I told the starts about you
And the way I can feel your fingertips slowly run down my back,
Even when we are miles away.

How the butterflies slowly rise from my stomach,
Quickly reaching my mouth and then flying away.
I watch them disappear into the universe in hopes that they’ll reach you and you’ll feel my love.

The ways I bombard my pillow each night with the rom-com scenarios and happily ever afters
Imagining what our late night face times, dinner dates and movies nights look like,
Hoping that each night is a step closer for them to finally become true.

How songs, poems, words and objects automatically make me think of you
And how I find everything I’ve been searching and seeking for inside your soul and body,
But you don’t even know.

And also how I’m constantly daydreaming about your galaxy filled eyes.
I could get lost inside of them and travel to numerous universes just by locking eyes with you,
Wishing that I’m the sun inside of them that makes your whole face light up.

I told the starts about you
As I was counting them up in the sky
Moving and shaping so they could form your face,
So you could be right next to me and never let me go.

And in the end,
I would go back and feel it all over again,
Just one more night.
So both our hearts could touch as we would breathe the same air,
Feeling your warmness when you hold me in your arms.

You sit in my desk,
Calling,
Beckoning,
Reaching out to me,
For one more cut
Upon my paper wrist.

You enjoy the pain a lot more than me,
To see me those emotionless nights just sketching upon my skin
New patterns and lines that are now a port of me.
Oh, how you enjoyed just seeing me at my worst
And knowing that the pain I was feeling inside,
Was something you were helping me bring to the outside.

The lines you helped me draw now stay with me forever
And they call to me in my sleepless nights to add more like them.
Dark red lines with bumps on the side and deep perforation are now tattoos on my right wrist,
As a result of the rope and knot I felt in my stomach
Just waiting to drag me even more down.

In the beginning, tears wouldn’t stop streaming down my eyes,
But I know I had to keep on going since I needed to punish myself
And feel the pain I had caused others.
Eventually, these feelings went numb and suddenly I felt nothing.
Cut after cut I was able to stop myself when I felt the sting but internally,
I wanted to go on forever.

Sweaters and hoodies are now my closest friends,
They hug me and protect me from the criticism I receive from others.
But no one understand the pain, no matter how hard they try to,
It’s just a feeling very few of us are able to experience.
Judging eyes dart to my wrist whenever I wear short-sleeves,
And short after, the millions of questions start bombarding me.

It angers me that after all of this,
You just sit in my desk patiently waiting,
Eyeing me constantly,
Reminding me of the past,
And waiting for the next time I’ll use you
To cut my paper wrist once again.

Sadness creeps over me, welcoming me back to the bottom like an old friend.
Dulness and pain is everything my heart is feeling.
Numbness fills up all of my body reminding me that I’ve hit rock bottom; once again.

The late nights staring at the dark nothingness of my ceiling while sad tunes fill my tears and rivers of tears roll down my cheek,
My ears are then filled by sad tunes that become the background music of the horrible thoughts I have.

I’m always wondering if there really is someone out there to come and help me,
and for someone to help understand since when has looking at myself in the mirror ever been so disgusting?
When most of the time I have to change in the darkness of my bathroom so I don’t see myself.

But you know what they say: be strong, you’ll get through this, you’re a fighter.
The reality of it all is that you don’t know the first thing about me.
You don’t know about the demons I fight everyday that are constantly yelling at me to end it all.

You don’t know about the knot in my throat reminding me of just how emotional and fragile I am.
You don’t know that I control this pain by giving me more because remember: no battle is won without a little bit of pain.

I have become a master of darkness.
Living in my demon’s shadow and following it wherever it goes,
Hiding right underneath it because I’m terrified of the brightness.
I haven’t felt light’s gentle and warm fingers touch over my skin for so long I’ve forgotten what they feel like altogether.

My demon and his shadow also have other friends that haunt me from the inside.
They are invisible bodies with loud voices that constantly echo in the back of my head everyday living rent free, having me paying taxes.
And these voices willfully arrived with sharp fingernails which have left permanent sketches upon my right wrist.

In the first encounter I had with my demon it also came with loneliness
Who wrapped a cold blanket around me making my skin like ice
Causing many to slowly drift away like snowflakes since they were scared to also become a lonely snowman.
Afterwards, my demon slowly creeped up behind me and gave me a tight hug,
Reminding me that he’s my only true friend and I’ll never get away from him.

Loneliness then led me to the house of his fellow friend Sadness whose father is Depression and his mother’s name is Insecurity.
With the assistance of this peculiar family, I learned how to drive down life’s path,
Seeking help from them only because they were the only ones I could trust.
They are always in the car with me guiding me to the unknown location but never arriving.

Along the road I’ve had to pick up many of their friends.
Anxiety came quickly after I turned on the car, Bulimia arrived one rainy and cold night, Self Deprivation came when cold-hearted people judged me in a traffic light.
The journey that started in a small car has become a school bus filled with the people that slowly ****** the light in me,
Replacing it with their dark and ***** concoctions.

These friends have come and go like leaves flying away into the sky.
But the one that has never left is my fallen angel.
My demon that arrived unannounced and interlaced his fingers with mine,
So tightly that our hands have eventually become one
And he’s constantly taking the lead about where it is we go next.

So I ask you my demon,
Where are you taking me next?
How many more of you friends do I have to associate with before you finally leave?