My dad always told us things would be alright
He kept us in the dark for our childhood
Assuming his societal role as the protector
Covering things up with the blanket of his knowledge.

That is until
My grandpa went into open season, hunting down two consecutive strokes
Loaded gun ready to fire, cocked courageously on his collarbone
But not quickly enough to beat the savage beasts to the ****.
The condition destroyed chunks of his brain
Leaving him unable to breathe or talk
Which is the first time I've seen him speechless.

As I stood next to your urn
Imagining the dust of all your accomplishments, quirks, dreams
Tucked away in a perfectly carved mahogany box
Realizing for the first time that death was imminent
But still seeing how many metaphors I could come up with for this situation
That's deflection.

When I tell you I was molested for the first time
Breaking my teeth and nails
On each and every word that cuts bone like it is bread
And explaining to you that I help other people
But sparing you the details that make my body look crumpled and sickly
That's deflection.

As I discuss situations that have my knees ****** and scraped
That turn my hazel eyes to deep grays and black
That cause my systematic jaw to clench at the thought of my eating disorder
And others must pry it open with a crowbar
Yet, I still tell them that I am over it
So I do not have to explain her constant chokehold on me
That's deflection.

Now that my Pop Pop is ill
And Daddy, I try to be direct with you
"Is he going to be okay?"
Your response is always
"Well, he's not on his deathbed."
That does not mean okay to me
My grandpa was not on his deathbed until 20 hours after his stroke
But my grandma considered him dead at that moment
6:21 PM, Monday, March 24th, 2014
That's deflection.

I use the unknown element to distract people and myself
From the crippling fear that welds my heart with fire and metal
This anxiety is hellish
And panic attacks are called attacks for a reason
Because you can never win while in the midst of one.
But still I tell myself
And my father tells me as well
"You don't know for sure yet."
"Don't make problems out of nothing."
So I discount the pain that is a cavity within my chest
Rotting my body away with every passing second.
That's decomposition
That's a parasite
That's deflection.

I need you pumping through my veins.
You are my emotional ******, my suicide.
Will you submerge my body in your sickness?
As you hold me against your chest.
So tight I can no longer gasp for air
Nor do I want to.

Stay here, lover
Hold me closer, leave me pining.
Soon enough the addiction will choke me out
But I will not die.

I love you's
And
I hate you's get passed around
Jumbled and mashed up between lips and covers
You are the venom that I want to consume me
Paralyze me, my darling
I long for it

Oh, the disease you infect me with
It is ever so tempting
And I am ever so inviting.
I'll let you in if you ask nicely
Again and again

The room spins
My body shivers at your touch,
As though I am holding my hand against a stove.

Our lungs burn,
Our inhibitions incinerate.
Our lives left in shambles
My heart bends
All for you, only here.

This place must be haunted.

I hear people echo
"I don't want to just survive
I really want to live."
But what if surviving is hard enough on it's own?
What if it takes every molecule of my strength
Just to get out of bed?
What if my past, and traces of it
Including those bits surrounded by ashes
Infect every crevice of my being?
How can I
"Live life to the fullest"
If my body and my mind do not want
To let me live at all?
Perhaps the worst part is
I have no desire
For any Prince Charming
Or dark, mysterious man riding in on a stallion
To come swoop in and save me from myself.

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.

I want you
Breathing down my neck again
So I can feel the hot daggers
Stab me with every exhalation.

I want you
Running your fingers over me
Like I am your own personal painting
Go on, admire your masterpiece
What you've done to me
I hope it makes you feel secure.

I want you
Watching me get embarrassed again
It turns you on
And it's disgusting.
I am not here for your amusement.

I want you
Hiding who you really are
Lying to everyone around
Playing the victim
Every **** time.
Well, baby
You victimized me.

I want you
To rot in Hell for what you did to me.
I know its wrong
But I can't stop feeling
Like I just wish you were dead.
Because sometime I used to wish I was
But it's not my fault.

I want you
To take it all back
So I never have to remember it
Again.

Did you forget me, my dear?
I know I've always been a backup plan
I know I'll always be there
When your world fails to turn.
You take me for granted
And of this, I am aware
So why does it unnerve me
Or bring me surprise when we stop talking
For days, weeks, months at a time
We don't interfere in each other's lives.
Then one day, one random day
We drip, drip, drop everything for each other
Did you forget about me, my dear?
This was bound to happen
It's less about forgetting
And more about selectively
Choosing not to remember.

My body shakes
Bones break
People are dying
But nobody's crying
I just want to know
Why?
Muscles are ripped off my bones
I have never felt more alone
Migraines make a home in my head
Can't I just go back to bed?
It is the strangest feeling
When you no longer hope for healing
But to tear off your skin
Your mentality is wearing thin
Where do I go now, sweet tragedy?
This planet has no place for me.
However, I do not hope for death
Only a space in which to catch my breath.
Is there any magic wand that can twirl
Me down the path into a different world?

Have you ever been a disappointment?
Feeling the sadness crawling up your spine
Dissipating like a disease
Following you like a shadow
A tremor in your voice arises
As they try to crack you like a code
Break you like glass
Have you ever been a disappointment?
They ask you questions
About your rebellion spree
You lie through your trembling teeth
They don't love you, they never did
All you are to them is your past.
Have you ever been a disappointment?
You're not size two
Your smile's a little too crooked
And your hair isn't straight
The boys, they don't notice you
And if they do, they make fun of you
My middle name is rejection
And it rolls off their tongues quite nicely
Have you ever been a disappointment?
I have

I can see the truth
Ever so clearly.
You blinded me before,
But they have shown me that
I am not at fault
I am not to blame
I was a child the first time
And the second
I was not thinking clearly
And you did not listen when I said
No.
I will not let your lies
Distort my mind, my being.
I have finally been set free
I have finally been disillusioned.

My heart is
an empty compilation
of veins and arteries.
It is black and cold
and yearns to be healed
but by whom?
I'll tell you the answer
to that secret and unkempt
hole within my chest:
I need you
*to fix me up

It dies.
Flower crushed between sweaty fingers
My shaking palms reach out to you
I cannot escape
A waterfall pulls me into this scenescape
So I let it wash my fear away.
I feel her lips pressing down on mine
Her scent is rose water and tangerine
I kissed a woman
Or she kissed me?
I kissed a woman
Looking up, I feel the knots within my gut
My belly does not approve of some online romance
My belly does not approve of romance, period
That's why we keep it casual
And I have other men around
Like scarves to flaunt for different occasions
But the part they leave out
Maybe intentionally
Is that I only engage in relationships
Where I have complete control.
And so the flower between sweaty fingers wilts
It dies.
They all do
Because I grasp them too tightly.

Or darling, or sweetheart
But especially not babe.
You disgust me with your indecency.
Maybe some girls like when random strangers,
Mostly older men,
Scan their bodies intently.
I, frankly, am not really into that.
That is no way to attract me.

Don't touch my waste or the small of my back,
But most prominently,
Do not touch my hips or my ****.
At least not in public.
I am not insecure,
I just think that some things should remain private.

I owe you nothing,
But I deserve respect.
I am a lady,
And I expect to be treated like one.

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.

I give off
Fake smiles
Broken laughter
An agile body
That wants nothing more than to give up
Shallow friendships
All the while I'm hoping
That I will someday believe it too.

Look closer
Dark circles and bags
Droop around my lifeless eyes
The glint that once glimmered
Has been stolen from them again.

Even deeper
And you will see scars
All my over feeble frame.
Read a little more carefully
And a story begins to unfold.
I wish I could read it to you
But fear has taken over.

What you don't see*
The psychological and physiological damage
That jamming a finger down my throat repeatedly
Has caused.
The insomnia that keeps me restless
And the nightmares that hold me captive
When I do steal a chance to sleep.
The flashbacks who's mercy I am at
They can pop up anywhere, any time, any day
Thanks for nothing, PTSD.
The anxiety that terrorizes my mind
As I fail over and over again
To prioritize.
The loneliness that breaks my bones
And the depression that keeps me unmotivated.
All the questions, specifically:
Why am I such a failure?*

So now do you see
Why I am falling to pieces?

I dream of dead friends living.
The craziness of your life fills the room
And chokes me like a cigarette.

I miss you every day
Last night I dreamt you were still here
That you had not left this earth
Before your time has come.

I catch myself talking to God sometimes
I'll ask how you are doing
And if you're smile is lighting up heaven
Like it did this Earth.
Mind you, this is the only time I pray.

I dream of past circumstances.
The abuse that I was subject to in my childhood
Is as real as it gets in my dreams.

I dream of you hurting someone else,
Usually it happens to be my sister.
You finish with me, and then you take her in your car.

Although I am unaware if it happened,
It could have.
I dream out of guilt and fear.

I think they call those nightmares.

The only time I have ever set foot in a Catholic church
Was for a funeral.
I think I will avoid them for the rest of my life.

I got an emergency call a week and a day before.
"Would you like to babysit with me?"
It was from our family friend.
The pastor's child, a rowdy toddler,
Was in our care for the next several hours.

Our pastor had to go to the hospital.
I learned from our friend that a church member was not doing well.
She had been holding on for so long
And leukemia began to take its inevitable toll
On her physical state of being.

This was the morning of the day
That my friend's mother
Who I had known since infancy
Who was beautiful in every sense of the word
Was taken prematurely from this world.

This was September 14th, 2013.

Flash forward two days.
I was already a mess,
Already deteriorated
Mentally and physically.
I see statuses on social network sites
Things like, "Rest in peace, buddy."
And "It was so great to work with you."
But all without a name or a face.

I knew something was wrong.

A friend of mine had not returned from his break the day before,
That was all I knew.
And yet for some reason my gut seemed to scream,
"Suicide."
Even though it was the last person who I thought would ever do it.

Why was the word resounding in my brain?

It got louder with every step I took towards my phone.
Louder with every click of the keys as I texted a friend and asked,
"Was it him?"
And she responded a solemn,
"Yes."
And then I asked, even though I suspected,
"How?"
And she confirmed my suspicions.

Suddenly, hearing it made all the difference.
Suddenly, I could not see through tear-clouded eyes.
Suddenly, my face was hot and I was dizzy.
Suddenly, I could not breathe,
As it felt like a fist was being shoved down my throat.
I fell to my knees and screamed.

This was September 18th, 2013.

I was not allowed to attend this church member's funeral,
For my parents thought it would be too much for me.
The wake was the day I found out about my coworker
And the funeral, the day after.
While I understand their motives,
I still lack a little bit of closure.

I came into school the following Monday,
All dressed up and decked out.
I have always wondered about the irony of funerals.
I have accepted that dressing up
Is to honor his life.
But if so, why in all black?
With his whimsical personality,
I doubt it's the attire he would have chosen.

I will never understand how one can eat on this occasion.
I ate half a cookie, just to be social,
And felt as though I would *****.
My stomach was in knots upon knots.

Well, I could go on and on
About how these events have affected my daily life since.
But I'll spare you the gory details.

I hope you two are resting easy up there,
And I hope you have gotten a chance to meet upon admission.

You would like each other.

Long time no see, my love
I cannot say I've missed this
Feeling of brokenness and emotional free fall
Or that I miss feeling
Nothing at all.

So numb, you make me
You strip my energy from me
Until I navigate life, or my lack there of
As only a lonely ghost

You fill my head with
Despicable, menacing thoughts of
Something resembling death
Something dark and dingy
A place I would like to avoid

I'm clinging to everything.
Things I never had
Friends I never loved
Lovers who turned away.
You are the only constant in my life.

You keep repeating
Some sickening chant, your nursery rhyme
You say
Not even therapy will combat me.
I wish you were wrong.

So welcome back, depression
Anxiety and sadness are your guests this time.
I hope you find pleasure
As I am drifting through life
As I am a shell of a person
As if it is not me, not me at all.
I unravel in my own thoughts
And they entangle me, cutting off my air supply.

I cannot say I've missed you at all.

The term, people use it as a synonym for
Stupid
A failure
Well, maybe you shouldn't be so judgmental.

High school *****,
We all know that.
But when they make your life a living hell
And your best friend is expecting
What are you supposed to do?

It's not only students
But teachers who bully you.
Just because your friend got pregnant
Apparently you are all ***** now.

You couldn't handle it
Couldn't take it
It was doing serious damage to your psyche.
So Mom signs you out at sixteen
Contingent on the fact
That you get your GED.
Sounds fair to me.

But no, apparently because you're a drop out
And because you smoke
That makes your irresponsible
According to my parents
And my holier-than-thou high school "friends"
Who treat me like dirt

You are one of the most accepting people I know
You are beautiful, and have not had an easy life
You are more than what they tell you
You are more than a high school drop out.

It is a sickening word
That most ladies with a conscience,
Would never throw at anybody else.
So why would you use it on yourself?

Do not use it to describe my body.

The media uses it enough to their advantage.
When "Plus Sized" it considered a size ten.
They use it to coerce little girls,
Into buying hair and makeup products.
And they hope to make a role model
Out of some photoshopped Barbie doll.

Instead they soil a child's self image.

We put each other down
And we beat ourselves down twice as hard.
Let us think of this from a different perspective for a minute.

What constitutes in our world as ugly?
Webster's definition would be something along the lines of,
Displeasing to the senses.
But what does that really mean?
It can mean different things to different people, and it does.

It means that words like ugly, worthless,
And especially fat
Should be removed from our verbal vernacular.

I am the finger in your throat.
I want to be inside you.
I will keep you cute
The worst part is you know it.

You sick child.
You thought you could control me,
Put me in a box and keep me in the closet.
But now I control you.

Shaking, biting, convulsing, crying.
I make you do these things.
I own your body.
You poor thing, they say.
But I find no sympathy.

I have no emotion.
I make you impulsive and I laugh in your face.
I am only comparable to a sociopath.

You think that I'm gone now?
Oh darling, I am just below the surface
Waiting for you to slip up
Or for something disconcerting to happen to you.
Then I will come back full force.
And you will welcome me with open arms.

You will throw up your food before you digest,
All because you need "control"
You need to be "thin".
But you will never be good enough for me to go away.

I am the voice in your head saying,
"The scale is calling your name."
You try to block me out, but I am always there.

I am screaming in your ear
And when you scream back,
You will fall twice as hard
And there will be no one there to catch you.

Try to control me as you will,
Even with therapy,
I do not leave you.
I am a parasite, and you are my host.

I am **the Devil's agent.

A sharp edge takes courage
But dull blades sting more.

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.

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 ****.

I claim to have empathy
But I also know I'm lacking.
I chuckled when you said
You'd marry him
You're in high school, sweetie
And when it didn't work out
I wasn't at all surprised.
When you ******* about your life
My mind was on mine
When you made every small problem
Bigger than it needed to be
My thoughts immediately said
"It could've been worse"
But my mouth didn't dare.
And then you have the gaul to tell me
That I'm being pessimistic and whiney
After all the times I bit my tongue
In front of you?
Sorry honey,
But I can falsify empathy for you.
If it's sympathy you want
Go look elsewhere.

Please forget about me
Things change
Quicker than I care to believe
And I have too.

I am not happy anymore
I am bitter and afraid
That every relationship I forge
Will suddenly deteriorate.

I pushed everyone away
But one of the few who remained
Might be very sick with cancer
Why does this keep happening?
It is not fair that for years
I lost fewer people
Than I have in the past eight months.

What if
I'm just not meant to be okay?

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.

I'm falling like the rain
Spinning and colliding with everything.
It's all so lovely,
But it's the pungent smell of lust
That takes my breath away.

You wore a magnificent disguise
You were so beautiful
That I thought you would break the curse
Of my bruised and ****** heart
With every vein intact.

When we kissed,
It was electric
But I never asked you to go farther.
I didn't want to do the things
That you wanted to do
But "no" and "not here"
Were some letters strung together
That you could not identify.

After your strong will honed in on me
Threatened me
Violated me and then threw me away
I did not know what to make of it.

Shades of grey, that's what it was.
It was not black and white as I expected
Any type of ****** manipulation to be.

I just assumed that
If that happened to me
I would know it
Press charges
And tell someone.
Anyone.

Victim blaming would not affect me.
After all, I am a feminist, right?
But much to my surprise,
It took a brutal toll on my existence.

So many dangerous, pernicious things
Can sparkle beautifully.
They catch your eye
As if to trick you
And make you second guess yourself.
That's how they **** you in.

You always think in hypotheticals
That it will look clear as day.
Until it happens to you.

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.

I missed every sign you may have displayed.
You are beautiful, your smile radiant.
And I thought you were the spitting image of perfection.
I even had a childish crush on you before I found out
You had a serious girlfriend.
I regarded you as royalty.

I honestly thought you had everything.
At that time, I was on top of the world too.
But I never will compare to your light.
On the outside, you had everything.
On the inside, you were dying.
And so was I.

I looked up to you,
You seemed to me a knight, a prince, a warrior.

I never expected that your pain would win the battle.

I have evolved due to the pain of this world
Or that is what I would like to believe
But what if, maybe
I have not changed at all?
Perhaps
I have always been this way
Perhaps
The thought that
I could keep every meal down
Was an illusion
Am I a prisoner of circumstance
Or a product of my own mistakes?
I simply do not know.

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.

I find no luster in anything
And I thought bringing you back
Would bring meaning to my life again.
I would love you to the moon and back
If you would only let me.
But instead,
You left me hanging among the stars.

Clothes shed like old skins
Our feelings are left on the floor somewhere in between.
We will not stop, cannot stop
The smell of you makes my eyes sting
And your touch makes me melt.

Our lust burns like a cigarette
And love is the smoke that chokes us
Until we both black out.

In fact,
You bought me a pack of Marlboros that day
On your way to my house.
We sat on the deck intertwined
As I smoked my life away.

And now
I don't know what to feel
But it is better than feeling nothing at all.

I live my life in extremes
Polar opposites attract in the center of my soul
And for some reason, living on opposite ends
Seems to be a fashion trend
I am not the "I made out with every girl in my college sorority
So now I'm bisexual" type of queer
Not to out-and-proud vomiting rainbows type of bisexuality
I am the bisexuality that gets erased
The eighth grade girl who, when she told her first boyfriend she was queer,
He told her she was over dramatic and crazy.
I am the bisexuality that gets oppressed
Because I am confined to the walls of a shrinking closet
Or is it expanding?
I have lost my sense of left or right
Up or down
Yes or no.
I am not your manic pixie dream girl type of bipolar
Not the girl who needs saving from her mental illness
Not drowning.
I am the bipolar disorder that becomes overwhelming
The depression that chains me to my bed in the morning
The hypomania that seems euphoric, but is never happy
The grey area, the lone horizon, the empty space in the middle
Seems like something I drive through over the speed limit
Every day of my life.
While my extremes do not look good on your favorite actress
They look beautiful on me.
Not an outfit I can strip down when it goes out of style
Not a channel I can change when it is not appealing anymore
But I will learn to love my fluctuations
My mood pendulum
My love pendulum
I am swinging from state to state
But at least I am flying
Instead of falling.

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.

To the woman who said
"The reason we have seen a rise in mental illness over the past fifty years
Is because of how we choose to view situations."
As if the pessimism I inherited from generations of pluralist forward thinkers
Has lead to the shattering of my carefully composed facade
To the way I burn myself at the stake everyday
Because I feel my flesh scorching beneath me
To the way I wrestle with my own mind
Late into the night
Contemplating if ending my life would make the bitterness I pretend not to taste
Any sweeter
To the way I hate that I do this
So I am a ball of clay
Becoming more and more compact with self-destructive energy
To the way I do not want to die
But want to stop suffering
Want to stop having images of people like earrings dangling off the edge of bridges
That haunt me in my slumber
So sleep becomes scarce
Scared
Scary.
I would never choose to live with the 4 AM panic attacks
The touch that seers my skin
The crippling bouts of depression
The highs that are never happy
But I hold myself to a higher standard
Than believing this is self-imposed
If I could choose to change this
I would in a moment
But until it passes
I will deal with it accordingly
I will wake up and face the music
Rush in headfirst singing
Because I have stopped blaming myself for the things I cannot change
But can largely control
And I think it's time this world does the same.

Did I make you lose your faith in love?
Darling, I know I'm so horrible
And the fact that I walked away
Oh, you could have died that day
But you didn't
And thank God for that.

Did I make you lose your faith in God?
Or some higher diety
That may or may not exist.
Sorry I question the things
That do not make sense to me.
I know I should just fall in line
Right?

Did I make you lose your faith in humanity?
Well I guess I'm just that terrible
I might as well have caused a world war
Because you treat me like a prisoner
I know it's all my fault.

Did I make you lose your faith?
No, honey
You have been faithless from the start.

You ignite me
Like my cigarette **** against the velvet midnight sky
The northern lights in the summer
The sunset in Arizona
In the middle of November.

You excite me.
Like a good ****
A roller coaster ride
My stomach is doing cartwheels
Broken glass against my hand
I fall in love all over again.

You make me drunk.
You are my shot of tequila
You are my cup of coffee
But with you
I need one more sip of whiskey
Or ten.

You make my body feel everything.
My feet feel like bubbles are encasing them
Fireworks light up my gut
My skin is drenched in a sheer screen of sweat
Electric currents shoot through my veins
They are carried from your lips as they connect with my neck
My bones shatter in the best way possible
And it reminds me that I'm still breathing.

You are the only thing
That makes me feel alive.

To my father
I'm sure I have written this poem so many times before
But this time, I just want you to listen.
See, I keep writing and rewriting
Examining and analyzing which way will be the most effective to tell you
You ****** me up, man
But I don't hold it against you
Just against myself.
I press it to my chest every second I live
Like the hot metal pan I burned myself with last Friday
It brands my skin so tightly to form a label
One that tells me I am too fat to be pretty
Too promiscuous to be loved
Too awkward to be worth anything more than an insult.
You make me feel like such a bad person, dad
And I am screaming for you to just accept it
For the first time in your life
How anxiety and bulimia are byproducts of my chemistry as well as my childhood
How I am so hellbent on staying silent about my assault
Because you told me to keep it in the family when I was molested
And while you were supportive
You did not let me thrive by telling my story
As I could have with you by my side.
You claimed to be protecting from scrutiny
But I can take care of myself because I know what I'm up against.
How my dysfunctional relationships
In which I expect to be told I am a failure
Because that is all you have ever expected me to be
Have to do with how you brought me up.
I say I will seek to do everything better for my family
For my future
And yet, I already find the fingerprints of what you have done to me
Everywhere in my life
And my body and soul cry out
They say
"Don't be like your father!"
And yet, whenever I act in any way that even slightly resembles you
I want to tear my skin off
Bang my head against a wall so hard that my memory pours out my ears
So I don't have to hear your vicious comments about
My weight, my social skills or how I embarrass you
Is that the legacy you want to leave?
Daddy, I really don't mean to incriminate you
I just don't want you to wonder why I never came home
Or why I ran away with some man who doesn't really love me
But makes me feel human.
My heart is like a sword fight
And the scars run deep
Like train tracks, they trace every place I've been
But they don't lay out where I plan to go.
I can only hope that place is far away from here.

Some people define 'feministing' as
"Girl, you crazy."
"You really think you can change the world?"
"Tough ****."
Or
"Nobody's ever gonna love you"
"Because of your fat body and fatter mouth."
Well, contrary to your opinion
I am fighting to be more than just a body and mouth.
A body because men do not have the right
To use it as their own personal welcome mat
And a mouth because I refuse to swallow them up
To be an opening in which they find their home.
My mouth is for more than pleasing a man
My body is for more than pleasing his eyes.
'Feministing' is not me being hotheaded
Or hating all men
No, I hate the men who feel they are entitled to use me
Who feel they can retreat into my breast
Into my womb
As if to mimic their mother's
Just because I came out a woman.
I hate the men who derogatorily call women
*****, *******, prudes
Just because they have too much ***
Or refuse to have it with a particular person.
Just because you came out a woman
Don't you know that it is your sole purpose
To give up autonomy over your own body?
Your own body is no longer your own
It is a maple tree that lovers carve their names into
He scratched his name into your bark
Labeling you as his
Labeling you as the government's
Labeling you as someone else's
Because you, a little girl
A helpless woman
Cannot be trusted to know yourself well enough
To own yourself.
I hate the society that instructs little boys to be entitled
And teaches little girls that
Just because you have a body
Just because you are a woman
You are asking for it
Your cleavage is a stamp that says you want him
And should you say the word "no"
You are inherently leading him on.
Should you say "yes"
You are a disgrace
A pariah
An outcast.
You, girl
Should not be ******
You, child
Should not be independent
You, woman
Should not be.
How can I be?
We, women
Do not have the option
Our voices are lost in the static noise around us
We cannot live
Because we are systematically shut down
When we try to be who we are.
So, next time you complain about 'feministing'
Give me a feasible alternative
About how to be who I am.

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.

Every evening at dinner,
My mom would tell us about school.
She works there
In fact, the same one my sister and I attended.
She now tells us about education reform
And how it is ruining her classroom.
You see,
She works with special needs children
And teaching them multiple methods to do a math problem
When they understand the first one
Is like thrusting them into the middle of the ocean
Telling them to learn how to swim
And wondering why they are drowning.
Having seventh graders who read at a fifth grade level
Take the same standardized test as other kids their age
Is like putting a dachshund in a cage
And telling it to fight a pit bull.
These students are being set up to fail
And yet, the schools and the government are asking
"Why are test scores dropping?"
"Why aren't they up to par?"
"We're going to lose our money"
What quality teacher signed up to be an educator
With the idea that money would be more important
Than the children in the school system?
Who gives a **** about dollar figures
When you are pushing kids to the edge of the cliff
And getting angry when they fall off?
The game doesn't change until the directions do
But the people writing them are prioritizing the end result
Not the players.
So tell me,
Will anybody win a game that is this corrupt?
Will anybody win this game at all?
People like my mom, my English teacher
The students
Did not agree to play this way.
But if we do not set these kids up and place them in a position
Where success is possible
The future will go up in flames.

To Brock Turner
Who they call "ex-swimmer"
"All-American"
"Former athlete"
Who I call ******
Assailant
Attacker.
I know they've made excuses for you
For your entire life
You're a daddy's boy, Brock
As he didn't think twenty minutes of action
Constitutes twenty years of punishment
But when the one you hunted wakes up
Choking on the memories you planted in her head
When she still feels the pine needles stabbing her neck
Even once they are gone
Will your father defend her?
You see, she doesn't have the luxury to get off for good behavior
In five, or ten, or twenty years
Or in your case, six months
No jury decides her fate
You already did that, Brock
And I'm sure she was not the only one
Who else's life sentence was issued by you?
How many other women were ripped from their bodies
By your hungry hands and shredding teeth?
When I get angry that you
And my own attacker
Had excuses handed to you like face cards
Because you both were young
Because you were smarter than this
Because you made a mistake
Because your future is more important than mine
I am told to stop being an angry feminist *****
Stop burning my bra and burning bridges
With men who might actually want me close.
I, the angry feminist *****, push people away
Because
I , the angry feminist *****,
am tired of men going to feminist rallies and making **** jokes in the same 24 hours
am tired of men who I've known for years trapping me in a stairwell because I will be their next piece of prey
am tired of men who are the face of male feminism treating women like clothing they can throw away when they get bored
With that,
I am reminded that it is a man's world
and I am no more than a passerby
My outrage cannot change how someone feels about my experience
about their experience
about her experience
My outrage will not cause people to hate you, Brock
My outrage can ignite a spark in someone
who is already *******
My outrage can inspire someone to use their voice
and another
and another
and another
My outrage can become another voice in a sea of fire that consumes the system which allows
you, Brock,
to mean more than your victim.
My outrage is bursting
and it does not end here.

I stand in front of you
Closing my eyes, because I do not want to see the gun
I know this is a firing squad
And I am undoubtedly the target.
Take your bullets, tainted with hate and fury
Please, I pray,
Make them deadly.
But you stand there for a good deal of time
Taunting me
God, would you just shoot me already?
I am already half-dead
My limbs danging from my body
My heart on the outside of my seared skin
So why do you prolong this process?
Still,
You continue to laugh at me.
I am defenseless,
What power does this give you?
I continue to talk to the god
That I still, even after this ordeal
Manage to muster up some sense of hope in
Even if it is a false one.
"Let me die"
I repeat, over and over again
"As seeing his face is like
Launching a bullet into my chest
And having my heart continue to beat."
What's worse than dying?
Living like you are dead
Because you might as well be.

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.

I cannot keep a relationship
short flings are all I have
tainted with infatuation
kissed by lust's wet lips
but commitment scares
the living **** out of me.
However
I am not afraid of being alone
because the isolation
the sadness
the depression
burns me up and
keeps me rolling along.

I am feeling myself float
Haven't been so out of body in quite a while
Haven't felt so emotionless in quite a while
Freeze.
The ghost hanging over me is not mine
I smell your skin like basement musk
And the fertilizer on mushroom fields
Mr. 2004
When I was seven and you locked me in a dog cage
When I was seven and you made my body your jungle gym
It was the year of feeling sick to my stomach
Even when my food agreed with me
It was the year of going to the nurse every day in first period
You see,
Even second graders know what is and isn't supposed to happen to their bodies
Even when they don't have a name for it
Didn't have a name for it until I was fourteen
I told my guidance counselor every crevice your hands found
Every game you made me play on your body
He called it molestation
I had to excuse myself and *****
All over the white porcelain walls down the hall
He called my daddy
It was the first time I'd ever seen the man cry
I felt my body become a gun that was wielded against me
I could not hide from my own existence
So I became a ghost again.
Now,
Morphing into a spirit has become my superpower
I feel my body shaking
And I rise up to the ceiling
Watching myself self-destruct before my own eyes
Only offering a helpless hand
But, like Ebeneezer Scrooge to his past self
Remaining invisible
My body combusts under pressure
Crumbles with heat
I am my own remains
Dancing in the rubble
I feel my Winnie the Pooh shirt I wore to his house
Become a noose, tied tightly
I long to feel in my own body
So I look for feeling in someone else's
Anyone else's
I lie beneath his jutting hips
Moan the names of the ones I remember
They keep ******* back for more
Create for yourself an alter ego
Jane Doe?
That is the name they will brand to you
When they find your body
Still lifeless, with him still between your legs
Don't die, girl
Pick yourself up, girl
Stop being stupid, girl
Why, when I tell this struggle in a poem is it eloquent
But when I explain it to people in real life am I a ******* *****?
I lie in the dirt
Remember how to say my own name
Life reparative therapy, show me how to breathe
Form letter into thin air
Remember, excellence is relative
Remember, you are more excellent than this relative
Remember, you still exist, dear woman
Create a fist
And rise.

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.

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."

When you stop to think about it,
Being suicidal is kind of pointless.
I mean,
The razor nine times out of ten won't **** you.
And if it doesn't,
You're left with these ugly scars on your body
Forever.

Pills?
You can have your stomach pumped clean of those.
Then you puke, and you puke, and you puke.
It's just making your already
What you call "horrible life"
More miserable.
For a while, if not
Forever.

Guns are awfully painful,
Don't you think?
And there are flaws with this too.
If your aim isn't the best
(And God knows when you're in that state of mind
It won't be)
You miss the target,
Leaving you permanently injured
And sick
Forever.

Hanging is ******* the neck,
But it's even harder on the brain.
It is only a matter of time before
Someone finds your body limp,
But not dead.
It may be difficult to restore oxygen flow
And you could be left brain dead
Forever.

Acids ****.
But they also attack your throat
Leaving it burning and stinging
With damage that could last
(You guessed it)
Forever.

Essentially, things happen.
People change.
Mistakes are made.
But nothing is worth altering
And destroying
Your life
Forever.

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.