Three years ago, I first came out about what you did to me
You twisted my reality into knots too tight for me to undo
Two months ago, I began to remember more
Like my life was pulling a string,
Drawing my memories out of me
Because repression can only prove effective for you so long
You see, repression can only hide things until they come up
Books, movies, media
You see, repression can only hide things until you experience a similar circumstance once more
When I said no and he kept prying
You see, repression can only hide things until it can't
Until I can't hold back everything in my being
Because I want to cut my tongue out of my own mouth
As my voice begins to fail
As I realize there are men in this world who will not listen to me
As I was so confident and outspoken at one time
And now my meekness is the only suitable way for me to find a husband
I am only eighteen, and yet my voice trails off at the end of sentences
You finished them for me long ago
But my teenage years were considered a grace period
Society now tells me as I enter adulthood
It is my duty to be prim and proper
I am only as worthy as I am pretty and sweet
Because ladies are suppose to talk with the gentleness of flowers
The goodness of a saint
And the purity of the church steeple.
I have already killed those flowers
Hoodwinked the saint
And burnt the church down!
I will raise my fist and scream "*******!" to the world because it tells me I cannot
You make have spoken for me before
But I am taking my voice back
In a world that has every intention of keeping me silent.

Child,
Didn't they tell you this is only
Casual?
As he presses his body against your
You climb on top of him
As he becomes your mountain
You become his avalanche.

His fingertips electrocute you
With every touch
A spark ignites
Dancing across your neck
Tantalizing your stomach
Bursting on the surface of your legs

He makes every inch of you feel special.
You see his ex-lovers and feel insecure
He pilfers every ounce of doubt you ever felt
And molds it into trust.
Magical, it seems

His smile stretches your dimples
Across the globe
Makes your smile light from the inside
Out.

And suddenly,
Your falls disintegrate
Your facade dissolves
Your falseness dissipates
Because
This doesn't feel so
Casual
Anymore.

Hating yourself is such a funny way to die
As your words like daggers cut into the limp skin behind your kneecaps
Or the electricity in your back
They know exactly how to make it hurt the most
Before your demise.
Your thoughts become the finger in your throat
The "don't eat, you're always fat" mentality
The "I'm not hungry, but thanks" facade
Then in the bathroom, alone with your disarray
All the grief you give yourself is tied in the shape of a noose
Perceptive perspective ******* is clouding your vision
Until the face in the mirror becomes someone else completely.
You're wish is its command
Because you are no longer you
But isn't that what you wanted?
Be careful what you wish for
Because becoming someone else completely
Can chip away the pieces of the sculpture
Until there's nothing there
At all.

To the freshman sitting alone on the bus
Counting the scars on your wrists like train tracks
Creating a laundry list of the socially acceptable ways
To **** yourself.
Wondering if you'll jump off a bridge this year
Or bleed out in your bathtub next summer,
They'll be watching you.
You wish you could tell them they're wrong
You're different than all the depressed emo kids in the bad movies
Plastered to the television set like gum on the bottoms of desks
You're popular
But you're not pretty
Or happy.

To the freshman can I just tell you
In four years, you'll be happy.
To the freshman can I just tell you
You are pretty, you are beautiful, they all love you.
To the freshman can I just tell you
That the amount of likes you have on your profile picture
Equates to dust dissipating in the distance
To the freshman can I just tell you
The earth's curved wall will keep you grounded as you go through Hell
To the freshman can I just tell you
You don't know what *** feels like right now
But it is both amazing, like birthday balloons racing through your stomach
And overrated.
To the freshman can I just tell you
That a friend's overdose, two grandfathers' deaths, and one suicide later
You're still here.
To the freshman can I just tell you
Losing friends is the only way you know you can rely on yourself
It hurts like crazy, but the bleeding heals
And you find your own skin was the agent.
To the freshman can I just tell you
You'll go through horrific fashion trends
(Though none worse than the skeletons of middle school)
And still come out looking ****.
To the freshman can I just tell you
Graduation is not far away.
To the freshman can I just tell you
You're going to be ******* fantastic.
To the freshman can I just tell you
How ******* fantastic it is
To grow up to be me.

That weekend
      I felt
Love
For my gay best friend
As he was the first person with whom I felt completely comfortable
Sharing my attraction toward a woman.
The first time I felt like a woman
And I felt like he was a man.
We laughed until sun melted into moonlight
Why would I go to prom with a straight boy?

That weekend
       I felt
Fear
Taking a serpentine system of public transportation for the first time
Getting lost in an unfamiliar state
And my parents knew about none of it.
I grew up fast that day
Swallowed my pride at the same time
Reading colorful street signs an asking strangers for directions
I met a kind bus driver who clearly felt sorry for me
Let me ride for free
And gave me his number to make sure I was safe.

That weekend
     I felt
Odd
As my best friend's church was all Asian
People looked at me a little backwards.
A mysterious boy with dark eyes was the only reason
I didn't get lost in the shuffle.
I finally felt what it was like to be a minority
And while everyone there was accepting of me
It wasn't particularly comfortable.
It was humbling for me to see
What others go through on the daily.

That weekend
    I felt
Grown
First trip on my own
Check.
Meeting my college roommate
Check.
And that same mysterious boy?
He was my tour guide
When my friend was teaching little children
About Jesus.
I wanted him to tour other things
And I fell like a brick for him
But I failed to mention
He was not just some teenage boy from a middle school dance
That's so Disney movie.
He was a man
With broad shoulders and a college education
And a faith so deep
I could only wish to swim in it.

Straighten your back, girl
Stand up, molded into their prodding expectations
Crack neck
Crick, crick
Prison face
Prison cell:

Pick apart the pieces of your face
Like glass, ready to shatter
Tears stain it like windows
Peering into my own loneliness;

And so, the reaping begins.

Eyebrows, too thick
Hair, too thin
Scars, too many
Must cover
Color, not enough
Must fake

Brutal fat jokes are the dagger in my spine
Painting me red and black and blue:

"Fat girl's so fat she..."
"Fat girl's momma's so fat she..."
"Fat girl's whole family's so fat
I wonder where she gets it's from."

My genes were always one size too large
And everybody could tell
No matter how much I tried to make myself up
My family history was engraved in my love handles;

Even the biting words of fifth graders could serve as a poignant reminder
That no matter how much you can do to curb your appetite
You can't curb where you come from.

I always wonder why it feels
Like looking through my own eyes
At someone else's life.

Although,
That life fails to address
How much fatter her ******* mouth is
It could swallow the sea if her family whole
We all want to be a mouth
Or become absorbed by one:

And though some may say
It'll turn her up dead
She says it makes her
Dead ****.

The first time I met remission
She was the warmth of a lover's arms
A stream of sunlight amid the fog
A snowflake in the desert.

The first time I met remission
Was the first time I sat in health class
And talked about dieting
Without feeling like the target
Nor the antithesis
Of the conversation.

The first time I met remission
I no longer felt like the "fat girl"
I embraced the fact
That fat was not a synonym
To my worst fears.
Fat not ugly
Fat not worthless
Fat still beautiful
Fat always beautiful

The first time I met remission
I knew exactly who she was
As these were not conscious thoughts
That I had the ability to switch off
Just as my bulimia
Did not function as a series of buttons I could control
At least not in the throes of it.

The second time I met remission
I felt my knees hit the bathroom tiles
My spine broke into the floor
But I was physically sick
And I did not get flashes of memory
Of the glamour and horror
In which my disorder used to manifest itself
Daily.

I continue to meet remission
I talk to her on a regular basis.
She showed up a year and a half into my recovery.
She is the guardian angel
I never knew I needed.

I continue to meet remission
She reminds my that even this
Is not the end.
She tells me that even the chapter of my life
Characterized by binging and purging
Characterized by acting inhumane
Characterized by hating myself
Is like ash in the water now.
She reminds me
That just because one chapter was unbecoming
My story isn't over yet.

In 2002
Christina Aguilera released a single called
"Beautiful."
Do you remember how revolutionary those words
"I am beautiful
No matter what they say
And words can't bring me dow-own"
Seemed to be?
Well, it still seems visionary
As to many
I am only as beautiful
As a man says I am.
Only reduced to pretty face
Only reduced to **** body
Only reduced to nothing.
My mouth
Do they call that beautiful?
Only if the paint spilling from it
Comes in the shades "sorry" and "yes"
Because rewind to the time I was sixteen
And two men at my job deemed it fit
To tell me explicitly what they would do to my body
In front of a room full of customers.
So I told them exactly what my fist would do to their face
And penalized for it.
They said I was rude
They said that while it was vile
It was not my place to fight back.
Well, I am fighting back right now!
To not be reduced to pretty face
To **** body
To nothing.
My mouth
My mind
My heart
Is beautiful
No matter what they say
Even if they tell me to say nothing
At all.

I see my reflection in your teeth
Between cracked lips
My body reflects off of the most violent part of you
That you use everyday.
I try to pry myself from your skin
Your stench saturates my sanity
I cannot look at myself the same way
I cannot look at you at all.

You continue, to chew & chew
And I continue, to wash & wash

Violently trying to cleanse myself of you.

Breaking down is not so hard to do
As I spiral into some sort of psychosis
Disillusion is the ultimate form of madness
Because you just keep spinning
Until you hit the ground
Unaware of the fact
you are even broken.

I wear your conquests like a chain around my neck
i.
The first time you violated my body
ii.
The time I told, embarrassed of myself, and for what?
iii.
The time I thought I had let go, but still could not stop tearing my up mind
iv.
The times I lost sleep because I feared you would find me

I hate you
I don't.
I hate you
I make excuses for you
I hate you
I hate me.

You taught me things I must consciously forget to remember
You remind me of things I must consciously remember to forget
As you chew, rip, tear at my skin
And my beating heart
I hope your teeth crack with every bite.

i.
"I do not support war
                                 in any context."
My father told me making blanket statements such as this
                     is foolish and naive.
   No one will ever take me seriously
sometimes war is necessary.
                    No.
The pacifist in my bones
             hates bloodshed
                       hates       violence.
The recovering self mutilator in my chest
              was only okay with it
                    if it was directed
                                                                                                 at myself.
War removes
                                   flesh and bone
                                   blood and life
                                   love and hope.
It makes it impossible even to live in the world
even to be able to
                                       breathe.

ii.
"People can coexist
                 once prejudices are eradicated."
Father calls this
                  "liberal propaganda"
   He'd rather bask in his ignorance
Listen to Fox News
                                                 Where all his "facts" are spat at him
By old white dudes and
                        coined hot blondes.
Freddie Gray did not need to die
                                                        Michael Brown did not need to bleed
                             Eric Garner was merely trying to
                                                    breathe.

iii.
"Anxiety isn't just
                                stress."
My mother tells me in the midst of the storm
                                                                       That it is not even
                                                            raining.
She continues to hammer the belief
                     into my brain
that if I would stop stressing myself out
                                                     *I would be okay.
Mom,
                                                                             I'm not alright.
Mom,
                                                                             I seldom get sleep at night.
Mom,                                                              
                                                                             I can't hold on much longer.
Mom,
                                                                             I can't even
                                      breathe.

iv.
"You feel depression everywhere."
                                  This one is true
in part.
Sometimes,
                                                                             depression is a freight train,
bruising your sickly lungs
smashing your broken heart
pressing a knife into your back
                                                                                                       and twisting.
But other times,
                                                                           depression is the absence of
                                                                                                            all feeling
And that
                                                                                                     is all you feel.
                                                         the remainder of the knife in the back
                                                         the shatter pieces of your broken heart
                                                         the shriveled up portions of your lungs
leaving you constricted so tightly
you find yourself struggling to
                                              breathe.

v.
"When I fall,
                     I fall hard."
I sit on the suede couch
                                                                                   in my shrink's office.
We try to gather the scattered bones
                                                                       I lost after falling off the wagon
                                           yet again.
Relapse will never stop *******,                                  not because of the behavior
               but because of how much faith you lose
                                                                                                         in yourself.
Questions flood your body's once stable floor
                                               How could I let this happen?
   &nb

Anxious hand
Stop shaking.
They can hear it rattling in your bones
All the broken pieces of your soul
Clanging together
Like chimes in the wind.

Nervous heart
Stop beating.
I want you to move
Only less.
Make me remember the times you beat
Because I was excited
The times I was able to feel something
Before this disease took me hostage.

Twisted mind
Stop falling.
The trap is holding you in it's talons
Like a wounded child
You cannot fight the claws
Attempting to grind you into bits.
You are sick
But they only see
Your clutter.

Broken body
Stop fighting.
When you try to resist the disorder
This dysfunction
This conqueror
You only hurt the very one
You have been trying to save.

I loved you the way
Samson loved Delilah
Foolishly.
I loved you the way
Aphrodite loved Adonis
Sensually.
I loved you fatally
Lustrously
Beautifully
Brokenly.
I loved you the way
A rose loves it's thorn
Too tender to the touch.
I loved you the way
I loved no one else
And that was far too much.

When you see his mother
You remember.
You remember the fear in your eyes
Terrified at the thought of being *****.
You remember the trembling in your voice
For the times he sent earthquakes through your body.
You remember the efforts it took to restore your soul
You were not an easy fix.
You took more time that he gave you
When he had his way with you
A child.
He got his way with a lot of things
He got his way when you were too fearful to take him to court
He got his way when he left no trace of evidence behind
He got his way when your father refused to see him again
But when you see his mother,
Roses in your hair
All dressed in black
Teardrops stain your cheeks like thumbprints
Pressed hard against your face.
You are not dressed for her, no
But for her brother
But for your grandfather.
When you see his mother
The damage he has done to her is comparable
To the damage he has done to you.
She cannot walk out the door
Without knowing her son is a child molester.
You cannot walk out the door
Without feeling guilty for what you have done to her.
It wasn't your fault, what happened to you
But in an odd way
You believe what happened to her
Was.
So together, synchronized
You paste on a face
You put yourself together
Opposite sides of the East Coast
Yet so in tune.
When you see his mother,
You forget yourself for a moment
As a river of guilt gushes out of your soul
You want to run
To, from, with her
You cannot escape.
To, from, with her
Your guilt lies.

A small needful fact
Is that 98% of women
Do not look like fashion models.
100% of American children
Are being lied to everyday
Told they are not normal
Told there is something wrong with them.
Another needful fact:
More than two million women
More than eight hundred thousand men
Are bulimic
Add, subtract, multiply, divide
Any way you try to solve the problem
It still exists like a parasite.
If any girl, boy, child, man, woman
Wants to escape these images
Running with cupped ears in the other direction
Hoping to save themselves
It follows them, rank with the smell of sewage
It is the ghost in the closet
Television set
Store aisle
Telling them they are not good enough
They cannot escape the lies so dense
Even their inner most breath
Is hot with deception
And so, even the most basic function of breathing
Becomes challenging.
Until we replace poison with water
Brokenness with holiness
Lies with truthfulness
These seemingly sorrowful statistics
Will never quite add up.

Truth be told
I want to cut my memory out of your veins
Watch you bleed me into a puddle on the floor
I hope you enjoy watching what you've done to me

Truth be told
Please don't speak my name again
It smells like rancid meat dripping out out of your saliva
You are not the first who has taken advantage
But I pray you will be the last

Truth be told
I don't really hate you
I just said that over the phone
Because I hated that I couldn't keep your faith in me
When your body came crashing into me like a tidal wave
Then, I had your trust
Then, I had your attention
Then, I had you

Truth be told
I don't miss you anymore
But I don't want you to remember me as I was
Or as I am
I know I will be someone of great esteem one day
And you?
You'll be here with your **** in one hand
And a pack of cigarettes in the other
Wishing I had been cut from your body
Before you let me inside.

i.
In the shower under cold water, I scrubbed and scrubbed
I wanted to rid myself of my own skin
Escape into a mine so I could live among the coal
A fuel almost as ***** as I felt.

ii.
As he pulled away from me
As he broke me into pieces
Shattered glass lay upon the seat of his car
I know what it's like to escape into a stranger's hot breath
The weight of a warm wash cloth upon my back
Pressing down again.

iii.
I prayed my wings would grow back in time
For me to fly to places I could never see
Before, my vision was black in white
Suddenly, I could see in color
His memory continues to pluck the feathers
But once again, I see the value of bone.

iv.
I tried to move on
Forget the thrashing of your memory
Like a gong, clanging symbol
Leave my mind alone
Leave me be

v.
Free me of broken pieces of the years I lost
Minutes, I lost bleeding from the inside out, razor eloquently in hand
Hours, I lost to purging myself of your uncleanliness
Days, I lost dredging my soul in therapy, hoping to dig up something that would do me some good
Years, I lost to the talons of PTSD
Depression
Anxiety.

vi.*
Finally, some hope
I taste it on my tongue like raindrops after the drought
Sunlight after the storm
I find myself
And lose the taint of you, heavy laden upon my skin
You are a cavity
Filled by love and support.
And finally, there's beauty in the struggle
It's anything but brief
Because the fight goes on
Forever.

Pull the trigger
Tick, tick, boom the bomb explodes
I am ticking like a time bomb
Ticking becomes tremors
Tremors become I can't breathe
Nor handle this much longer.

Pull the trigger
Touching me in certain ways
The smell of mushrooms
The anxiety that won't stop circling
All look like the barrel of a loaded gun.

Pull the trigger
Trigger warnings on songs, poems, anything
Aren't taken seriously
Causing me to have episodes
Causing me to bleed on the outside
From the inside out.
I now hardly exist
And these things make it harder
So please
Pull the trigger

This is the poem I never wanted to write:
The blaming myself for things out of my control poem;
The feeling crushed by everyone's expectations poem;
The I never knew I could hate myself this much poem;
The facing my own mind is scarier than facing any demon poem;
The shameless nights I'm embarrassed to own up to in the morning poem;
The talking too fast and scaring people away poem;
The crying too frequently and wanting to waste away like a rotting flower poem;
The meaningless metaphors and stale similes poem;
The I can't see his face because it fills me with grief poem;
The I can't see his mother's face because it fills me with guilt poem;
The but I didn't do anything wrong poem;
The but emotionally I can't grasp the concept poem;
The then, hands all over me poem;
The now, hands holding a bottle of Jack poem;
The no, I'm not an alcoholic but I get tipsy to cope poem;
The I never get just tipsy anymore poem;
The lying to my parents poem;
The clinging to my parents poem;
The hating myself for every bit of it poem;
The now we're finally getting somewhere poem;
The maybe I should tell my therapist what's going on in my head poem;
The maybe I better keep it to myself poem;
The losing faith in everything poem;
The needing faith in something poem;
The needing faith in myself poem;
The wounded bird learning to fly again poem;
The maybe I can finally move on poem;
This is the poem I've always wanted to write.

Dear you,
I miss you.
The name of a spice that smells so sweetly in the spring
Your name was so fitting.

Dear you,
How are you?
I live in my own pain that smells like a sewage plant
You have nothing do with it
You were always kind.

Dear you,
How dare you be so kind?
How dare you believe me
The person who accused your son of being a child molester?
Although, I never spoke poison
Everything I said was true
Why did you believe me?

Dear you,
I had trouble believing myself.
Knowing this happened
I detached so eloquently from the event
For seven years
I formed an alter ego
In which I could live comfortably

Dear you,
Are you comfortable?
I really do hope I didn't tear your family apart
As I seem to be so privy at
Why, just look at mine.
I played a heavy hand in the way
It's pretty ****** up

Dear you,
You are the only person who didn't treat me like a **** up
When you had every reason to
You never blamed me
You apologized for him
So why am I still holding onto this guilt?
Why am I so ashamed to see you?
Why am I so fearful?
Because, even though you never blamed me
I have always blamed myself.

Unwarranted guilt crushes you
Until you can't feel anymore.
First it's intense pain
Then it's utter numbness
No one tells you that after it shocks
It leaves you empty
To chase some sort of hope you've lost along the way
No one tells you guilt is not something you feel
It's something you are
Converting your mind to darkness
Before you know where you exist
Whether in a lover's arms
Or between your abuser's legs
No one tells you that even though it wasn't your fault
You will believe it was
You will hate yourself for thinking that way
Because it hinders you from healing
No one tells you that even though you live in a bubble
Frozen and devoid of emotion
Breathing is still hard
Not to feel the air moving and passing through your lungs
But to consciously have to keep it functioning
To keep going.
No one tells you physical symptoms occur
And it will take you days to notice the problem
Inability to move from your slumber
Check
Nausea every time you leave the house
Check
Recurrent headaches and migraines
Check
And yet
Nothing hurts anymore
No one tells you the reason you can't feel a thing
Is because you're not living
Is because you're barely surviving
Is because you're already dead.

The body breaks
My hands begin to snap at the wrist
My bones splinter, inch by inch
My skin removes itself from its tissue
My eyes can no longer see anything but darkness

The mind manipulates
My brain pretends things are there that are not
My hallucinations have never been so real
My PTSD has never been so confining
My mental illness has never isolated me this much
My thoughts have never been so tricked by fear

The heart hurts
My feelings lead me to become emotional
My conscience leads me to become guilty
My expectations lead me to become broken
My love for another leads me to become sterile

I fade
I die out
I become dust over the ocean
Over the grass
Over my fleeting bones
But You never will.

Now as my loneliness rages
And fire burns away my shell
I will learn to rely on You
You alone
I will soldier on
With You as my commander.

This is mania.
This is so much buzzing in my brain I can't break free
This is writing poetry at 2 AM
(Bad poetry)
This is crying hysterically for no reason
This is hallucinating
(Or am I dreaming with my eyes open?)
This is...oh, look at the time...it's 4 AM already?
This is screaming and punching myself in the arm over trivial matters
This is talking to the ex boyfriend
This is sleeping with the ex boyfriend
This is sleeping with anyone who looks at you
This is not thinking about it twice
This is I'm not very productive
This is realizing I haven't slept an ounce
This is I'm even bad at being manic depressive.

This is depression.
This is pumping a gallon of caffeine into my bloodstream just to get out of bed
This is forcing a faux smile on my face day to day
This is wanting to reopen wounds on my wrists that have been healed for two years
This is wearing his agony and his guilt on my shoulders like a heavy book bag
This is everything hurts, can I go home and sleep yet?
(After all, I didn't sleep last night.)
This is no makeup, don't care
This is I'm ugly anyway
This is I don't care about school
This is I am too fearful about the future
This is I am too fearful about everything
This is the anxiety that encases my body
This is the dread that fills my lungs
This is every desire to relapse
This is no productivity
This is why am I so sad today?
(Yet I'm not sad enough for someone to notice.)
This is I'm even bad at being manic *depressive.

They say nothing is forever
This too shall pass
I will see you again some day
My love
My support
My wonderful role model
I will see you again.
So as the broken pieces of a picture frame fall around me
I do not cut myself with the broken glass as my feet.
As my stomach twists and turns with my mind
I do not reach down my throat and purge myself of hope and comfort
As the waves of depression crash around my mind
I do not submit myself to their will
I will keep my eyes focused on The Lord
For You are the only constant
In a world of impermanence.

My body is a perfect storm
With thunder thighs and hurricane hips
That move perfectly with the motion of your waist
Crashing waves above me
Your skin is my sea
Your face is my gloomy sky.

My nature is a perfect storm
As I cannot control the bits within me
Of shattered glass that long to be part of the typhoon
That embeds debris within my heart
Within my mind
Within my strength
Strength that can now equate to a tattered piece of rope
Withered away by pressure and force.

My conscience is a perfect storm
Part of me longs to be "good"
Conform to standards set for me by a holy book
Like virginity structured to fit the ideals of primogeniture
Ideals meant to itemize a woman for her only resource
So the other part, defined as Lucifer
Desires to seek your face, oh lover
Desires to know all of you
I never can tell if this is making love
Or meaningless, indiscriminate ***
Is *** ever truly meaningless?

My essence is a perfect storm.
For all I long to do is
Float into a fleeting thunder
Will you know if I am faking
These deep tornado breaths?
Will you know if I am pretending
These moaning winds in my mouth?
Then I can go out with these winds
For no one knows what to make of it
As the weather swallows me whole.

On the morning of March 1st, 2015
At 4:03 AM Eastern-Standard Time
I awoke with a violent tremor
As if someone took my shoulders
And shook me awake
As if someone was in the room with me
I heard a loud moan, but it wasn't my own.

That morning, Dad told me you were gone
Before the words left his chapped lips
I knew.

Childhood best friend overdoses.
Current best friend's dad dies by cancer's ***** hand.
Makes a new best friend
Gets a boyfriend
No, scratch that
Gets a guy who wants to be her boyfriend
Isn't that what you've always wanted?
Goes on her first date
Quits smoking
Starts smoking
In the pretentious town where popular kids are too good to smoke cigarettes.
Tells the wannabe boyfriend who is nine years older than her
Recovering drug addict
Unstable
She doesn't do clingy
When she begins to cling to a boy
Two years younger than she is.
Lets the first boy text her constantly
Doesn't stop
Wants to tell him to stop
Won't stop.
Hangs out with bums and cheats
Or, recovering.
Reconnects with a grade school friend
Watches her relapse two weeks after returning from rehab
It was only alcohol.
****** was her drug of choice
Alcohol reigned second in command.
***** her ex
As her grandpa lays dying
The only words she hears from him are
"I love you."
Funny how her ex says the same thing
They sling "I love you" across their lips
Swinging them left and right
Like popcorn across a Christmas tree
Empty sockets of air
Then ****
Gone.
Everything is
Gone.
Can't reason with herself
To stop.
Seems to be the consistent pattern
*She can't stop.

The art of fading isn't hard to master.
As I walked out to my 2005 Honda Accord
The seductive smell of smoke and stale coffee
Laid heavy upon my skin.
It was 30 degrees out
Or less
But after the bitter winter
It felt like spring.
Your voice rang in my head, sirens
Even though it was hushed
The tongue that used to roar like rivers
Was now silent like the pond.
"Hey, Dad, want to talk to Sarah?"
I heard my father's voice coax you like a child
Life is so funny that way
That at the beginning, you take care of your children
And at the end, they take care of you.
I hear your voice on the end of the line
It sounds like you are talking through a straw
Tears filled my eyes
Now my cheeks were the river your mouth used to be.
I squeaked out
"I love you, Pop Pop."
Among other things.
Maybe God was holding my hand that day
Because above the heavy breathing and scratches on the end of the line
The only words I heard clearly were
"I love you."
The art of fading isn't hard to master.
But the art of watching someone fade
Is more of a challenge.

Recovery is like a closed wound
That keeps reopening.
Sometimes it doesn't hurt
Sometimes it stops aching
Sometimes it blends into the skin in such a way
That you forget it's there.

Other days
It itches and stings
And you keep picking
Until you rip the scab off completely
The blood covers you
You become trapped by this illness
You are smothered.

Eating disorders are open wounds
That heal over time
But the mark leaves a scar
That is there forever.

So I cannot say I was bulimic
And frankly, I wasn't a very good one
But I am a bulimic
At peace one day
In raging battle zones the next.

The important part
Is that the shot never fires
The enemy never wins
The wound never stays
Open.

Father,
I know I've never been the best child
Something's always missing
Empty lies and promises the same
But I wanna come home
I wanna come home

Can I be yours tonight?
Will you love me anyway?
You don't owe me anything
And I'll give you everything
Just lead me back
Light the way
You are the way.

I'm falling short
As I'm sure you know
I'm not the kid I used to be
I've run away
And I wanna come home
I'm coming home

Can I be yours tonight?
Will you love me anyway?
You don't owe me anything
And I'll give you everything
Just lead me back
Light the way
You are the way.

I can't promise I will
Never miss a note again
But the song will be different
This time

I will be Yours tonight
I know You will love me anyway
You don't owe me anything
And I'm giving You everything
You've lead me back
Light the way
You are the way
You are my way
I give it up to You.

A comprehensive list
Of things that people don't say to me
Don't say to her, fat girl
Don't say to her, dumb ****
Don't say.
"You're not that fat"
"You don't need to diet"
"Have you eaten today?"
"Are you making yourself throw up?"
"Are you bulimic?"
"Are you feeling okay?"
"I believe that he assaulted you."
So every day I put on a new mask
Made of lavender soap and my own blood
That I continually drain out of my body
Onto a sheet of paper
Onto a slate of stone
Write it on my skin.
Because every day,
A new version of myself comes to dinner
Will it be the quiet, gentle Sarah who is too far too boring
But well behaved
Or will it be the loud, driven Sarah
Overstepping boundaries is her favorite passion
Doing things the wrong way is as natural to her as breathing
And then she scratches a list of things she has heard
A few times too often onto her wrist
"Fat *****."
"Waste of space."
"No one will ever love you."
"**** yourself."

I  
                                                    Thought
 ­                                                 I Might Die
                                         That Day As I Watched
                                   Your Lifeless Body Being Lifted
                         By Angels, and yet, lowered into the ground.
                                          Six feet deep, I refused to
                                         Throw dirt on you because
                                         I felt as though it would tar
                                         nish Your perfect complexi
                                         on The beautiful hand I wa
                                         nted to hold in mine Was n
                                         ow wrinkled and  withered
                                         I sank with you My blood s
                                         ank into my veins My heart
                                         sank into my chest My eyes
                                         sank into my head But I wa
                                         s not dead yet.  You  taught
                                         me to live So I could not fal
                                         l apart I bit my lips until  th
                                         ey bled Clenched my fists u
                                         ntil they went white Fightin
                                         g to hold on.  I could not cru
                                         mble  But as the coroner low
                                         ered you down  I realized th
                                         at I had no place to go *but up

Water falls onto my hands
Its fluidity saturates my pores
Its gentle flow breaks my spine
I am on my knees now
*I am yours, alone.

I    go        out          for       coffee
                    with            my                        be­st                            
                                fr­iend        every
                                 evening
                         And see the thorns come out of
                    I  people In ways I wouldn't expect.
              D    One woman moves away from us. One
        R         boy calls her a terrorist. One man threate
    I           ns to have her deported Even though she w
N           as born in New Jersey.    America the free....?
K         I drink coffee with my parents in the morning, My
C          Dad's daily dose of poisons called  Fox and Friends
O     Hannity  The O'reilly Factor  Cause my ears to bleed.
    F   They say that while not all Muslims are terrorists All ter
      F   rorists are Muslim.    They use religion as a scapegoat
          E  What they don't know isThese radicals do the exact
             E same thing. I drink coffee by myself in the afterno
                 on. Somewhere, during that time Personality Ru
                  pert Murdoch blames all Muslims for terrorism.
                   He says they all must take responsibility for t
                     his "cancer". Then must I, as a Christian, tak
                      e responsibility for the KKK?  Must I, as a
                         member of your religion, Rupert, take
                           responsibility for your ignorance?  I
                             stand in solidarity with these Mus
                              lims who would never rip a hair
                                off my head or a bone from m
                                  y body.  We can do without
                                    people like you, who mak
                                        my coffee taste bitter.

When I was nine
I saw a punk rock band preform for the first time
On American Idol.
I asked my mom,
"Why do they hold the microphones so close to their mouths?"
She smiled simply sighing
"It's their style. They're not trying to sound good."
She kissed the crown of my head goodnight
And that was that.

When I was ten,
I asked my mom how she met my father.
She told me of their late night chats
Tangled up in phone lines
Currents of love flowing through the receiver
Currents of his whimsical charm
And her shy glow.
Something seemed wrong with the fact that they met
Talking through hard plastic
Not matching faces
But I didn't ask
And that was that.

When I was thirteen,
I asked my mom why all the boys picked on me
Why they strung my emotions across they're tongues
Like popcorn on a wilted Christmas tree
Or why they played connect-the-dots with my face
Using it to spell the word
"Ugly"
Why they teased me so much
I came home with acid tears corroding my cheeks
My mother had told me one other time
When I was about five
And a boy hurt me
Pulled my hair like he was gutting intestines from fresh meat
Her answer:
"It's just because he likes you."
And that was that.

Confession:
I wanted to fill your mouth with red roses
I wanted to string daisies and words through your golden hair
We were princesses growing up
Or at least, we pretended we were
The forest behind our house was the only palace we knew
It was the only place we could feel pretty.

Confession:
I never hated you like I said I did
When we got into our big fights
After you told everyone I drained my body of it's red wine
Into the bathtub by the means of a blade.
You may have been malicious in your intentions
Or you may have been a kid who had no idea what to do
I will always choose the latter.

Confession:
Overdose felt like that razor was dancing across my forearm
Once again.
They could have been the same
When the news cut through my eardrum
I didn't feel anything
I didn't cry at first
But I drove for hours
Occasionally screaming that this couldn't be real
A feeling only an experienced cutter would know
Like a familiar old friend.

Confession:
I peaked when
Mom told me not to look at you
As your body lie face up in that wooden bed
With ***** marks from the witch's needle
Covering your arm like black and blue paint.
She said you looked sick
She said you didn't look like yourself
Because you weren't.
But you were still the same kind of beautiful
You had always been
Even in your illness
Even in your addiction
Even in your silence.

You and I
Are like fire and gasoline
You continue to spew sparks
Into my gas tank
And expect me not to explode.

When you start on a turbulent trail
With your anti-Muslim slurs
As your speech begins to slur when you've had too much to drink
I prefer your intoxication to your ignorance any day
And your "facts" from Fox News
I try my best to cup my hands over my ears
As if I am closing floodgates
But you keep pushing me over the edge.

Floodgates are what you open
When hate spills out of your waterfall mouth
The waves ebb and flow violently
Crashing into me
Crashing into my best friend
A follower of Islam
Who would never hurt a soul
But the flood she faces on the daily
Makes her believe that she will be a casualty
Of the war the water wages.

When a father has to lie to keep his job
The one he has rightfully earned
Just because of his religion
America no longer seems like the land of the free
You complain about persecution of Christians in
The workplace and mainstream media
You don't know what persecution is.

Your acid tongue is volatile.
It spits venom into my cuts
That have yet to heal
You think you are saving me
But you just make the wound more painful.

You do not know the consequences of your words
Of the things you blindly support
The casualties are not
Dollar figures
Your right to speak freely
No matter who it hurts.
The calamities of these sentences
These mindless broadcasts
Are people.

When I forget your name
like foreign venom from a foreign tongue
spit into my ear
smushed into a cut
Will it become familiar
once again?

It seems as though
the day you died
every memory of my childhood
died too
So now your name seems strange
like a different note
played from the same trumpet
like a different word
written in the same ink
like something vaguely familiar
but completely lost

In my head
you will always be Snow White
rather than the poison apple
as some have made you out to be
(ironically enough,
all the kids who made you hate yourself
who called you ****, *****, *****
they all still wept when you left us)
I do not mean that you were perfect
but you were my friend
as a little girl
as a child
and that is all I remember
your ghost looks like a nine year-old

I can't remember things the way I used to
My father will bring up times we played together
as if you're still around
I never understood how that works
how we can talk about you like you're still here
how it seems like your fate has been forgotten

I see pictures of you
when your mother posts them online
and I never know what to do.
My half-assed "likes" are my condolences
My comments are my sympathy
"I'm so sorry" has never emerged easily
from underneath my tongue
from the letters hidden in my saliva
sticky with regret

When I forget your name
I will not forget your face
Your memories are etched into my bones
your words are scars upon my skin
your breath is fog inside my mind
that makes the glass cloudy
I never want this fog to clear
I hope the weather never changes
the way we have.

Things that turn purple:
Feet, when exposed to the cold
Food, when exposed to oxygen
My face, when exposed to fear
To my habits
To my past.
The mention of tying a noose brings pictures to my mind
Of how I used to plan my own death
While paging through a magazine in a waiting room
Ready for the doctors to see me
To tell me I wasn't that sick
Because they didn't know the things I did to myself
I covered up the sliced layers of my skin quite nicely
With different grades of fabric
The belts tied in the shape of my neck
Hung like skeletons in my closet
People kept telling me it was his fault I was so distraught
But that did not make me feel any better
They would constantly tell me there were support groups for the molested
That I was not alone
But there is never any solace in being a statistic
Numbers burn across my skin like matches
Each additional time I heard them
The skin would bubble and blister
Forming a new wound for me to later pick the scab off
If the world did not do that first.
Through therapy, I learned that
When I try to carry the pieces of me
That are bigger than my hands can hold
That are sharper than my flesh can take
That are wider than my unwieldy body
Even though I didn't think that was possible
I crumble like the walls of Jericho
When an army came rushing the city limits.
My past is an armada that rushes full speed through my chest
Piercing me with swords and muskets and bullets
Causing me to bleed and rot from the inside out
Causing me to fall away like petal from stem
Causing me to implode silently
And maybe a sign of this disaster
A symptom of this sickness
Is discoloration.
Things turn purple
As a result of prolonged exposure
To their personal kryptonite.

Advice on falling in love with an assault survivor
The first time you look at them
They will do one of two things.
They will either not look you in the eye
Out of fear that your passion will burn them
After all,
The last time another's eye stared through their paper skin
They caught on fire.
Or this person may stare straight back into your pupil
As though they are staring death straight in the face
There is no in between with a survivor
They will either move too fast or not at all
But their trust is the petal of a daisy in the desert
Withered and delicate as you touch them for the first time
You cannot expect warmth from something so broken
For survivors train themselves to ignore the ghost in their heads
But that demon will always show up
And when they finally let you undress them
You undress their monster as well
As you remove articles of clothing
Their body begins to freeze over
And the spirit they could once hide and stow away
Is now at the forefront of everything.
They train themselves to have *** with the lights off
Because should a fleck of brightness reveal an eye
A nose
A mouth
The face of their abuser will fill in the rest
They do not want you to see their body
For the scars leave train tracks of the places they've been
Crawling in fields of thorns
Wrapping themselves in knives
Swallowing perceived sanity in the form of a pill
They will not always be okay
Because in their mind they are constantly at war
With an enemy ship that retreated long ago.
To everyone around them, they are a martyr
They have won the battle
But in their mind
They are a fallen soldier
Who can't stop hearing their own gunshots fire
Into the chest of their opponent.
Falling in love with an assault survivor
Is agreeing to watch parts of them
Go up in flames
Over and over again
And picking up the ashes they leave behind.

To the drunken slob who tried to get his way with me at a wedding
To the pig who called out "Mmm, get a load of that body."
And to the total idiots who came into my workplace and hollered
"I'll take a cheeseburger, with a side of you."
*******, I am not a side order
I am the whole ******* meal
I will unhinge my shut jaw
And swallow you whole
With my feminist outcries
With my pleas for the reform of a broken body
A system in which all the parts are not in tune
The arms work against the legs
The heart works against the mind
The cisgender male works against all else
And like all broken things
Most do not intend to be sexist
Most do not understand that what they are doing
Is incapacitating an entire group of people
That it is diminishing them to anything but
We are not equal
Because my body is seen as a play thing
My body is seen as something a man can take and toy with
My body is seen as parts, but not a whole
While his body is composed for him.
He lives in a society that teaches him to take, take, take
But that society teaches us to give, abide, be good
All of which do not work in harmony with each other
Because according to this logic
I cannot make ****** choices
Because mine are made for me.
But I cannot give in to the choices he makes for me
Or they work against my father's wishes.
I am either a **** or a ***** their is no in between
When my entire existence is reduced to what a man thinks fit for me
So to these men who seek to manipulate, control, and take
I am not conforming to society's standards set for me
And I am not your side order
Or for men to pick and choose the parts they want from me
I am my own woman, my own hero
I am my own meal.

To the men who talk down to me
As though I am helpless
Because the parts of my body.
You do not know the meaning of helpless
Until you are being stared straight in the face by fear
Like looking down the barrel of a gun
It's hands strapped around your breathless throat
Point blank range
Eyes closed.
You wait for it to fire
You know it's coming
Words, usually starting with
"We need to talk"
Or
"You better sit down."
You know it can't be good
As tears fill her once shining eyes
And those stars fall into the ocean.
Then you learn very quickly
Almost by instinct
That everyone you love must die.
Helpless is when comforting your mother
Makes you a seamstress.
Stitching her together while you yourself are composed of
False hope
Fading memories
Fear.
Helplessness is when behind this gun is the face of a man
A man you prayed you could trust
But he violates you
Colors your view of the opposite ***
From the time you are seven years old
He ties the noose that you continually hang yourself with
In the years to come.
Helplessness is when you tell yourself you have moved on but
No matter how much therapy they inject into your veins
No matter how many drugs they try to numb you out with
Influence spreads like a virus
Into every area of your life
But since you have become so distantly removed
So adamantly avoidant of this looming secret
Like smoke rising to the ceiling
You notice something lower itself
Whenever you have to face this head on again:
Fear.
See it is a cycle
Helplessness is a cycle
And it always ends in fear
*How can I remove myself from this circle?

The media has taught me
From the time I was a child
That elegance
Is all I am worth.
"Strong female characters"
Have to be encouraged
Have to be the draw of an entire series
Why can't all female characters be strong?
Womanhood is not an industry
Sexuality is not a marketing technique
My body
The flow of my waterfall hips
The curvature of how my ******* move into my waist
Does not exist for your entertainment.
Elegance is a knife in my back
Allowing the split in my spine to control me
Allowing the bloodshed of feminine timidity to cover me
I am not one to be shut down
By the jagged teeth that collapse their jaws on my tongue
I spew fire from my mouth
Not just a dark hole
Not just a lonely home
A home for a lonely voice
A lonely voice for a silent nation
A silent nation of women
Who have had their bones broken
And their wrists tied behind their backs
Forced to ******* society's impossibly standards
For them to suppress their own sexuality
While satisfying a man's simultaneously.
Do not tell me to be elegant
Because my body exerts fury
And I will burn this place to the ground.

Do you recognize me?
Body so sturdy
Heart so loud
Voice so obnoxious
Is bounces off concrete
Echoes through the mountains
Stand up strong kid
Stand up strong.
Do you recognize me?
I have changed.
My body is a burden
Like a weight I drag by a chain
Tied to my feet.
My heart is always breaking
It is a china doll
Delicate and weary.
My voice makes no sense
The words I say make me feel alone
The things I do make me want to crumble
I am not the same.
Do you recognize me?
Darling, last time I saw you
We were happy.
The electric sky was mine
I could walk away
Because I was finally okay.
Do you recognize me?
If you don't,
You are not alone
Because neither do I.

Hold your breath, girl.
Don't feel.
As he places his shallow love inside of you
Every breath feels like a brick
Pressed against your stomach
Collapsing the walls of your lungs
Until you feel yourself gagging.
Let him talk to you
But your words have become rather expensive
As he plays with your hair
As he touches your waist
As you turn away
Because his fingers cannot feel the rivets in your rib bones.
Your eating disorder makes casual *** a little harder
As does your history with assault.
Sometimes, your PTSD and bulimia want to have an ****
They are the extra lovers you never invited
But as you mount on top of him
Trying to make him forget he doesn't love you
And that you don't love him
It seems they are whispering in your ear
Why would any man want to *******?
                         He's all you have.
Stop pretending to be good enough.
Try to let these thoughts slip out of your mind
As you slip out of your clothes
Shedding your snake skin.
You kneel there now
His eyes are resting on each inch of your body
But your skin begins to crawl
Your heart begins to shake
You unravel before him
Every end of you is fraying
And he doesn't even know.
What happened to never doing this again?
What happened to getting over it?
Promiscuity smells like stale cigarettes and ***
In the back of a car
With an older man.
Promiscuity tastes like an empty transparent bottle
You can see through it like everyone sees through you.
Like ice cubes
On your fire slinging tongue
From that shot of whiskey a few minutes ago.
How many minutes ago?
Two hours ago.
Yesterday.
Wake up, girl
Detach
Stop holding on to the shards of glass
That break the delicate flesh
On your fingertips.
Put on a mask
Don't let him know you're dead inside.
Your job here is to
Make him believe you're still alive.

The 2012 US Military ****** Assault Agenda states that
One priority is to improve victim confidence
In reporting these incidents.
I'm glad in the four decades since Vietnam
The twenty four years since Desert Storm
The military is finally deciding to do something
About the **** monster it has always conceded to.
Tell me
How will you improve the confidence
Of those who have been consumed, chewed up and spit out
By vicious teeth that leave their marks on bare skin
On the torn sheets she was passed between
That are stitched together with fear?
Will you stop telling her that she has
"An adjustment disorder"
Funneling her into PTSD programs because you have no other place for her
Discharging her because you fear a scandal?
Squeaky clean reputations of the men you allow
To ***** their hands not with the blood of their enemy
But by the open wounds of their fellow soldiers
Entitlement is evident
When she sits in her apartment shaking
Because the man who attacked her receives an honor
A big production of a military funeral on television
While she was told lies about herself
Released into the world
Told she was dishonorable
Told she had a problem.
He had the problem
His sickness is now hers in the form of a pill
She swallows it as they tell her she is sick
She is wrong
But he is a martyr
Living in his glory even after death
But his secret dies with him.
So, United States military
If you want to improve the "confidence" of these victims
Instead of breaking their wrists
Try holding their hands.

The words on my wrist stopped making sense
I wrote them on with permanent ink
Branded to my skin forever
My soul pretends to understand them
Because at one time, they were fresh
Now scars read like faded tattoos
Like a book full of missing pages
I guess I just never cut deep enough to make a lasting impression.
That chapter of my life does have holes and gaps
It is lost between the angles of verbs
And the misuse of nouns.
My raw red flesh used to tell a story
Now that tale is slowly washing away
But parts of it will remain forever.
Little details
The precise words my father used to describe me
Will someday become a distant memory
But the bigger picture
****** assault that caused cigarette burns and razor blades
To make a home in my skin
Will always read exactly.
While parts of the ink may bleed off the page
My story, my legacy
Will be shown through me.

Scared.
If you rearrange the letters
You get
Sacred.*
Maybe fear is supposed to be something serene
Perhaps it is pure
So why am I so scared of sacred things?
A church
A bed
A school
All are supposed to be set apart
All are supposed to be safe
But I learned unspeakable things
In the back rooms of these places
That no one wants to discuss.
I am scared of sacred things
For all of these have been defiled for me
As a man has taken it upon himself
To break my hands and
To play God
To use me as his ****** Mary
I wish I understood virginity
As my innocence was stolen from me at seven years old
I am scared of sacred things
I bled from the inside out
I was no longer white washed
Blood and bile encased my soul
And a black hole swallowed it whole.
I am scared of sacred things
He left me there and knew that should I blame him
My religion would beg of me to forgive his sins
So I never did
Instead I blamed myself.
I only existed under heavy sheets
Only let myself feel in dark places.
I am scared of sacred things
White dresses
Fairy tale weddings
Boys who promise to love you
Men who lie about love
Monsters who don't know what love is
In the first place.

Your face is a mirage
When I am deprived of energy
Or water or sleep
You are who I see.
Your hands seem disconnected from your body
In the nightmares and hallucinations that plague me
Who are you, sweet tragedy?
My hands are evidences of your hands
And the damage they can do as
Your hands are stained with wreckage
Mine are covered in bruises
As they shake so cautiously
You are me
And I hate that we are the same
That the way you used me has made me
That the way you scarred me has colored me
That the way you broke me has molded me
Like clay between your sticky palms
I am a byproduct of your abuse
Of your horrible habits
I am one of your horrible habits.
You are every one of my worst fears
They all trace back to you
I am an endless cycle
And you were the catalyst
I do not hate you and do not want to
Because you are such an integral part of me
That while I want to erase it sometimes
To shatter its existence
I know that without it
I would also cease to exist.
You consume all of me
I let you define me for so long
I thought I had finally taken back control
But facing the inevitable is causing me to lose it
You are breaking me once again
And turning me into who I was never supposed to be.
Because now, as I look in the mirror
Between the cracks and water stains
The broken shards of glass show me
That my face is yours.

I see things inside my head
They come and go like snakes
So easily slithering through the dark and dripping places
Making their homes in broken ruins
Taking my heart and twisting it
Making my mind believe things that are not there.
People call me crazy
Try harder they say
Things will get better with time they say
They do not understand that
My mental illness does not have an on and off switch
A magic button I can press to turn me sane
As if I can pick and choose when my hallucinations color my mind
As if I can pick and choose when panic attacks destroy my sanction
As if I can pick and choose when depression rolls like thunder through my thoughts
My mental illness never came with an owner's manual
I do not have explicit instructions teaching my how to breathe
During episodes of PTSD
I do not have a special tool kit
That can cure anxiety.
I do not have a way to ward off these things that are imagined
But they seem more substantial than most of my reality
They are the only constant I've ever had in my life.
However, my mental illness is also not a whip
That I wear around my neck
Using it as an excuse to victimize people
Using it as an excuse to get preferential treatment
Using it as an excuse for you to walk on eggshells around me
I use it as a reason, not an excuse
For my thoughts, my behavior and some of my actions
But I refuse to let it take me captive
To yield to its thorns in my wrist
Or the acid it forces down my throat.
I am not afraid
And I will use it as my superpower
Rather than my kryptonite.

When I was sixteen,
My grandpa lost me.
Normally, people would say that I lost my grandfather
He lost me
The beautiful, articulate child
That questioned everything
Became stone.
And I was scared when I wiped away the fog
To see his lifeless eyes before mine
To see his burnt flesh in a perfectly polished box
And my flesh began to burn
My body began to incinerate
As my limbs were ripped from me
And thrown into the furnace
As the cavity was torn inside my chest
And fear became normal.
Now, I hear the song you used to sing to us during Christmas services
Like broken glass being dragged across my face
Like gunpowder ignited in my eardrums
Like a flood inside my veins
My hands are waterfalls that ebb and flow across your picture
And my tears are the bits of brine that hit the gifts you've given me
Now, I am preparing to face a new storm
When I talk on the phone with my Pop Pop
Who is sicker than my parents will tell me
I hold the floodgates closed with white knuckles
The drugs pumped into his system are a dam for his approaching torrent
Just as the lump in my throat is mine.
This Christmas is no celebration
As my one beloved grandpa is on Heaven's shore
And the other is crashing into the waves
That leave me drowning.
We fight off different floods
But he can only fight for so long.
Either way
Both will prove to be devastating.