my neck like sticky sweat
That triggers a nerve and makes every hair stand straight up.

Who am I?
I am just some nervous wreck basket case
Walking talking hot mess
To some, I am just some overly emotional *****
Who cannot keep her mood in check
And who invites pain and drama into her life.
Is that all that my life has become?
There must be more
There must be more

If there is not
Would it hurt me to fall into some indefinite coma that is synonymous to a black hole that will swallow my life
Into an undefined space, somewhere
As if I am just sleeping in limbo.

I never wanted you around
With your ashy olive-colored skin
Or the way your hair stuck to your forehead
With particles of sweat that bound it to your face
Or your muddy brown eyes
That hunted me down as though I was prey
And you were a dog on the prowl.

I never wanted you to say
That all of this was "just a game"
I was only seven years old and my childhood disappeared before my eyes
Who are you to steal that untouched innocence from my slim finger tips
Like sand, it slipped through my hands

I never wanted to believe
That I was just some textbook ****** assault victim
With a case of PTSD and low self esteem
That could literally **** anybody
It almost killed me
I became a statistic at best

I never wanted to talk about it
It took every ounce of strength that I could muster up in my small frame even though I was slightly overweight
At fourteen, seven and a half years later
I blurted out every detail of every heinous thing you had done to me
They said it would be empowering to talk about it
But it was horrible and dehumanizing at the time.

I never wanted to blame myself
Because I had the perfect situation after I spoke out
Everyone believed me, which is heaven compared to a lot of people I know
Who talked about this awful and unspeakable act and were ridiculed and spat at
By people they were supposed to be able to trust.
It is like facing abuse twice

I never wanted to admit
That you contributed to my bulimia and mental illness and promiscuity
That had you not hurt me
Maybe I could have been okay.
That I was so weak and unbalanced because of you
So I turned to everything else.

Now, many other girls experience the same torture daily
Sometimes this results in an unwanted love child
And I tend to find the word "love child" a bit ironic
Because this is the ultimate act of hate.

How can Rick ******* then turn around and tell us
That **** victims should make the best of a bad situation?
How can Cee Lo then tweet that
**** is not **** if the victim is unconscious?
How can so many bigoted men and republicans
Use alcohol to excuse assaulters and condemn survivors?

Why do we continue to tolerate this
And all of the ******* laws that still exist in 31 states
That allow a ****** to still claim custody of their children?

I have a secret for you
The child, the mother, the wife, the son, the daughter, the sister
Every victim, every survivor, everywhere
Regardless of whether they were drunk, sober
Man, woman, gay, straight, trans, or bisexual
Black, white, yellow or blue
*They never wanted to, either.

The feeling is creeping up my throat
It makes my toes tingle and burn
This rage, this sickness, this aching
That wells inside of me
I'm screaming silently
Can anybody hear me?

They don't tell you you're ******* insane
Until you outline your detailed plans to
Jump off of a building and land face down
On a one way train to Hell

When all you want is the voices that penetrate your every thought
To shut their lying mouths
Because if people could hear the things that you tell yourself
Day after day, night after sleepless night
They would have you arrested for cruelty and terroristic threats
All you want is peace and silence, just for once in your fifteen years of living.

Then, they start to rethink it
Then, they start to consider the possibility that you are not alright
And your brain is spinning and spinning and spinning
Until the dizziness is too much for your mental state
And you begin to crumble beneath their feet.

This is what happened to me
Is it what happened to you?
I miss you like crazy
The ones you left behind are still reeling
At the thought that your wound was never bandaged enough
To save your beautiful and creative mind
Your outlook on all of these tragedies inspired us to be more than human beings

And now?
We're utterly and terribly lost
In this world with no direction
Because our road maps have been tainted with blood stains and stigma

Nobody talks about it
Until it happens to them
The pain, the agony, the discontentment that comes with
The notion that you could not have saved someone
But the wish that had they stayed around
They could have saved you

And now we're the ones
Giving other people the classic Ted Talks and using
Every textbook psychology lesson you learn during your freshman gen. ed. class
"Suicide is never the answer"
"If I overcame it, you can too"

So am I just supposed to get better overnight?
I can't talk about where I am in recovery because
If I tell people that there are still times when hanging from a noose
Over the side of someone's deck somewhere
Sounds better than continuing to live in this half *** world that doesn't give a **** about me
I'd be telling the truth
But nobody wants to hear that truth.

The disappointment that flooded my parents' faces when they heard the words
"I don't want to be here anymore"
Was too much for me
And facing that kind of disapproval again
Would leave me reeling.

So now, kids all around the world face
What I face everyday
A choice as to
Grin and bear it
Or show the gritty, less than glamorous side effects of recovery
And of relapse.

Kids around the world
The survivors
The attempters
The cutters
The addicts
Are screaming
I'm not insane, I'm human
I'm not crazy, I'm recovering
I'm not an illness, I'm me.

Gunshots fire
Telephones ring
Crowds become mobs
Children scream
Why do we choose to ignore it?

The "American Way" is
So inwardly, selfishly focused
And yet within our own little world
Racial tensions are stretched to the limit
Gender roles still exist
Little girls are told they are not pretty enough
And never will be
Little boys are told that if they cry
They are weak
Why do we do this?

Then, peak across the globe
27 million slaves
Yes, they do exist

150 years after
The most "advanced" country in the world
Eradicated it
We can and choose to
Do nothing to stop this epidemic.

Think of your daughter
If you have one, or ever hope to have one
Consider a man who is significantly older than she
Buying and selling her as though she is a toy
To entertain older men
And their sick and twisted desires.

Ten years from now
I want my daughters to be safe
Fifteen years from now
I want my sons to know
That women are humans too.

Twenty years from now
I want my children to feel accepted
No matter the color of their skin pigments

Twenty five years from now
I do not want my kids to think
That money can solve their problems
I do not want them to be as sick of hearing
How rapidly our unemployment rate has risen
Even for the most well educated of those among us.

I am not okay
With the standard
That my predecessors have established for me

I do not accept
The path that people have paved in the past
And they expect me to walk down it rigidly
As if it is my role

I am *******
That this world is failing
To give us, the underdogs, the outcasts
The ones who are "too young to understand"
A fighting chance at not only surviving
But truly living a fulfilling life

So aren't you?
Our children deserve a better world
A better path
So it's time we pave them one.