I was a curious child, as most are. What's for dinner? Who's the mail from? How old is she? How much longer? Questions poured from my mouth as though it was a faucet and, as is the norm, my parents blew off the questions I asked at four years old. But as I grew further in my developmental life stages, my parents still refused to answer me. I was taught not to question so much so that when I was fifteen and failing algebra I did not know how to ask for help. Now suddenly it was expected of me to know what I was even though my inquiries had been dismissed along the way for years upon endless years.

Because of my socio-economic standing as an upper to middle class kid with clear problems in my head that my parents failed to address, I was told to be silent. When I questioned the rules, my society, my religion I was told to be quiet because I was just a little girl. I was just a girl. And that mindset is what teaches us exactly what role women should play, subservient to their male counterparts. Even when he is the fisherman with his subject sprawled out on a board being heinously gutted of their very existence, having their insides drained into a bucket and their eyes lifelessly roll into the backs of their heads and yet she is the one being blamed for just being a fish. She swam into dangerous waters and should have known that he would catch her and pick her scales and flesh from the very bones to which they were attached. But still, she never questions it because being born as a fish means reaping the consequences.

You taught me never to question authority. So when the first man to tell me he loved me used the phrase as a barbed weapon to get me down on my knees, I never thought twice. When the first man to tell me he would never hurt me as my ex did, I didn't worry that he would end up taking my "no" as fuel for his engine and allowed him to go harder. I didn't think twice when my cousin who was seven years older than me told me to kiss him in awful ways and touched me in ways that were worse. Authority, ladies and gentlemen, has beaten me to a very exhausted pulp.

You taught me to never question my feelings. That I was doing just fine on my own, I didn't need any help, help was just an illusion. If you must, discuss it with your therapist. You're not sick, you're just troubled. You'll handle this on your own. Just like I handled it so well on my own two years ago when I grabbed a kitchen knife off the shelf and dug it into my arm sitting on my bedside, praying I wouldn't wake up the next morning? Just like I handled it so well on my own six months ago, when I was crouching over the toilet seat made of cheap plastic 4-7 times per day, sticking a stealthy finger down my throat and making myself throw up so I wouldn't have to feel how much I hated myself or how much grief I was in? Do you know how it feels to have stomach acid burning up the inside of your organs and gradually eating away at your esophagus on the regular? To put it simply, it hurts. But I was fine with it. And just like I'm doing just fine now, where I'm having panic attacks in front of teachers because I see my friend Briana's strawberry blonde hair and freckles, the person she was before she became a ****** addict, everywhere I go? I'm sorry, I guess that was too many questions.

Do not try to silence me. I am almost eighteen now, and asking what matters. Which means each and every one of my questions. Stop telling me my questions are not relevant, stop telling me I don't matter. I am never going away because I am important. I will not accept that I can be splattered and gutted and thrown away simply because I am just a little girl. This little girl will continue to question everything, and she will be heard. I will be heard.

My hands turn into fists as I clench them open and closed.  They are not longer hands, as they pulse like my racing heart and are nearly as nervous.  As I walk to the bathroom, as I have so many times before with a specific detrimental purpose in mind, I am overcome with anxiety and fear because I want to engage in older behaviors.  I want to stick a finger down my throat as if it is a snake that wants to swiftly swoop in and grab my unguarded uvula.  I want to convulse as I used to before the ***** would flood my mouth and body like a storm, shaking me violently from the wind and the rain.  I want to experience that far too familiar paradox of guilty grief and soothing relief after purging because it gives me a false sense of control.  But wanting is selfish.  My desire for pain must be curbed by some miracle, some ambiguity that is out of my control.  Plenty of people know about this monstrous eating disorder that has overtaken my body at various periods of time for nearly a decade.  Sure, I am clean and have been cured of all harmful organisms with which old habits had riddled my body, but they leave their dirt and dead skin behind.  And the remains of their bodies can still strangle anyone who is not careful. They try to pile up all over the thoughts that give me hope and life and allow me to breathe, and sometimes they nearly win.  When I can see nothing but these shells of things that once were alive and well inside of me, I must squeeze them out of my body.  I ball fists once again as my anxiety heightens and want to drain any life they may have left in the cells of their being.  I realize they are not completely dead, just dormant; waiting for the next host to come along and slither their way into these coats.  Again, I squeeze.  Draining the life from these beasts is the only way to avoid relapse and relapse is not in the question, as that would mean abandoning everything I have ever worked for and loved so dearly is gone.  It would mean I was gone.  I continue to press on this invisible stress ball.  As I go to the bathroom to do things any normal, fully functioning human being needs to do, I do this over and over again.  Tears stream down my face because the skins are all I can see.  They blot out the sunlight of hope but I do not give up.  I simply close my eyes because there is darkness there too, but it is the darkness that I can control.  I walk out into the world, slightly defeated, but also overjoyed that I was winning this vindictive war.  When an addiction takes over your life, there is no weapon except for hope that can compensate for the loss in such a battle.  Therefore, hope is a flower, and it thrives in me, every time I choose to make those nonviolent fists.

To my sexist coworkers
Who think this is just another feminist discourse. And that it should not be taken seriously because feminism is a joke. Well, is what he did to me at seven a joke? The way I plotted to shoot, stab, **** him every time we had a family party or dinner, the way I forced myself to snail and just be glad in the midst of planning his ******, is that funny to you? How, almost ten years later, another evil character was able to do things that were almost identical, except I was begging him to stop with every move his grimy finger made across my smooth skin, defiling it each time he touched me and ignored my pleas, do you laugh at that too? And I almost forgot, the care with which the first one was treated and the disapproval that was directed towards me after the second one, do you find that amusing? I was blamed and no one even cares how he shut out everything I said to him, how he harassed me via technology to no end, how I felt trapped and at times even felt that jumping off of a rooftop into a deep ditch where no one would ever find me and I could die peacefully was a more viable option that staying under his gawk. An owl stalks his prey, and he was ready to attack. Knowing that had I made one wrong move or said one thing differently that this would have had an even more tragic ending and I would have bore the blame. So yes, this is just another feminist rampage, but it needs to be heard. No woman or man deserves to go through the anguish of not being heard because of their status or reproductive organs as I did. I am not the first to experience this trauma and sadly, I am not even close to the last. This is my story, her story, his story, their story, and it is our duty as a human race to hear each individual and personal tale they have to tell. We owe it to our loved ones, complete strangers, our parents, our children to listen. This story of oppression and the ability to overcome it needs to be told.

You know if you asked them "did she have an eating disorder?" No, she's fine.  And yet they spend so much time trying to convince me I am crazy.  I'm either utterly, irreversibly insane or I am absolutely fine and dandy, but it can't be both.  I cannot be both.  I'm sorry that I'm not the perfect little angelic robot who you raised me to be, I'm sorry that I step out of line and speak up for myself and others around me who are scared to, I'm sorry I just don't conform to your high brow society or your selfish mentality.  Am I saying that I do not make mistakes?  Not even almost because sometimes, it seems like I am hardly more competent than an infant who has just emerged from its mother's womb, taken its first breath and tasted this frail air for the first time in its life.  I am hopelessly blind and I **** up nearly all the time.  However, you expect me to be flawless, like snow before it hits the dirt and water as it ebbs and flows effortlessly down its already established path.  If one drop moves out of line, it is not considered pretty anymore, but rather, it is an outlier and an outcast.  I was never pretty to begin with, so why should I pretend to be and conform to something I do not understand?  You cannot tell me I am wrong for this because I love who my convictions make me.  Even if my views are wrong, they seldom waver.  I also seldom wake up thinking "Hey, I am going to make terrible decisions today and ***** up my entire life."  There is usually a reason behind my mess ups and a good deal of pain behind my reasons.  But I have overcome every reason to give up, and I have yet to relapse into that dark synapse that is my past.  In which case, I am freer than the chains that seek to bind me to society's crazy and unattainable expectations of which yours are mirror images.  Therefore, I may not be the perfect person, but at least I am perfectly different from you.

It starts with a needle.  The needle could be anything: a bad breakup, the tyranny of your father, physical bruises in unmentionable places that a person you trusted created.  Then, it floods your veins and this very thing soaks my being with a rainbow.  Now, your pasty skin is turning colors, from purple to red to green to blue.  You know that having waves in your body is wrong, but it is not from a single substance alone.  It is more of a feeling, a pulse, a sensation.  It feels like a shard of glass that saws ever so effortlessly between the layers of your flesh because it wishes to get to what is underneath.  This emotion is overcome with desire, but sometimes it still makes you want to stop breathing.  Sometimes it makes you believe that laying yourself to rest in an easy place where no one would find you or even try to is the only way to deal with it.  It comes and goes for no reason when you are depressed, and it is the factor that drives you to the edge, as well as the very element that keeps you from jumping. While, in one sense, you are no longer you, it may be changing you for the better.  After all, this type of person and item can be fixed, altered, morphed into a better human being and thing.  This creates a tighter and stronger bond between people who are in the same place.  It allows stories to be told that would ordinarily be hidden on a dusty shelf among outdated cookbooks and magazines.  Roots of intolerance can be severed when we realize that everyone experiences this, and it may cause us to view everyone as a person rather than a label.  Because we are damaged, we know that we will ascend from this place of despair. In essence, brokenness is a paradox; it makes you feel like dying would be easier, but it is also the only way you know you're still alive.

Dear White Male Legislators,
I had no idea you all have vaginas!
It seems like you can all take them on and off
At exactly the instances in which it benefits you politically.
Perry, *******, Bright
You all seem pretty concerned with making reproductive rights for women
Fairly obsolete.

Dear White Male Legislators,
You see, we, as females, do not have the option
Of running the other way if our partner gets pregnant
Leaving her in the dust of our mistakes
Being able to pay a fee every month
Not because we care about our children
But because it will keep our deadbeat ***** from seeing the inside of a jail cell
No, we as women do not have those choices
Men do.
And our bodies are not made for your
Political platform or religious debate
No, our figures exist because we exist
And we are people, too.

Dear White Male Legislators,
Our bodies are ours
And they do not belong to a male-dominated government
That seeks to attack them and by doing so
Deems **** culture socially acceptable
Without uttering a word about it.

Dear White Male Legislators,
Have you experienced the shame or stigma
That comes along with even just visiting an abortion clinic's website?
Clearly, if you are ***** and your abuser is not kind enough to use a ******
Not having your body shut down as you say and I quote happens during
"Legitimate ****"
Putting yourself and your unborn descendent at risk if you deliver
Having *** and being unable to deal with the unintended consequences
Makes you a *****, a ****, or a *****
While the man who put you in this position
Cannot control his urges to knock up the first woman he finds even moderately attractive.

Dear White Male Legislators,
You must be pretty important
If you can play God and judge all of these helpless women
Call what they are doing a sin
And **** them to Hell both
In death and in life.

Dear White Male Legislators,
I hope you never get any woman pregnant
Who hopes to be even slightly independent
Or make any decisions on her own
Especially if they involve the rights to her body.
With you,
She will be a byproduct of sexism
And so will your offspring.

Dear certain White Male Legislators,
In closing,
If you truly care about the good of our country and its people
Never procreate.

You explained to me that you liked girls with a little more mean on their bones, and that's why you liked me.  At that time, I enjoyed your company, until the poisonous properties of your kiss made me want to spit it back out at you and the way your text messages rolled in like thunder made me want to throw my phone out the window of a moving car.  You told me I was big, and I pretended that it was a compliment, for my own sanity.  I pretended that my body was the rolling sea as that was the only positive metaphor I could come up with that flattered these curves I never asked for.  I never asked for ******* that placed male attention on that isolated region of my body, I never asked for thighs or a stomach or a **** that I can feel ripple like waves and currents every time I walk, I never asked for this "unconventional" type of beauty, as it has been called by men and women alike.  I never asked for a ****** or a ****** that seem to be the government's property rather than my own.  But I can still use the desire to be called beautiful as my reason to be an ocean, a field, anything that has rolls but is still perceived as breathtaking.  Forcing myself to believe that when he said he preferred the fat on my body rather than skin and bones he really meant that I was something straight out of an acrylic painting that some hotshot artist created in order to materialize women.  I can convince myself that I was not his *****, when he continued to pick me to the bone and ignore my pleads for him to stop that he just loved me too much that he felt he had to show it through ****** advances.  After all, is that not what we are teaching our boys?  That women are mere *** objects that are to be used for male pleasure?  I could go into my discourse on **** culture, but I will spare you the disjointedness and myself the agitation that goes along with it.  I can just accept that this was his way of showing me that I am something to be treasured, and in order to be loved, I must be a possession.  For a single moment, I believe that he saw my entire being as magnificent and illuminating and a rolling field or some sea green ocean off the coast of Australia.  And that, to him, I was exotic and voluptuous and...beautiful.  But that would not be true.  I can keep lying to myself, saying that these men who harass me, even with simple off-handed compliments or comments on the way my chest rises or the way my hips flare out, really do think I am part of the water that trickles and ripples and ebbs and flows wonderfully down its path.  But I am not a stream, nor a hill, nor any body of water.  I am a person who is just as competent as every other man and woman on this planet beneath my feet.  My hips are wide and my ******* exist because I have the blessing of being a woman, and that does not give you the right to judge them.  I did not ask for your opinion on my legs or my stomach or my back or my waist.  No body is better than another; they were all created to do similar human processes.  Mine exists because I exist.  I exist because I am here in this very specific place in time.  And I am unbelievably here, my mind, my physical entities, my kind soul and my spirit are ever so present in this and every moment.  I could choose to be here in a bubble that blocks out their harsh criticisms of everything about who I am, from the tips of my toenails to each and every follicle of hair on my scalp, but I refuse.  I choose to live, unapologetically and undefined by these standards I cannot fit into.  Trying to meet society's criteria will always lead to more failure and brokenness, as there will always be somebody alive on this earth who believes that I am nothing more significant than an ocean.

Sexuality is not a ***** word.
It is the essence of our being
It tantalizes our skin
Seeps out of our pores
And sets a flame to our existence.

The way we express it
(Or the way some of us do)
Is what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom.
Majority of people are able to display it
In a vivid and imaginative way
So that they can connect with another person.
And I am not simply talking about ***
Although that plays an integral role
But romanticism as well.

Love is a human experience
It spreads from person to person
Radiating from each like their own individualized ball of light
It is theirs, and only theirs
Until they decide to share it with another
So they can spread this tiny orb of sunshine
And illuminate someone else's world with it
As it has brightened the beholder's.

So why do so many people
Think it is fit to rob the ones
Who, in terms of romantic preferences,
Are in the minority
Of this beautiful luminosity
That blots out all of the hate, violence and anger in this world
Even if for only a split second?
Yes, I'm talking to you, Conservatives and bigots alike.

Who are we to tell other human beings
That they do not have the right to love
The way we do?

Dear So-Called Religious Christians
Who believe that gays, lesbians, bisexuals, pansexuals
You name it
Are abominations:
Stop playing the very God
That you claim to be following.

I am in a good place
But will it stay for good?
If I can merely get through the winter
I know things will be okay
In the long run.
After all
Cold weather freezes previously broken hearts
Until they crack and like glass
They shatter.
But I will keep hope's beacon
In my peripheral vision
As it is the only thing I continue to hold onto.
Can you hold me through these frigid months?
If you can keep me warm
Then my good place will forever exist
In your arms.

They say actions speak louder than words
But thoughts speak louder than actions.
Frankly, they are the ones screaming at the top of their lungs
With ghastly shrieks that pierce through the membrane of my mind
Filling it with awful ideas and even worse plans.
Thoughts do not have to be socially acceptable
As actions do.
For example,
I can consider
Sending myself off the George Washington bridge
And wonder if anyone would bother saving me.
I can plan my own funeral in my head
And ponder if anyone would even cry.
However,
I cannot attempt any of those things without intervention.
I cannot say such things without offending or concerning others.
Thoughts like these can also be unconscious
And frequently, they are.
They hurt, bang, and cause clutter in my head
But still, I know I will be okay
Because suicidal thoughts
Do not constitute
Suicidal actions.

I always wanted to be pretty.
Growing up
When some other little girls wanted to be
Princesses and rock stars and doctors
I just wanted to be something worth looking at.
Maybe its because I was always awkward
And no one ever let me forget it.
My dad would never drop the fact
That I was bigger than the average Jane Doe
And as my sister got older,
She lost a lot of her baby weight
While I just put on more.
Then on TV
I always saw these plus sized girls who were gorgeous
In the ****** region
Even if they had a little extra meat on their bones.
I would analyze myself in the mirror for hours
Wondering why it seemed
I had nothing to offer the world.
Wondering why at the time when my friends were getting boyfriends
Boys were making fun of me.
Wondering why when males would bend over backwards for my peers
They would only be interested in abusing my insecure body.
I never understood
Why I got graced with the "ugly gene."
No one even tried to lie to me
And tell me I was attractive.
So I got to thinking
What else do I have to offer?
And I realized how twisted the world is
Because as a little girl
Since before I can remember
I have been told that how I look
Is more important than who I am.
And how I felt about my physical appearance
Directly influenced how I felt about my internal qualities.
I stopped fearing that I would not look good enough
And started to fear that I was not strong enough to handle
This world and all its messages.
Now, because I have grown
I have nothing to fear
But strength itself.

Most people hear about it on the news and they think "what a shame, how sad." They think it is some creepy dark stranger on the street of a major city who captures a young girl whose parents are too naive or busy or negligent to walk her home from school. That is when she is eight. When the girl is 25 and stumbling out of a bar right into the arms of some awful man who is out to prey on her trembling hands and glassy eyes then suddenly, the same breed of creep who attacked the little girl is no creep at all but, in fact, just an ordinary man. It is her fault, after all, what did she expect after consuming enough alcohol to drown a small child or wearing a skirt that clearly gives him permission to force himself onto her unprotected and unassuming body as she lay there lifeless, either passed out or staring up at him helplessly from below? Well, what they don't tell you about ****** assault is that usually it is not a strange character at a club or on a street corner but someone who is in your life, has gained your trust and has taken it and pitched it out an open window the second he lures you into his dark, ruthless eyes. They brush it under the rug of society and leave out the details that it does not usually take place in an abandoned warehouse or on concrete but rather in a bedroom or a hallway in your workplace or school that you have walked through comfortably with him so many times before and now you can barely approach the scene of the crime without having the stench climb up your nostrils and paralyze your body until the feeling nearly sends you to the floor. They fail to admit that the victim -- who is not truly a victim at all because society smacks that label right onto her forehead, implying that the survivor is weak and the attacker won whatever sick game he was playing-- frequently wishes that she had not survived so she would not have to grapple with the pain of living with this secret and seeing his face every day, knowing that should she say a word he has an arsenal of evidence against her and she has none to back her story. They don't know that she knows in the back if her mind that she does not deserve what he did to her but in her eyes, she froze and let him use and abuse her, so how could she not owe it to this man who extracted every bit of joy from her soul and gutted every bit of life from her being? He asked me why I am so sad after he apologized to me, but did he forget the harassing texts he sent me when I would not sleep with him or the way I froze when he made me do other things?  No.  And no, the public does not hear that side of the story that so desperately needs to explode and immerse every area of society that permits **** culture rather than attempts to bring it to a screaming halt. How can society condemn assault victims and coddle assaulters after a guilty verdict is reached? As misogyny prevails, I am asked why I let this happen, told to just get over it, and questioned as to why I am so pessimistic. I am not an optimist, nor a pessimist: I am dead inside after being murdered in a culture that insists on calling it suicide.

Seeing you when you were broken
Strengthened me.

Forgiving your abuser
Is never easy to do.
You remember the way
He pulled your hair back out of your face
He touched your childlike waist
As well as other parts of you.
He acted like you were his own personal plaything
While in reality you were innocent.
Then, the hell that ensued afterwards
Could have made even the strongest person
Break
Into a thousand little pieces
Each one sharper than the former.
And now,
I'm supposed to forgive you?
As much as I sometimes wanted to do just that
I could not let go of the shame and anger
You added to my life.
And then,
Every time I would go to camp or church
And hear a sermon on forgiveness
I would be overcome with guilt.
I know I should let it go
But a part of my heart is still reeling from it.
Until I can stop replaying that event in my mind
I must focus on me
Not you.
However,
I have started moving on.
Therefore, maybe in due time
I will be able to say
*I forgive you.

My secret
Will it jump out of me
Before I can catch it with cupped hands
And rock it back to sleep?
All I want to do
Is tell them
Tell everyone I love
Everyone who I so desperately want to accept me
That I like girls
And I like boys
But somehow the two seem to
Invalidate each other.
I will be ostracized in the conservative community
Of my small republican county
As well as in my very Presbyterian church and home.
And yet,
I would not be accepted fully among the queer community.
Sometimes I wonder
Why don't I just make my life easier
And ignore my feelings for girls?
I wish it was truly that easy.
It struggles and squirms in my body
As if to scream
"Get me out of here!"
If only coming out
Was actually an option.
But at this current moment
In my household
In my school
It is not.
So I guess I will continue to be
Bisexual, pansexual
Whatever the hell I am
In the comforts of my bedroom.

Your crooked smile betrayed me
Your cracked lips lied to me
Your greasy hands violated me
But who am I to complain?

You stole the ground from beneath my feet
You stole the sanity from the mechanism of my mind
You stole my control right out of my hands
But who am I to complain?

I wish this wasn't real
I wish this wasn't true
I wish this would all just go away
But who am I to complain?

Now, I am taking what is rightfully mine
Now, I am living, rather than merely being alive
Now, I am my own hero
Now, I am shouting louder than ever
Because you tried to keep me quiet.

I am finally granting myself
The right to complain
Because this is unacceptable
And yet
Society makes it seem okay.

****** assault is never normal
Therefore
I will never stop complaining
Until it is obsolete.

Please do not tell me you understand
Until you have been molested on one occasion
And assaulted on another
By people you trusted dearly.

Please do not tell me you have felt my pain
If you have not lost six people whom you loved
Over the course of a year
Not to mention
Nearly every one was a sudden loss
And you never even got to say goodbye.

Please do not say that you get it
If you have never seen your family and best friends
Grapple with questions that you cannot answer
And you are hurting too
But you are forced into this limbo
Where you cannot grieve aloud.

Please do not say you have been sad like me
Because you have never been depressed.
You have never taken a knife to your dense skin
Or a handful of pills at the worst of it.
I feel better now
But mental illness does not simply dissipate in a few years.

Please don't tell me that you have felt uncomfortable with your body too
You are beautiful and thin
And I understand that is no reason not to have insecurities
But unless you have made yourself throw up
Multiple times a day
And people did not believe you when you finally had the courage to say
"I have an eating disorder"
You can never get it.

Please don't tell me I can just diet if I try hard enough
It isn't that easy.
Bulimia is not merely about weight
But about self-image, control
And a toxic relationship with food.
Not to mention
My parents did everything in their power
To avoid dealing with my problem.
Have you ever felt that way?

Please, don't speak
I'll tell you my story.
Please,
Just listen.

Tell me what's really bothering you*
Well, if you would really like to know
How petty and pathetic I really am
Then here it goes.

You see,
I'm afraid of being alone.
I don't mean without a partner
Even though that may be a long term fear.
But I am currently concerned with
People not accepting me.
Losing all of my friends.
Even losing myself.

Perhaps it stems from
My father telling me I have no social skills
And ridiculing me for it daily.
Maybe my own self-image
Has destroyed the hope that anyone could be okay with me
Because I am not.

Either way,
It has caused me to refuse any compliment that comes my way.
I never expect love
And luckily I am seldom surprised
When things do not work out.
Why would they?
I do not deserve to be happy.

I wish I could explain this to someone
How I am lost with no direction
No GPS or map telling me
How to love myself
Or how to accept it from others.
I cannot function like people around me
Because they probably hate me anyways.
And the mere thought of that scares the hell out of me.

So, as for what's "truly on my mind"
There you have it, my dear shrink.
And you can shove it up your self-righteous ***.

Did you catch me staring?
Trying to figure out what your chiseled body looks like
Underneath those clothes
Your blue jeans and polo shirts turn me on.
Did you catch me staring?
I was merely trying to see your heart
Through your carefully constructed facade
Later, it became evident, however.
Did you catch me staring?
Oh, how embarrassing.
I hope these walls don't speak a word of it.
Of my unwavering love for you.
Did you catch me staring?
I promise,
I really did try so hard to look away
But that only drew me to you more.
Did you catch me staring?
You are the reason I cannot focus on anything else
*And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Oh, my dear
Why do you still come around here?
You remain unwanted
By all those who reside in this town.
You never were a very good neighbor
Always screaming louder and louder
Until someone would give in or give up
And it happened nearly every time.
You convinced the entire area to do terrible things
Causing unrest between previously coexisting vessels
And now everything is a mess.
You did this, oh Great Destroyer
Mental illness,
Why do you linger here in my head?

I never suspected my cooking class would trigger my bulimia.
I guess maybe I should have, but it was never at the forefront of my mind when I was signing up for classes in the January of this past year. Currently, I am using that class as a GPA booster because I have an A everybody gets an A. But life still stares me in the face and says "*******" everyday my teacher who is crazy brings up food that sparks a memory. When we learned how to read food labels, I remembered how my parents drilled them into my six year-old brain. If sugar was listed in the first four ingredients, we could not eat the item. When we made Big Macs yes, we actually made them in class I always thought about how my sister and I were never allowed to eat McDonalds unless it was on my mom's schedule, and even then we were forced to get the smallest thing on the menu with the least amount of calories. Should we have objected to any of these strict dietary rules, we would be ridiculed on the spot. My dad made it a point to embarrass us and point out our food flaws in restaurants or, what I found to be even more humiliating, in front of my grandparents. I guess he thought shaming us out of our already established eating habits would work. News flash: it didn't.  It won't.  All it did was force me into a corner in which an eating disorder was the only option I saw fit. Once he found out? He got angry but did nothing to stop it. And I hadn't thought about my childhood in a good deal of time until this cooking class reminded me of it. Trying to enjoy any food at all now and have eating be a pleasant experience is difficult, but you can be **** sure I'll keep trying, regardless of my father's tirades.

I found some loose change in the crevices
Of the seat of my car
And it made me think of you.
How the way we used to be
Is so vastly different
From the way we are at this moment.
We used to have so much passion
We were so addicted to each other
And that evolved into a potent love story
That left two lives in shambles.
Currently, we still sleep together
Make love even though there is no love left anymore
And it seems so lackluster.
I try to pretend you are him
Because I will never feel this intimacy
With the man I so hopelessly love.
You shift all of your weight into me
So that my body is crushed by yours.
*** used to be exciting
But now it is one-sided
You-sided
And I can't do this anymore.
Neither of us are the same
For better or for worse.
I guess this is
Hm, how do you put it?
Goodbye.

I've never been one for talking.
My words have always been used sparingly
As a child, they were minimal and meaningful
But my years progressed
I lost confidence
So they became less and less.
I started to believe
That my opinion was worthless
And I could never formulate a perfect method
In which to express my emotions to others
So I began to fall into myself.
As depression hit like a crashing wave
And anxiety was the flood that followed
I looked for ways to cope.
I would attack myself with anything sharp
Sending me to the hospital was it's only effect.
An eight year battle with an eating disorder
Seldom reaped any benefits.
But through it all,
I began recording my experiences.
Not ******
But with a pen in my hand
And a cigarette hard-pressed between my lips.
I would write anywhere I could
In classes
In my bedroom
Sometimes, surrounded by nature
And it was so unexpectedly freeing.
It was as though
My words finally made sense
And flowed seamlessly, one into the next
I didn't stammer or hesitate when I wrote.
I felt esteemed and witty and self-assured
I finally had a space where I was free of judgement.
All in all,
Writing is a gift
To express thoughts and say exactly what you mean
Is beautiful.
For me,
Writing is a means of escape
Of expression
Of art.
Writing is really
The way I communicate with the world around me.

I'm not sad anymore
But I'm still struggling.
For weeks,
Being broken meant,
Succumbing to my addiction.
So I suppose being whole means
Learning to fight on.

I'm not sad anymore
But I'm still struggling.
Every time I see your face
I am sent into a panic
But I no longer let that fear
Overwhelm me
To the point where I destroy the very essence
Of who I am.

I'm not sad anymore
But I'm still struggling.
I have yet to fall back into the comfortable seat
That old habits reserve for me.
I refuse to purge again
But my thoughts make it so tempting
Self-induced vomiting was never popular
But it did give me some twisted sense of control.

I'm not sad anymore
But I'm still struggling.
I am smiling like an idiot  
Even when I should be sobbing.
Does that make me seem strong
Or does it make me insane?
Maybe they are one and the same.

I'm not sad anymore
But I'm still struggling.
Maybe that's even better
Than simply being okay
Because pain makes better human beings
And I would rather know that I have the ability
To hold on through the agony
Than to be reduced to feeling
Nothing at all.

I was lost in the depths
Of my incoherent mind
And I swore up to You
That I was done this time.

Then I witnessed
When it seemed as though
Your life would fall apart at the seams
You made it through
Stronger than ever
And more beautiful too.

When He gave you
More than you thought you could handle
Everyone would understand if you
Fell to pieces
But you're climbing
You're a warrior
And He brought you through
Oh my Lord
The reason is You

It seems like
This change is eminent
Danger is apparent
And you're falling short
On top of it.

But you are stronger than you understand
He'll be your shield again

When He gave you
More than you thought you could handle
Everyone would understand if you
Fell to pieces
But you're climbing
You're a warrior
And He brought you through
Oh my Lord
The reason is You

You're not alone
You're not alone

You are not alone
This world is not your home

When He gave you
More than you thought you could handle
Everyone would understand if you
Fell to pieces
But you're climbing
You're a warrior
And He brought you through
Oh my Lord
The reason is You

Oh the reason is You
Oh God, You bring me through
Until the waves are few
It's what You do
Now I trust in You

I went to our special spot today
With a cigarette and a pen
It was still breathtaking.

For the first time in years
I felt small.
You see,
Since I was a child
I have always been overweight.
It used to consume me
It was all I could notice when I looked at myself

Since I was nine
I stashed food and binged
While at thirteen I started purging
As an effort to control my apparent largeness.
Here, I am surrounded by cliffs, rocks and trees
That tower over me
Finally, I am the smallest one in the room
And yet I feel on top of the world.

I am sad to report this place is changing
The stream we used to splash in
Has dried up.
The log where we used to sit
On which you educated me about ***, boys and family
As well as everything in between
Is rotten and soggy.

I am not fond of such changes
Because we both changed too.
You could not shake a ****** addiction
And it eventually took you home.

I, myself, battle
Mental illness and recovery from self-inflicted abuses
That, after one particular incident,
Almost sent me to heaven, too

One more thing before I let you go
I'm sure you're busy, but I wanted you to know
That the cigarette still remains unlit
In my sweatshirt pocket
Not because I forgot a lighter
(Although I did)
But mostly because this overbearing forest
Is my only sacred memory of you
And I could never allow that to
Go up in smoke.

I thought the ***** would make me stop feeling it
But instead I just felt it more intensely.
I kissed a girl and I liked it
Not like that Katy Perry song describes.
I am not some **** straight girl with a boyfriend
Who is trying to impress other dudes at a washed up bar.
I just don't get it
Maybe I never will
How I can be some Christian child of God
And feel this simultaneously?
I will never understand
How some will continue to harp on the idea
That this whole spectrum is a plea for attention
And does not exist.
What the hell are they talking about?
Do they think I like walking around every day
With a stigma attached to my chest
Even though most people do not even know the truth?
Do they think I enjoy
Lying to my parents, day in and day out
Saying I am this pure, straight Presbyterian teen
Who's secrets are all out in the open?
There is a ton they do not know
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
Do they believe that I find pleasure in
Hiding a huge part of who I am
From my school, my church and my community?
They cannot judge me
That is God's job.
These are just a few of my classic gripes
About being a closeted bisexual
In a conservative family.

A streetlight is my only friend tonight.
It listens to me as I write
It watches me cry
Without passing judgement.
It smells the smoke inside my lungs
And does not say a single word about it.

A cigarette is my only friend today.
It convinces me to stay calm
And gives me the best pep talk
I have ever received.
It is like a therapist, a life coach and a lover
All rolled into one
Because as caring as it is
If you're not cautious
You will get burned.

My car is my only friend this evening.
It lets me get away
When things get tricky at home.
It allows me to dodge every
Hate-infused word that is fired like a bullet
Every
"You're too fat"
And
"What is wrong with you?"
Driving on the open road
Is my escape from the clammer and the noise.

Well, I guess I have several friends after all
So why do I still feel so lonely?

You have covered your tracks
And were ridiculously efficient about it.
Therefore, I cannot send you to court
And get the justice that I deserve
But when you get all old and grey
I will not pretend to hurt.
If you put a gun to your head
And blow out all your brains
I will not act as though
I feel any pain.
Should you take a handful of pills somewhere along the way
I would not be surprised, dear
But from me, you would not see a tear
If you were to stop your heart from beating
With a dagger and a pen
I would not agonize over your loss but, rather
Be more at ease instead.
So should your life be taken tonight
Do me a favor, **** your memory too
But should you remain living, sweetie
I'd rather die than be with you.

The smoke in the air tells a story
As she ***** on a cigarette.
She sits in a park, alone at night
Waiting for someone to tell her to go home
Before they call the police.

The smoke in the air tells a story.
She remembers the days before she needed this fix
The days when she was happy.
Times before her ex-boyfriend tanked her self-esteem
Times prior to some guy picking her up when she was
Down and out
He used her for his own selfish needs
Left her feeling *****
He covered his tracks to make sure
No one would believe her.

The smoke in the air tells a story.
As the way it crawls down her throat and chokes her
Reminds her of the era
Not long ago
When bulimia was her best friend.
Why does she still wish at times
That she could purge her life away?

The smoke in the air tells a story.
Of the times when her ex brought her Marlboros
And they polished off a pack when her parents weren't home.
They were such a cliché, with cigarettes after ***
But that's exactly how she wanted it to be.

The smoke in the air tells a story.
About the week after her grandfather suddenly passed away
She was on her ninth day without sleep
Chain smoking provided her with some relief
And so did passing out in an empty lot.

The smoke in the air tells a story
Her story
My story.
So I suppose one more pack couldn't hurt.

I used to be such a good writer.
When I picked up a pen
The ink would automatically begin to flow.
I could tell a tragedy through words
A love story through spaces
And it all came so naturally.
But recently,
Writer's block
Has been the bane of my existence.

I am
An ex girlfriend
An ex bulimic
An ex addict
An ex model daughter
An ex daddy's girl
Yet, all of these things
Have somehow marked an X
On my soul.

Every inch of you
Entangled every inch of me.
I did not welcome it with open arms
In fact, I pushed you away
But your words were like bullets
Shooting down each and every
"Just do this another time"
And
"Not here, not now."
You made me afraid to say no
That does not mean I was saying yes.
Nobody knows what you did
Because they think we just hooked up.
They believe that because I had lost my virginity
I no longer deserved respect
I no longer had a voice
Nor did I get to consent.
People think
That just because we didn't have ***
(Although, the relentless, derogatory texts you kept sending
Could have sent anyone over the edge)
It's not a big deal.
They accept the notion
That if a girl meets a guy for a specific purpose
Things are bound to happen
And changing your mind
Is not an option.
You did not **** me, let's be clear about it
But that, ladies and gentleman
Is **** culture at it's finest.

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.

Depression.
When I say that
I am not talking about
The immense grief that consumes you
After a tragic event takes place.
Thats the kind that other people get
That they understand.

I am talking about
The dark sheath that wraps your body
So tightly that it gets hard to breathe
When all the free meals stop coming
And the funerals are finished.
Like cellophane, it constricts you
So that every bit of movement and circulation
Are cut off and shut out.

It's like you are trudging through mud
The thickest, most vile mud you have ever seen or touched
And it is not the mud that is half water, half dirt
But rather is mostly condensed soil
With a small bit of liquid added to it to make it impossible to walk through.

It is massive and sludgy
So much so that it takes your entirety to travel mere inches.
You are so focused on swimming through this mud
Putting all of your weight, power and force into it
That life kind of goes on the back burner.

This trek wears you down to the bone
Mentally and physically, you are weakened
And society expects you to just move on and be "fine"
But they don't know
They don't know.

Its an internal war with external effects
That people whom are not directly impacted
Judge and critique.
Who are we to consider the fighters of mental illness
Any weaker than we are?

Frankly, they battle to be strong every day
Because they are fighting to keep fighting
And their disorder has no hold on them.
To the ones who lost the battle
We fight for you too.

When is goodbye
Ever a good thing?
I wish I could be more genuine
As I lay before You
Like broken glass
Shattered about the floor
Wondering have You left me?

I have written You off
Far too many times before
I fluctuate like the wind
In what I believe about all of this.

So can I praise Your great name
In the midst of the storm?
Or will I crumble like the mountains
Beneath my feet?
I know You're there in the shadows
When my hope drifts out to sea
You are with me
Even when I don't believe

How could You leave me
On this island alone?
To fend for myself
I'm only flesh and bones

And then You show me
The power You hold
And I realize how foolish I am
To ever doubt Your love

So can I praise Your great name
In the midst of the storm?
Or will I crumble like the mountains
Beneath my feet?
I know You're there in the shadows
When my hope drifts out to sea
You are with me
Even when I don't believe

I give You an ultimatum
Who am I to do that?
Yet You come through anyway
You see Your child in trouble
And You save the day

So can I praise Your great name
In the midst of the storm?
Or will I crumble like the mountains
Beneath my feet?
I know You're there in the shadows
When my hope drifts out to sea
You are with me
Even when I don't believe

God, You love me
Even when I don't believe

I wish that I could tell you
How your strength radiates
It permeates every bit of my being
Illuminating my pores
As you glow through the cloud cover
That has isolated your earth
And shakes mine to the core.

I really want to inform you
That as I left your house that afternoon
Hearing the rawness from your mother's mouth
That perfectly emulated her broken heart
And the aggression from your sister
Which is indicative of her personality
As well as her pain
My body was ready to crumble
And the saline liquid that welled in the sockets of my eyes
Was too ready to fall
But I forced myself to be strong for you.

I only desire to convey to you
That watching you be the shock absorber in your home
Is too much for me to take.
As I begin to be consumed by empathy
I try to act like things are normal
Which is almost an attempt to make things normal
And I fail miserably.

I want you so desperately to know
That it is not that I do not care
When I don't talk about it
But merely that I care too much
And over think how to act
In order to alleviate as much of your struggle as I can.

I wish I could talk to you
I wish I could let you know
I wish I could tell you
All of these things that fester in my brain cells
Chew away at the tissue in my chest
Eat my flesh, my bones, my heart
Until these thoughts are all of me
And likewise, I am all of them.

Perhaps the hardest, most challenging thing to realize
Is that I have told you everything
For the past four years.
When depression and anxiety
Bulimia and abuse all covered my world with darkness
I called you every time
You were always first.

Now, I cannot.
Now, you are the one in pain.
Now, I cannot make you feel better.
I cannot tell you any of this
And the fact of the matter is
It kills me.

Where am I?
I've got on my new dress
I'm choking on stale cigarettes
Doing my makeup in some dude's rear view mirror
Under the visibility that a streetlight has to offer.

Do I know you?
You're some tall, unassuming figure
Who hovers over me
As though I am your prize.
Your gaze captivates me
Like I am something to be treasured.

Are you the same person?
Now, this handsome knight in shining armor
Is nothing but a monster.
"******* *****, *****, *****."
You scream as you shove me out of your way
The first day you hit me with the back of your hand.

What is this place?
I'm searching for courage
At the bottom of a glass
Of some cheap liquor
On the rocks
The bartender becomes my therapist
As words and spit are spewed.

Are you still there?
The dark man from before
Holds me down beneath his fists
As the skin of his hands and that of my face
Become one with the tile floor
Bruises bind me to his will
For he threatens much worse should I run from him

Why did I stay?
They ask
The general public refuses to understand
That defense lawyers use this as a means
Of excusing the accountability of the partner in question

Why do we ask?
After all, this is but another way we as a society
Blame the survivor
And excuse her abuser.

Let's start asking the right questions.

I wish I could forget
All of the lies that strangled me
So tightly that I lost oxygen
And blacked out in your arms.

I wish I could forget
How you held me against you
As if it was an expression of love
When really you were seething with hate.

I wish I could forget
How ******* gushed from your pours
How my blood will always curdle
At the sound of your name
It's like a scream in the darkness
And I cannot bear to listen.

I wish I could forget
The way your fingers traced my narrow frame
I was a child, your porcelain doll
You gently held onto me with care
And that care destroyed me.

I wish I could forget
Your touch
Your hot breath
Breathing down my spine
Warm enough to give me chills
Make my bones rattle
Turn every bit of purity inside of me to darkness.

I wish I could forget
The way you took my innocence and ran
It was never yours for the taking
*Give me my life back.

These nights
Don't lend themselves to sleeping easily.
These nights
Are torn between hurting myself
And counting shadows on my ceiling
(1, 2...)
These nights
Are where I fall apart in the comfort of my bed
These nights
Catch me up in my own head
These nights
Caught between sheets and memories
Strewn all over the room
These nights
Leave me in a cold sweat
And steal my sanity from me.
*I can't wait until the morning.

Monsters make their homes inside my head
Picking fights
Waging wars
Protesting with their picket signs
Every time it seems like
Happiness is winning the battle.

They are evil little beings
I like to think of them as puke green
Because they make me want to *****.
The tribe leader's name is Bulimia
Following behind her are
Self harm, Depression and Anxiety

They are fed by their environment
If death abounds, they are triumphant
****** assault sounds the trumpets
And difficult conversations
Cause their grimy little hearts to flutter

It's funny how we grow up being scared of monsters
Little kids think they're under the bed
Or that they're a whole other species
It's a shame that these demons
Are really just a part of us.
So what are we so afraid of?
*Facing ourselves.