You're hard candy and
I've no clue what you have within


Is it a viscous, sweet-tasting fluid
That will seep, spilling all that you hide


Or will you break me before I ever
Reach your center
Are you hard to the core?

I hope he loves me
Even at 2 am

Losing my mind
Brains spilling out
Trying to fix the leak
Knowing there's nothing
That I can do

Begging for sleep
Wishing for the end
Not knowing if
It'll finally be the knife
That does it for me

I hope he loves me

The light puts slits in your eyes
Horizontal rather than vertical
Another excuse not to look into them
But besides that, you're kind of pretty today

I sincerely wish this was our first meeting
Or that it wouldn't be our last
I really, truly wish I knew you
Girl within the mirror

I wish I could see you when you’re scared
I know you are but I want to see it
I want to know not that the anxiety is real
But that you’re real

You got your first job at a hotel
You said it was fine but didn’t realize
That you’d bitten off more than you could chew
Until 4 AM the next day
When you called your boyfriend and
Showed up at emergency

Swore your anxiety was better and yet
You couldn’t hit the push-to-talk button
Called the hospital with your phone instead
Because the 5 extra meters of distance
From the hospital door really made a difference

The nurse gave you a couple hotlines to call
Next thing you knew you were crying on a park bench
Talking to a mental health worker over the phone
At 6 in the morning

You always seem fine until you start talking
Holding tears in until your thoughts
Escape through your mouth
For you to hear them out loud
Because that’s when you realize these things
Are more than just words

You still ended up at the hospital
As directed by the confusing-but-supportive
Mental health worker

Just as you did over the phone
You insist you aren’t suicidal
Whenever necessary
You feared being admitted again
But you wouldn’t say this aloud

...

After dropping off your prescription slip
With a grocery store application form hidden in your jacket
You quit your first job

Your mom wasn’t angry
Like you were worried she would be
But you still haven’t told your dad
Because he seemed so proud
And the first thing of significance
That you told the mental health worker
Was that you feel like a disappointment

Porcelain birds
Perch upon my window sill
Waiting to recieve the letter
I told them about

A letter I've been writing for weeks
Cooped up in my clockwork tower
Speaking to no one but the dust-spiders
And the squirrel that Mother still hasn't
found out about

I wrote about how much I wish
To leave this place
How much I wish to join you
In the garden we'll plant together
Laying in the grass and looking
Up at the bright orange sky
Before the sun finally sets

I wrote about the lovely meals
I'll cook and all the treats I'll bake
only for you

The animals we'll take care of
and bond with, our ideal version of
children, I suppose

The places we'll travel together
and the beautiful pictures we'll take

But most importantly
the "I love you."
at the very end to make sure
my point comes across