Do you remember the last time you felt awake like truly ******* aware and ready because every day I wake up already exhausted and every night I fight demons yet I’m aching with bedsores anyway because I don’t know how to exist in this house without being angry and I worry it’s turning me into my father and maybe it’s the anxiety or the desolation or just the ******* exhaustion because I stay awake sweating all night long and having nightmares that are less scary than reality so what the **** am I even doing right now

It was a ruse from the start.
Ends bled into beginnings and I cruised through the wounds you cut mindlessly.
Don’t act like you didn’t know what you were doing to me.
The ghost of a child at sixteen
barricaded from passing on.

To mom and dad:
I don’t blame you, but where were you when I needed it most?
The only ones who could’ve stopped it
yet I would’ve resented you for it.
I’m sorry that you’ve been forced to raise a wraith.

But that’s what it is to be a mother.
Never letting her child have sleepovers to prevent the inevitable and be resented for it.
How does it hurt to know that the daughter will get herself hurt anyway?
That she thinks she loves the knife carving her apart?
And she won’t realize until twenty why.

But all you see is anger
because worst thing a woman can be is quiet
and that has made me oh so ugly.
But even when I’m loud they still ignore the refusals and take what they want.
My ghost rears its ugly head but it cannot protect me forever.

The worst part is I don’t think you even remember.
I don’t think it’s crossed your half synapsing brain twice.
Don’t you remember locking me in the car in front of my own house?
My parents were in there
and I should’ve been too.
A child.
Don’t you remember you were eighteen and I didn’t even know how to drive yet?
And I’m sure you didn’t even notice the irony of keeping me prisoner with the child lock.

I made so many mistakes,
inconsequential to yours— yet somehow I’m the one paying the eternal price
Most bad history eventually shapes us into better people but I could remove all of you and be much better for it.
She will haunt you forever
and curse you from this life into the next.

Maybe boys do go to Jupiter to get more stupider cause *******
Why is Hera always the villain

Sometimes I don’t know how to act because my fingers still shake thinking about 5 years ago and I used to be blonder, skinnier, happier? No not happier. And I feel like I’ve lost so much time being unhappy. I’ve had this watch for 4 years but it’s had thousands of different me’s. And what if I’m just lying to the people who love me the most about who I really am? When I yell at my parents, when I cry to my pillow, when I forget to brush my teeth? I’ve taken the same pill every day for 3 years. And most boys will only be nice if they think you’re hot and you know how to keep your mouth shut. But sometimes words pour out of my mouth like flames and I fly away like the lonely, ugly beast that I am because who could ever love a woman with an opinion? But the last 2 years have shown me that friends will be gained and lost, cars will be crashed from drunk drivers and money will be spent. Sheets will be ruined and sometimes days will be too. Time keeps ticking. In the last year I’ve loved and I’ve lost and I’ve cried and thrown up and grown up and panicked and lost and fought and I’ve lived.

I would say yes to a ring pop
A half promise
A hope

Us.
I really want you to be my last first
Can you see it?

When you meet the right person you don’t just fall, you plummet
And I’ve fallen way too far to get up now

Have you ever been so happy that you’re terrified of being sad again?
Hold on

and how is it that I have already gotten used to him sleeping in my bed
how it feels empty without him

I almost wish that you wouldn’t come visit because every time you leave I lose you all over again

You weren’t the first boy I said “I love you” to and you won’t be the last
“Goodness gracious let’s just break up”
I don’t deny it though
“I tried to save us”
You held a place in my cold heart of hearts
“So why do I cry to sleep”
I thought you were different
“Every time you try to leave”
I thought we were different
“Goodness gracious this relationship is filled with so much hatred”
But don’t worry
“I guess you were right”
The things you say about me can’t be worse than the things I think about myself
“My straitjacket’s custom-made though”

We don’t talk about the future
“What’s the point of being rich when you wake up alone”
But how many times do I have to tell you that I want you there
“What’s the point of going home when ain’t nobody there”
We call for hours but you still can’t hear me
It’s days like today where I wish boys did go to a Jupiter
Though some of them cannot afford to get any stupider

dance with me in an art museum please and then we can waltz all the way to the moon and forget that we need to breathe because sometimes all you need is each other to live but i don't want to see you go blue in the face so soar through the glistening stars with me to find the meaning of life so we can live forever until our fingers are red and happy and only maybe then we will remember to come back to earth and lie in the tranquility of a lullaby as our celestial bodies return once more

when i was eight we had our kitchen remodeled
it is now one am and ten years later

old habits die hard
it is the reason i only breathe to one side when i swim
the reason i pick things up with my left hand
the reason i flinch when people hug me
its the reason i cringe when my necklace touches my neck
when his hands graze over my hips
the reason i lie to my mother for no reason
and fear taking too many pills or drinking too much iced tea

the way i love is a habit i have been trying to change
but i say that every time

when they remodeled our kitchen they changed the cabinets so that the dishes and glasses swapped spots
I just went to get water and ended up with a plate
its been ten ******* years
how am i supposed to change if i can't even remember where the cups are

its january, barely, i think
time has been flying so much if someone told me it was april i would believe them
the days are blended by sleepless nights and disappearing days

it's hard to remember what i'm supposed to think sometimes
i say i'm ambitious but i just keep lying down
i know what i'm supposed to do, i think
but what if i don't want it
what if i don't want the 9-5 what if i don't want the debt and the stress and the pounding in my head
is everyone just lying

doing what people expect is sometimes bad
being home i fall into bad habits and i think its because of my family
they bring out an old me that i tried to get rid of
but people never really change

i think the biggest lie i was told as a kid was that i could do anything i wanted
sure
but what if i want everything
with choices there are losses and i'm losing myself

i'm working on being better but i don't know if i really am
i am scared
stay safe

******* if he can like me then I can like my ******* self too

i don't think people ever really change but i think you bring out a better side of me and i can't tell if it's only temporary but I'm scared you'll find out who i really am and you made me start to sing again but only when i'm home alone in the bathroom with the doors shut because i am so afraid of falling i've broken so many bones my mom can't take another medical bill or loss so i guess i'll just do it for my mom and i guess you too but its hard for me to understand that i make you happy because i don't know who i am or why i'm not good enough for myself

even when I tell people that I don't know what I'm doing they don't believe me because of how much I've lied to myself and the way that the seasons change less now because it's just hot all the time now and when it's cold it doesn't even snow it just hurts but maybe I just stopped enjoying christmas and love but I know I did love him except sometimes I think I've changed but then I'm in bed and I have too many pills and my stomach is too big so maybe next time when I'm merging on the highway I won't make it but will you even remember me?
For the girl with pigtails I'm sorry that this is me and I said I wouldn't but sometimes you just need to go to Jupiter and maybe Mars too but only on a bad day and I've been having a lot of those but don't forget who you are because everyone else will

I shut off in March
I closed my eyes and my ears and glued my heart shut with some ****** expired gorilla glue
I am sorry you were a causality of me
I just forgot that I’m not very good at breathing and changing and holding hands I forgot that I love reading and weeping and you were there and I’m sorry I wasn’t it’s just that I forget myself and hate myself but it was never your fault and you’ll never know how much I cried because I would never admit that anything ever mattered to me that much but I’m sorry I broke my own heart and yours was a causality

I spent so long trying to figure out our song
And when it ended I couldn’t hear anymore
Not our song, not anyone’s
Even though it had only been a dull rhythm for a while the silence still hurt
But now I am hearing his humming
I don’t know if I’m ready to hear a new song
The melody is so sweet

It embarrasses me that I would give everything up, even you, to be someone else
I would fall into the lives of my dreams, my stories, my fantasies, in a heartbeat
and I am sorry for it

It’s not that you’re not important it’s just that when the rain hits my window in the middle of the night so loud that it stirs me you’re not the one there, and it never will be you
And it’s the dumbest ******* thing in the world to say that it isn’t you, but it’s not, because it doesn’t matter that it’s you, or anyone else
I would give anyone up
I have the ability to make everything a task until I dread doing even the things I love most
There’s always an escape, I say
But what do you do with a dead end
You can’t jump through that
It seems I’ve parked myself at a dead end
And it’s me, it’s definitely me
I think I forgot to minimize the casualties

Time has been moving so fast and I’ve been trying to find a reason to be upset about it
I guess I’m just mad at myself too
I’m sorry I haven’t found a way to stop the days from coming

The bitter taste in my mouth never seems to go away
It’s acrid
I’ve scrubbed my tongue clean, yet there it is, still gushing through my veins and roaring down my spine
Maybe I’m just too angry all the time
Maybe I don’t have a reason to be
Maybe I’m weak
Acrid
Sometimes you make cookies and all that’s left is crumbs
I used to pride myself in never crying
I guess I gave that up too

the words I read are greater than any thought I could ever have, better than any explanation I could ever give, more of my soul than I have ever let anyone see. I still haven’t accepted that I am not those words and I will never be them, those characters, those stories. But after all, “pulvis et umbra sumus”, he said, “we are dust and shadows”.

penguins are birds that can’t even fly
so how useless am I, a human who can’t even love right
I know I am selfish
I know I am broken
To you, I am perfect
penguins can fly through water
water which is 800 times denser than air
if penguins can fly I can find a way to love you right

my mom says she needs to talk to me but how am I supposed to listen when all I hear is grinding teeth and cold ice sharp enough to scratch my skin and my dogs won’t stop barking but it’s not their fault they’re supposed to be quiet all the time what if they have something to say sometimes too and no one ever listens to them either and all they want is to play but everyone’s too busy and everyone’s too sad and everyone’s dying so time just goes by because the smell of hospitals is ingrained in my body and stops me in my tracks and I want to sleep all the time not because I am incurably tired but because I am insatiably sad but I need to do my physics homework so please wake up but sometimes I just need to think about something else to distract myself from what you’re saying because I can’t hear this right now. stop.

I don’t know how to feel because the silence is buzzing too loud and I get ear infections really easily but you didn’t ask me if it hurts because I’d rather hear you scream than ignore me and next time I tell you it’s okay maybe you should ask again because I’m really good at pretending and I’m really good at changing the topic to things that don’t matter like my windows that I always leave open because I like to hear the rain and the storms and everything falls down and my mom gets mad and my fan is really loud so I keep it on so I forget that I’m alone but none of that really matters because I’m too busy anyway and I’m not even home so it’s not like I notice when you don’t respond and when the power goes out and you’re not here to protect me from the monsters under my bed and inside my head but it’s not like I asked you to so why would I even be upset when you don’t notice my big bruises and scratches but I don’t like attention so why do I want yours because it’s not like I’m dependent sometimes it’s just too quiet

I AM TIRED OF FEELING SO DRY I WOULD RATHER HURT WITH ALL OF THE OCEANS WAVES DROWNING ME
I
HAVE
NOTHING
              LEFT
                     TO
                         BREATHE
WHERE ARE YOU

One time my sister asked me how love is always so easy for me

But the way I love is the same way people write with their left hands
I don’t, and if I do I do it poorly
I am a book shut with super glue
A vault with no key

But he is different
He isn’t love he is my love
He says the dumbest things
But every time it makes me grin like I’m in the worst love movie you’ve ever seen
His stupid hair and his stupid smile
He has my stupid key

I tell her my secret
The way I fell in love with him
The way I fall in love with him every day
I don’t look for love the same way I don’t search the sky for rain drops
It just begins to drizzle then suddenly it pours all at once

Talking is easy when it doesn’t matter
but when the weight of the world rests on my shoulders to croak out a single sentence
Forget it
He thinks we’re on the same page
I guess sometimes he forgets I read too fast

He always held my hand a little too hard
“I like us better when we're wasted”
Was a little too rough when he pushed me down
“It makes it easier to fake it”
Never really asked
“The only time we really talk”
if that’s what I wanted
“Is when our clothes are coming off”
Never really asked
“I like us better when we're wasted”
if he could hurt me

not just when we’re happy and things are going well;
I want to be with you always

I stand in my kitchen at 3:11 on a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon waiting for the toaster to pop and realize never in my life have I felt so alone

I write when I get insomnia
drawing in the dark is rather hard
I’ve written a lot the past weeks
and slept little
I’ve never been in his bed yet I long for it
I’m addicted without ever tasting it
In cold sweats awake at night
I need more
I wouldn’t need to write late at night if I had his skin to write all over
His lips to draw all over
and to kiss goodnight

Wake up, shoot yourself in the foot, cry about it, I guess. Rip off your toe nails, you don’t need them anyway. Choke yourself, but only metaphorically. Run, run, run in the rain, far, far away. Get hit by a car, saving a cat, fall down, down, down into the rabbit hole, panic