Drink one
My eyes grow heavy
I sit in a fold out chair
In the corner of the living room

Drink two
I zone out
To the sound of the rest of my family getting riled up about who knows what
I want to join in
But then again
I don't

Drink three
Things start to get fuzzy
My words slur
I decide to join in after all

Drink four
It's probably a bad idea
To say whatever comes to mind
Laying on the bathroom floor

Drink five
This was supposed to be fun
Not a nightmare
My sister cries into my cousin's arms
As I laugh to myself

*Blackout

I look in the mirror,
and what do I see?
Bitter disappointment
staring back at me.

It seems no matter
what I do,
I just can't seem
to get through to you.

I'm clawing away
at what's left of me.
and people won't let
the pieces be.

I shed those pieces for a reason.
I'm sick of being stuck in this rainy season.
Walking around with a cloud above my head.
Sometimes I think I'd much rather be dead.

Sometimes...

With a simple glance at the monster
Icy chills are sent down my spine
And my mind goes back to the eleven-year-old mind I once had
Hurt and confused
By the words that pour out of the monster's mouth
Each one causing a permanent scar on my body
That not even all of the therapists I've been through can fix

The only thing I can't figure out
Is why
Not why it said all of the awful things it did
But why I believed them

I allowed myself to believe anything that came from the monster's mouth
Like a child believes their parents
About Santa Claus
Or the tooth fairy

And just like that child
I grew out of the monster's lies

I have a purpose
I keep trying to tell myself
Now believing a whole new sort of lie
For the monster's lies
are now my truth

"How can someone love you
If you don't love yourself?"
The words of therapists trying to help
Won't go away

They're right
I'd been thinking about it all wrong the whole time
There's
         Nothing
                     To love*
They didn't want me to be happy
They just wanted to put me out of my misery

The motherly figure
Locked away in fumes
Smelling of skunk
The green smoke taking her away
To anywhere but here

The man of the house
Glass after glass
Of wine
*****
Beer
Even Listerine
If that is what it took
To get even a slight buzz

I sit alone
Adding another mark to the tally
Behind the mirror
Only a few more
Before it is accepted
For my life to end

The youngest
Unaware of all of the despair
In her family
The only one
Who truly smiles
In our family portrait

It's ironic
How beautiful it is
The way it flows in a thin line
Drops of pain and sorrow
That puddle up on your bathroom floor
Drained
No longer a part of you
You start to think
*"Maybe if enough is lost
The pain will go away."

On an early September evening
we are sitting outside together under moonlight.
Above us a black velvet sky sprinkled with diamonds;
the light of the stars dazzling on that night.

The infinite in the sky, it was nothing.
Quite dull seemed the moonlight and the stars.
They could never compare to the way they reflected in your eyes.
I'll remind you darling, I got lost in them; trapping me in behind bars.

As I lost myself in the way the moonlight reflected in your eyes,
our souls coalesce into oneness.
Within our beings I was able to feel a connection,
you glowed where once lay my void and emptiness.

How do I remain awake without your light?
Where do I get lost without your eyes?
I become cold without the radiation from your heart.
An emptiness lie where your heartbeat sang in rhythm with mine.

Anger.  Hurt.
      Confusion.  Shock.

Detachment from awareness, I was vulnerable.
The Dark Place was able to shake me again.

"Darkness cannot survive in the presence of light."

I was fearing a disturbing reality
until the salvation of light pulled stronger.

Your soul, my soul, manifesting connection in light.
You are light in my life; light in my life is you.

Never again will I see the moonlight reflected in your eyes,
But looking to the sky, the moon and starts have a new luminosity.

Three words,
Hurtful,
Egotistical,
Cockroach.

You are fireworks
in my chest and
things I can't hold on to
are slipping between my toes as I walk
across them. You don't care
that you showed up and stamped
a small portion of my stomach
with your butterfly-shaped coil.
I want it off
gone
out
done
but I know you'll come back
and I want you to feel the outline of it.
That way you'll know I never stopped trying
never stopped caring.
I need you to care, too.