a year and a half ago you demolished the home we built together and you ran a tornado across the flowers we grew but somehow the floorboards managed to stay intact and the seeds were untouched so I somehow managed to begin building our house again and I regrew the flowers in hope that you would one day return and realize that I was the love of your life but as time went on I began to grow weak and I had to start lying to everyone I knew saying that I was okay without you because I couldn't deal with the torment anymore and then you decided a week ago that you thought it was be a marvelous idea to tell me you wanted to see me and when I saw you at the coffee shop my knees got shaky and I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest but I couldn't handle lying anymore so I somehow was able to say how I felt and that you're still all I've ever wanted and the only thing you were able to say was that you thought that this was us working it out but my god we weren't ever going to be able to talk it out because you refused to tell me you were still in love with me and no matter what you say now it doesn't matter because in that moment you couldn't even speak so last night I ripped up the floorboards and I pulled out the flowers and seeds because I'll be ****** if I let you ruin my life any longer and while I wish I was still it for you I'm also starting to realize that I never really was it to begin with so I thank the lord because I think I'm finally clean and I think that I'll be able to go on without your voice wrapped around my throat.

in two weeks it'll be thanksgiving and then it'll be the Sunday you broke up with me and I thought that by now I'd be okay but I still remember the bathroom stall I was sitting in the Monday after crying my eyes out because my mother insisted that I get out of bed and go do something so I could feel better and I remember being with my entire family and crying for an hour straight and my cousin coming outside and carrying me in because I couldn't even stand on my own two feet anf I couldn't stop vomiting your lies and your promises so he needed to get me to the bathroom and I remember when i finally was able to get out of bed and go to school and my grades plummeted and my teachers thought that I was just another lazy student that shakes a little too much and who leaves for the bathroom a little too often and who always comes back with bloodshot eyes and mascara on my neck because I was sitting there crying and I thought I had gotten every black speck off but I never did and I thought that I hid everything so well but then I remember when you called me in January drunk and told me you missed me and I rememberchoking back the tears and sayingthat I don't love you anymore but I think you could tell that you completely ripped up the floorboards in my heart and that I'm not going to get better for awhile and now I'm terrified because you were right and I'm still stubbing my toes on the nails sticking out the ground and I'm still getting splitters in my feet from the rotting wood and I'm still not okay.

today I reconnected with my best friend from freshmen year and she couldn't stop talking about how much she missed her friends from the simpler time and she didn't even mention a word about the boy who broke her heart in January, which led her into a rapid downfall that included drugs and alcohol and self manipulation. when I brought him up, she chuckled a little and said, "oh yeah, I haven't thought about him in a long time" and I swear to god, it felt like a stab in my heart because I remember being heartbroken with her in late January when you spit on my heart and threw salt in my wounds and we promised each other that in a few years they wouldn't matter anymore, but I'm still here two years later and the tables are turned and I'm drowning in alcohol and drugs and self manipulation and she is recovered and beautiful, and I swear it's like *everyone is able to heal and recover from an catastrophe except me.

I just don't understand why you can't get it through your thick skull that's filled with facts about history that most teachers don't even know and your intense incredible love for drawing, it's always been you. it's been you since the summer before my eighth grade year and the summer before my junior year and all the summers inbetween and it didn't matter if it was four am or four pm or whether I was writing or swimming, it was always you. even when I was drunk and kissing another boy, it was you. when a new boy is kissing my neck, I wish it's you, and when a new boy tells me that he's falling in love with me, it's still always you and I can't even begin to imagine loving anyone else with blue eyes and a dorky smile besides you. and I'm really trying here to explain to you that even through you've repeatedly broken my heart and have repeatedly made me cry, you were still always the one that kept me from getting really bad again. so I know that you're off at college falling in love with a new girl every night but you need to know that it's still you for me, and I think it always will be.

you promised that you'd never leave me until I was stitched all together and was able to walk by myself but just as I was starting to stand on my own two feet you ripped the stitches out of me and left me bleeding for days so maybe I promised never to get this bad again but at least I didn't promise to stay until the end and then reck someone's world like you did.

I overheard someone muttering about how naive I am to trust someone like you and maybe they're right but when you're kissing my neck and my fingers are running through your hair every single rumor buckles beneath me and the only thing I can make out is you whispering in my ear about how you've never wanted anything or anyone so much in your life

a month ago I confessed to my best friend that I tripped over the shattered pieces of my previously broken heart, and smacked face first into a boy that could never ever be infatuated with me like he is with Jack but that for some reason I'm still gaining feelings for him quicker than a shooting star can grant a drunken wish.
she told me that I need to stay as far away from him that I possibly can because he's going to kiss me and leave a permanent stain on my lips and then will tell me that he's in love with another girl and no matter how much I scrub my lips and brush my teeth the stain will always be there haunting me about how I gave myself up to a boy who was always in love with someone else. she said that all my bruises from the old boy just faded away and that I shouldn't put myself into a situation where I would only come out with new bruises and cuts on my ankles from when I had to run through the woods to get away from the feeling of my heart sinking to the bottom of my stomach and then shattering into a million pieces with jagged edges that rip apart my insides.  
I told her that everything would be okay and that he's different. I said that he would put me on his back and that we'd fly through the galaxy and build our own world, leaving behind every single person that has hurt us and made us bleed. I told her that he picked me off of the ground, dusted me off, and opened me up like an old book to see my insides and what my demons look like. and I promised her that he would keep my stitches together until I healed.

but oh boy was I wrong and now I'm bleeding more than ever.

everyone tells me that it's my fault that I feel this way and that I need to stop looking at the terrible side of things, and oh maybe they're right but how am I supposed to look on the bright side of things when the boy I'm in love with walked away five months ago and took everything with him except the voices in my head and my blade and that my mother and father are waiting for the day I turn eighteen so they can kick me out and not pay for my medical bills and the medication that I need to wake up each day and not **** myself.

but, oh maybe I'll look on the bright side of things when something good finally happens in my life and doesn't end in disaster and open wounds.

everyone told me you were bad news and to not let you kiss me but I swore I could see the beautiful blue sky in your eyes but it turns out that you decided to become a natural disaster that started out with nice weather and promising love and then ended up flinging houses and cars everywhere along with the pieces of my heart.

everyone tells me that I shouldn't let you kiss me and that I shouldn't let you unbutton my jeans because you don't care about me and all you care about is making me fall in love with a fictional love that you promise is real. but, I swear when it's 4 pm and I'm up against a tree and you're kissing my neck all I can think about is how I can feel your heart beating out of your chest and how you're whispering that you've never wanted anything so much in your life.

it's 4 am and I'm really drunk right now and I almost texted you for the first time in almost 5 months saying that we met 3 years ago in the next few weeks and that I can still remember every single thing that happened that day from you smiling at me to me stumbling over some rocks and you catching me. but I really hope this new girl loves you like I did (do) and I hope one day you realize that you threw away absolutely everything for a girl that only wants you for what you can do in the sheets.

you're like the bad taste that coffee leaves in my mouth long after I've finished my cup, and I'm never fully able to get rid of it until I pour a new one. (but the taste always comes back,
just like the memory of you)

you snapped the spines and hearts of every single girls whose ever loved you because you would rather step on their bones and around their feelings than just tell them straight up that your heart is as cold as the winter wind in December.

YOU COMPLETELY RIPPED MY HEART OUT OF MY CHEST AND WHILE YOU DID THAT YOU SLIPPED AND FELL AND SCRATCHED YOUR KNEE AND EVERYONE ASKED IF YOU WERE  OKAY WHILE I WAS COLLAPSED ON THE GROUND BLEEDING OUT AND GASPING FOR AIR.

my mom warned me about addiction,
but she only mentioned the ones that revolved around pills and a needle.
but never ever did she mutter even a word about a 17 year old boy whose turquoise eyes made my eye sight get a bit blurry and whose touch made me a little lightheaded.

When I met you I had galaxies in my heart, stars in my eyes, and constellations in my mind. My dreams stretched to the other side of the universe and I swore that one day I'd fly with the comets, mesmerizing every single person who saw me. So ******* for stripping me of all of that and **** myself for letting you.

• that when you hold my hand, your palms get sweaty because for some odd beautiful reason my laughter and smile make you nervous

• when you say my name it sounds like a bird outside my window singing me to sleep at 6 am

• how you pull me closer and wrap a blanket around me when I start shivering while we're watching our favorite show; even though it's 85 degrees outside

• when I get angry at you and I'm about to walk away with mascara lines down my face, you grab my wrist and tell me you'll never leave me alone

• when I look into your beautiful turquoise eyes and my knees begin to grow weak, and you always seem to know just when to catch me

• how at 3 am you wrap your arms around me to remind me that you're still there protecting me because you know how frequent my nightmares are

• how you kiss every single scar on my body weather it be from when I fell off my bike when I was ten years old or from self infliction

• that when I call you yearning for your advice you don't give me some ******* answer like every other person in life has

• how when I'm doubting your love for me, you grab my face and start screaming that I'm the only you'll ever need

• that I'll never be able to stop loving you, even if the moon collapsed and demanded that you aren't right for me

your eyes used to remind me of how the sun bounces off of the lake when it was just about to set and it seemed like a kaleidoscope of blues was everywhere around me, engulfing me and making me feel calm, even in my darkest hour. your voice used to remind me of how when I look up at the night sky I can see a pattern in the stars that no one else around me could see so they said I was special and that I'll achieve things that nobody else could.
but now it's 4 am and I can't sleep because I can't erase the memory from my mind of your beautiful blue eyes turning into the color of your soul and your voice echoing that you lied about everything you've ever said especially the part of being in love with me.

I think it's funny that when it's 2 AM and I'm contemplating ripping off my skin my parents said I can talk to them to make it better, but 99% of the time, they're the ones that put me into that position.

I think it's funny that when I told my parents about slicing my thighs open they said that they'd get me help and everything would be okay, but everything has only gotten worse and now I feel like I'm living in hell.

I think it's funny how my parents promised me that they'd never take away the one thing that made me feel okay, but now it's 10 o'clock at night and I'm missing out on the fun that my best friends are having because I can't be trusted overnight to be with the only people that help me forget about how I'd be able to get blood to pour out of my body with something other than the blades I don't have anymore.

I think it's funny how my parents said that they'd never want me to leave this earth, but they're the reason why at 5 am I want to take 100 pills and drown myself with my tears and strangle myself with their voices of saying I'm not good enough.

I think it's funny how my mom swears that she knows what she's talking about and that she knows how to make everything better, yet she almost always seems to be the one that makes me want to break open my knuckles by punching the wall so many times.

I think it's funny that when I get upset about my parents making me be a prisoner in my own home, my dad says that there isn't anyone that I should be mad at except for myself, like I somehow could've prevented this from happening.

I think it's funny that almost every single scar on my body is from my parents shoving me into a wall and telling me that I'll never be good enough for this world and that I'm sure as hell not good enough for them.

I think it's funny that I'm only one person in a world of 7 billion people, and that my parents say that if I were gone I'd be missed, but I won't be, especially by them. and I can promise them that.

I think about you every single day still.

even though it's been over a year since my heart was ripped out, I still wish it would be you to stitch it back together.

I don't want some guy who's name I don't even know stitching it back together after I've drank so much my head spins, but that's normally how it goes.

a new boy told me he liked me today and since he smelled like you I almost kissed him.

but if I would have kissed him, his lips wouldn't mold to mine like yours so willingly did.

sometimes I can swear I can still feel your fingertips tracing my thighs.

my fingers still aren't very sure how to grasp things because they still want it to be you I'm grasping, not the toilet bowl I'm throwing up into after a night of drowning my sorrows in *****.

my thoughts still echo your name, but  I can't tell whether it's from me missing you so dearly, or from me wanting to strangle you for cracking me in half.

I think about how we knocked the pictures off the wall when I pushed you into it with lust, and then we laughed so hard that we ruined the moment so beautifully.

sometimes I think I can hear your voice in the blanket you gave me after I told you I couldn't sleep without your arms around me, which then causes me to start weeping and shout your name into it which somehow still smells like you.

I've washed my hair over 300 times, but I still can't seem to get it to go back to the way it was so now it's still as tangly as it was that Saturday morning, and still smells like your pillow and cologne.

the butterflies in my stomach turn into piranhas whenever I see you, and they rip apart my insides and it leaves me bleeding for days.

I still think about that one time when I woke you up at 2 am when I called you sobbing, and you picked me up and we drove for three hours because you thought I'd rip my veins out even though I'd been so good for so long.

my dad asked me if I wanted him to paint over the writing on my wall from when we'd been together for a year and you wrote that you'd love me forever, but I told him no because it's all I really have left of you anymore.

you grew daisies in my heart and watered them with your kisses and love, but now there's just dust left from the tornado that ran across my insides the night you left me.

I remember when you told me it was over and I collapsed on the sidewalk where we had out first kiss, and I screamed at the moon swearing I was going to die that night.

I told myself I was going to close my heart and close the box of butterflies so my love for you would die.

I closed it. there is no more heart. and there are no more butterflies.

I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to write poetry that grows sunflowers in hearts like what grew in mine when I was with you

I remember when I was in the hospital and I didn't sleep for two days straight because I swore to god that if I did the demons would step out from under the bed and seep into my head.

I remember when it was three am, and I was shaken awake from the girl three doors down shrieking from the night terrors that her mother embedded into her skull with her fist and a belt when she was eight. But, they were then stored away until she was thirteen years old and a man swore that he'd beat her if she didn't cooperate. So, now they hide during the day, and creep back up when the sun falls.

I remember when I witnessed a boy unintentionally scratch at his skin until he bleed for an hour because the voices inside of his mind told him that if he didn't hurt anyone else, he would just have to hurt himself. and he swears he'd never hurt anyone besides himself.

I remember when I met a girl who had cuts up and down her arms and legs from when her mother told her she'd never survive the world because she isn't good enough. But, I swear to god that she was the strongest person I've ever met.

I remember when my roommate stayed up all night rocking with bloodshot eyes and deep purple circles underneath of them because she swore that if she slept the monsters inside of her head would crawl out and bleed into her soul.

I remember when the boy five doors down hit the wall so hard that it shook the entire unit because he hallucinated a man and a little girl trying to strangle him, and he swore he could feel the noose around his neck.  

even through all of this, for some odd reason teenagers think it's lovely to have deep scars and to hear voices telling them to **** themselves and everyone around them. I swear, nothing is lovely about demons eating at your brain and thoughts.

I remember when it was four am, and I was up weeping from the fact that people think my suffering is lovely.

I can swear to you, it's not.

the weather is starting to get like it was when you left.
but it's different because the clouds now look like you,
and the rain reminds me of your words—rapid yet gentle.
but I swear to God, not even the pictures of you, or the growing daisies could erase the pain from you moving across the world a year ago.

this is not some love story
a boy will not come and save you and he will not kiss the scars on your thighs.

this is not a movie
someone isn't going to save you from your demons,
or think your illness and addiction is beautiful.

this is not a fairytale
you will not save yourself from the voices,
or the jabbing pain in your stomach
or the shaking of your body for that quick release.

this is real life
and nothing will save you except for the pills that the doctors put you on that helps you with your mood swings, and unwillingness to get out if bed every morning.  

this is not poetry.

self harm scars are not lovely.
sadness is not beautiful.
and demons are not glorious.
stop trying to make mental illness a great thing to have.
so if you glorify self harm and sadness, stop being a ******* ******* because it isn't ******* beautiful.

nothing is beautiful about voices in your mind that tell you to take a blade to your skin, and nothing is beautiful about morning rolling around and you contemplate being "sick", or jumping out into traffic just in time to get hit by a bus just so you can escape life.
this is not beautiful.

it's weird that Brits say "chips" instead of "french fries",
and it's sad that your dad says "you're hopeless" instead of "I love you".
it's weird that the sun pokes up out of the ground at different times everyday,
and it's sad that it hurts more when you poke your finger than when you run the blade down your skin.
it's weird that the sun still shines when it's 3 degrees outside,
and it's sad that 3 am is filled with thoughts of agony and your pillow is stained with the salt water from your eyes.
it's weird that there's 365 days in a year but it dreads on feeling like 1,000,
and it's sad that the pills that are supposed to make you feel better for your depression only make you want to swallow 365 more to make the pain go away.
it's weird that you're forced to go to school with ignorant teenagers that have no idea what they want in life besides getting high,
and it's sad that those teenagers romanticize self harm and depression like it's beautiful to have demons in your mind eating away your sanity.

there's 6 types of sadness:
1) the break in your heart when your high school love says he doesn't love you anymore and that he found someone new that's better than you
2) the 4 am feeling of loneliness when you realize nobody is ever really there when you need it the very most
3) the shaky feeling that runs through your spine when all you crave is a blade and to see crimson run down your thigh
4) the realization that your teenage years are drifting away from you because a boy ruined everything you've ever loved including yourself
5) the agony in the pit of your stomach from that one time in 8th grade when mommy told you she hated you and that she wanted to **** you
6) the shame and stupidity you feel when you run your fingertips across your textured skin from that time in 7th grade when your friend convinced you that a blade was a good release which led to your rapid downfall and you not having the ability to live without it running across your skin

as a thirteen year old,
I had to grow up a little too fast and put up my big girl pants on
due to daddy losing his job.

as a thirteen year old,
I found a new way of expressing myself.
but, instead of painting or screaming,
I did both,
and began painting with crimson
and screaming along with the rest of the voices in my head.

as a fourteen year old,
I turned down the medication they said I needed to survive
and got clean,
deciding I could do it all on my own.

as a fifteen year old,
I fell in love with a boy that was no good for me,
and whose worlds were like gasoline,
and whose touch was like fire.
daddy never approved,
and mommy always shook her head in disappointment.

as a sixteen year old,
I lost myself in whiskey,
and fell back into using my thighs as a canvas
after three years of being clean.

as a sixteen year old,
my eyes stung with salt water from crying an ocean almost every night.
and I lost my soul and became a walking corpse with dead lifeless eyes.

as a sixteen year old,
I never got along with mommy.
I told her we shouldn't talk anymore.
I told her I hated her.

as a sixteen year old,
I look back on when I was thirteen,
and I'm blown away with how much of a disappointment I am.
and how saving myself isn't something I want.
it's something I need.

as a thirteen year old,
I never thought I'd be such an awful daughter,
and such a terrible person.
and I most defiantly never thought my life
would turn out as tragic as
*this

you said "goodbye"
and I turn around,
tears running down my face.
the memories flash by,
and it felt as if it would feel if my life was flashing before my eyes
when a bullet was coming towards me.

the voices fill my mind again,
"I told you.
He doesn't want you.
He never wanted you.
You're worthless."

and I turn around one last time,
thinking maybe you'd change his mind.
but  I turn around to already see you
with your arms wrapped around someone new.

it's 2 in the afternoon,
and she doesn't hear the voices.
she feels stronger today.

it's 5 at night,
her family pressures her to eat,
she shallows it down.
she feels stronger today.

it's 10 o'clock,
she's counting the seconds,
and can't stop this thinking about the food in her stomach.
she begins to grow weak.

it's 12 o'clock,
the voices begin to creep back.
she thinks she can handle them.

it's 3:15 am,
the voices won,
and with tears running down her cheeks,
she paints her skin with crimson.
she laughs,
not feeling any pain.
the demons finally got the best of her.
and now,
there is no her.
but, just a young, teenage girl,
lying cold.
with a smile on her lips,
and a blade in her hand.