In Spanish class, my teacher told me to answer the question
"When you were a kid, did you tell lies?"
I answered, in Spanish,
"Yes, I lied a lot."
And the class laughed.
The teacher exasperated,
"Ohhhhh, well then."
With a smile embedded on his face.
And I smiled, too.
Because it wasn't a lie.

She told me to stop protecting her from what I do
Because she would always find out
And I guess it would be easier to hear
About it from my lips
Than in a poem or on social media
Because then,
I'm guessing here,
She could hug me.
And I could possibly let her in.
And I want to do that.
But,
When I was a little girl,
I lied a lot.
And now,
I'm not such a little girl
And lies spill from my mouth
And I really don't know why.

She almost had me in tears today
People don't do that to me
I cried when Rebecca found out
I cried in front of White
I cried when I told Kristi, both times
I cried when Ali and I talked back in June about it
I cry at the thought of Jed and Eric finding out
I cried the day after I started because of Savanna
And now she has me crying
And I can't stop and I don't want anything
To break because I can't stop being broken
But what are you supposed to do
When shards of glass keep being
Thrown like knives at what I love
I never think it will be me doing the throwing.

I've got seven years bad luck
And a broken mirror in my art box.

It's sad to think that I don't
Wince when I see his picture
I used to shatter at the thought
Of meeting his eyes
I wrote pages upon pages of
Words
That he never saw
And I don't know where
They even are at this point
And it's sad to think that I broke
His heart but then again
I never had the power
Over him to do so in the first place
It's sad to think that he's not
The same man he was back then
And I wonder if when he hugs
Me
He thinks about what he lost
But I'm sure he doesn't
That would be too hard for me
Yes, I'm still shaken up
About what he did to me
It was painful and I lost something
Then
I don't even know what to look for
Silence always seemed to hurt me
A little too much
And it seems to always find it's way
Back to me even when
I actually do love a person
And they love me
Silence always seems to find a way
To crowd into the spaces of my
Mind
And it's sad to think
That he threw away my poems.

She had to be somebody's definition of
Relapse
There was always a part of her that
Held onto what she had to let go
And there seemed to be no way to
Stop the demons from flooding her mind.

She had to be somebody's definition of
Insane
Her head liked to play games
With the way her hair fell in
Front of her eyes especially if
Someone was attempting to read her.

She had to be somebody's definition of
Destruction
What was so wrong with playing with
Matches if she was okay enough
And had steady hands that
Seemed to always write in pen?

She had to be somebody's definition of
Goodbye
Someone had once told her that hellos
Were just as useless as sorrys
But they never brought up the word
That she had a tendency to give away.

She had to be somebody's definition of
Fear
Compared to what she had become
Monsters didn't live in the back of closets
And there was nothing under her bed
But crumpled up poems and tissues.

She had to be somebody's definition of
Broken
The closest anyone has seen her to crying
In the past 5 years was that
Moment she ran away because
She didn't want to tell anyone.

She had to be somebody's definition of
Desperate
All she had wanted was to get better
All they seemed to be able to do was yell
So she closed up again with her lies
And puts the right dose in her every morning.

She had to be somebody's definition of
Something
Otherwise she didn't matter
But maybe she didn't, not to all of us
Perhaps she didn't matter because
She wouldn't let herself.