i cannot seem to forget
the smallness i had become.
bruised thighs
and sunken eyes
were my reality;
my skin was devoid of
any nutrients,
fragile and delicate.
i could vanish
into nothingness
like quicksand.

my days bled into
one another,
fingers frozen,
heart barely beating,
lungs hardly breathing.
i stared down the
barrel of the gun,
wished to purge my urges,
sat in an endlessly deep
pool of misery until
drowning was all i could do.

i replaced food with air,
consuming empty calories
and dug knives into
my skin as a personal hobby.

i am an open would
that never heals,
and i am desperate
to move on.

i have been swallowed by
my own reflection;
bones protrude through
pallid thin skin,
organs caving in
my stomach hoards a
swarm of bees,
buzzing through the
empty cavern that is
my translucent flesh.

i am a ravenous dog
teeth bearing,
devouring only water and air

i purge myself clean,
spill out empty calories
and irrational rumination,
skeleton hanging out of
a hollow casket,
appetite smaller than my waist.

i am freezing cold,
lanugo littering my body,
wanting to throw myself
in a fire,
to feel the warmth
that others feel.

i am a void -
this body is not my own.

i am a skeleton,
with crumbling bones
and an irregular beating heart
on the brink of collapsing.

i am an ice cold silhouette
of a girl with sunken eyes
and shriveled lungs
slowly shrinking inside
my concaved chest.

my hips protrude like shards of glass,
shattering onto the gaps between my thighs,
and my collarbones
are sharper than knives,
slicing and dicing
a year off my life everyday.

i am a rotten corpse,
with worn out ribs
and a cracked spine
disintegrating into nothing but
ash and dust.

this is what death looks like.

i am not my own.

the menace that abandoned my house
eventually came back
it used the words God gave him to threaten
everything in its path
he came back
screaming, clawing, gnawing at his prey
until there was nothing to left
its teeth would clench if his food
wouldn’t cooperate,
then he’d hold them down
to keep them from struggling

the same thing happened to you
but this was different
your menace was a real man,
someone who never quite understood
what consent meant

bone chilling moments
aren't what they seem to be.

my body resembles a corpse,
freezing to the tips of my toes,
with an ice cold heart
beating just enough to keep me alive.

i'm a dead girl walking,
littered in lanugo and
blue bruised, broken ribs,
and paper thin skin
caving in on itself
as if collapsing is inevitable.

bile inhabits my stomach,
yet hunger will always be
the second most important anyway.

pink, swollen cheeks are
replaced by hollow caverns
not even bears want to enter.

"i am an iceberg drifting to
the edge of the map,"
a girl who wants to be real-
but can't.

the blizzard winds in my head
have become too heavy to thaw out
and i can slowly feel my carcass of a body
cast away with the rest of my past.

i am gone.
  
                                    i am free.

at a young age,
i learned no one’s safe
when he pulled my tiny frame close,
tugging on my hair,
and not letting go;
i ripped away,
yet failed.

his tongue slithered down my throat,
his hands were cold and hard as stone
against my exterior,
endlessly taking and taking,
and in that moment,
i was numb,
toes frozen,
the screams held within
and arms sewn to the bed
beneath his feet.

my body is stolen and
tainted with his
poisonous sins
gripped within my skin;
i am unclean.

i still feel your eyes trailing along
my abdomen,
burning into my soul,
and your lips bruising my own
as you pressed down harder whilst
fondling every inch of my figure
to no avail.

twelve years later,
with red eyes and a foggy head,
i sleep alone,
fearing that ill drown
in my own sheets.

it was “me too” whom let the devil
consume my innocence
until i was light-headed and limp.

i’ve given up struggling and surviving
for i knew that after that night
i would never be free again,
because,
why live when there’s
no more of me to own?
why fight when i can just die alone?

i’ve left and there’s no going back.

i come from whispers of Venezuelan lullabies
y las stories que viene del corazon de mi mama.
the annual celebracion de Corpus Christi is a
constant reminder de la amarilla, azul, y sangre roja
coursing through my veins.
when i was younger,
yo baile durante horas con mi papa
and sung at the top of my lungs
until the last bit of oxygen
en mi pulmones deteriorated.
mi cultura is the incarnation of who i am,
it inhabits every cell en mi cuerpo,
and never will i ever consider
disintegrating the ashes on which mis ancestros
were founded upon.
it's the embodiment of my children, and their children;
it's mi vida y mi alma,
and no one could ever tear down the walls
of this Venezuelan throne.

It's hard to love someone who can't low you
Even when their eyes outshine the sun's rays
And how the warmth of your skin likes to imbue
Through your skin upon those delicate veins

Even when their eyes outshine the sun's rays
My love for you was so contagious, it grew
Through your skin upon those delicate veins

My love for you was so contagious, it grew
We rose way above the mountain peaks, but it was far too overdue
No matter what, our love musn't go ablaze
I loved You like flowers love the pouring rain

We rose way above the mountain peaks, but it was far too overdue
And now, I have to deal with how you never knew
I loved you like flowers love the pouring rain
The way the ocean is greeted by the tides waves

And now I have to deal with how you never knew
How the warmth of your smile likes to imbue
The way the ocean is greeted by the tides waves
Its hard to love someone who can't love you
©
~amanda

It's hard to love someone who can't low you
Even when their eyes outshine the sun's rays
And how the warmth of your skin likes to imbue
Through your skin upon those delicate veins

Even when their eyes outshine the sun's rays
My love for you was so contagious, it grew
Through your skin upon those delicate veins

My love for you was so contagious, it grew
We rose way above the mountain peaks, but it was far too overdue
No matter what, our love musn't go ablaze
I loved You like flowers love the pouring rain

We rose way above the mountain peaks, but it was far too overdue
And now, I have to deal with how you never knew
I loved you like flowers love the pouring rain
The way the ocean is greeted by the tides waves

And now I have to deal with how you never knew
How the warmth of your smile likes to imbue
The way the ocean is greeted by the tides waves
Its hard to love someone who can't love you

tear stained pillow cases and dreary eyes replaced a smile wider than an ocean and a heart made of gold.

2. father pressed its hands on your back, signaling you wouldn't stay alive much longer.

3. beer bottles and hashish made its way into the empty caverns of your mouth, and i didn't stop you.

4. broken homes, no, broken houses, were no longer part of our safety, but rather taped cardboard boxes became the alternative.

5. self medication and bleeding bones transformed your flesh garden; scars and bruises were your best friends.

6. dreams of life were shattered, instead buying cans of green beans and carrots were the only goals you aspired to meet.

7. black and blue nail polish, broken toes, and mushy tobacco destroyed the walls of our make - shift shelter.

8. scapegoats blamed you for crashing the windows of their soul.

9. steel bars became an everyday ritual for father and there was no way to raise kids without a job.

10. your parental custody was revoked and the demons you gave life to moved to an orphanage, at least that's what it felt like.

11. water boiled in your brain; you couldn't stand the loneliness and the guilt of the inability to love.

12. your children moved once more, isolation had finally consumed your carcass of a body.

13. not one or two, but three of your baby ducklings turned against you.

14. 'mommy' rapidly turned to 'mom' and ultimately, 'mother.' realization punched your organs to pieces. they're was no longer any love in your cold heart.

I can't contain the love I have for you
It devours me whole then throws me under
Creating a typhoon like no other
Its still not as big as the lies you threw

I am afraid tonset our love anew
Because it would be hard to recover
From the terrible effects of thunder
Now I have got nothing else to pursue

Yet, I stray away from you everyday
I am no longer in a fairy tale
My dreams with you are slowly degrading

My Nightingale is being blown away
And I'm starting to feel like I've failed
Too bad your spirit is starting to fade

Your brown eyes could glow an eternity
Setting entire galaxies into flames
Your phases of the moon changed perfectly
As an eclipse rushed through your pastel veins

And then, sadness would trickle down us face
All of a sudden, building a terror
Inside of me that I cannot erase
Who knew nebulas contain lavender

However, your constellations still shined
Even when the sky wreaked havoc upon earth
And your sanity was never aligned
You really are more than you think you're worth

If only I could see your ember soul
Once more, my fuschia heart would be more whole

~Amanda S.

A mind wanders in the dead of night
With only its thoughts for company in the dark of night

A girl wears her heart on her sleeve
She is lonely, drinking away the memories of that night

A toddler screams until there is no longer any air left in his tiny lungs,
He had been smothered to the bots from that night

A boy injects love into his bloodstream
Crying out oceans to the silence of the night

An arrow stays stuck in a man's battered and bruised chest
Only because his life didn't matter that night

The bow is placed in the hands of a tattered and tainted woman
Because a man wouldn't give his soul away to the night

And Kathryn sits and smirks at how no one seems to know
That life is coming to and end, after tonight
©
~amanda

you were the first-

the first kiss,
silky lips one with each other,
skin to skin,
bone to bone,
my fingers caressing the prized jewel
that is your body,
hands gliding along your waist,
sliding down every curvature and crevice
god gave you.

you were
the first 'i love you',
hair whipping in the wind,
heart beating a mile a minute,
your eyes interlaced w my soul,
gracing my own.

and though it is unholy
to crave the sun
when I am only a star,
I won't repent my sins,
for you are the reason
planets twirl
and I exist.

-i want you to be the last.

Your brown eyes could glow an eternity
Setting entire galaxies into flames
Your phases of the moon changed perfectly
As an eclipse ran through your pastel veins

And then, sadness would trickle down your face
All of a sudden, building a terror
Inside of me that I could not erase
Who knew nebulas contain lavender

However, your constellations still shined
Even when the sky wreaked havoc on Earth
And your sanity was never aligned
You really are more than you think you're worth

If only I could see your ember soul
Once more, my fuchsia heart would be more whole
©

nothing.

i was ****** knuckles and
bruised wrists
hiding beneath broken tables
and a heart beating too fast
to keep up with.

she lived in lies
while i was busy building walls to
barricade the battle cries
haunting me at night.

he was beer bottles and
a brazen tongue twisting
words into bullets,
firing empty threats
at a child far too gone.

i didn’t ask for
reckless rages and
abuse that left me
struggling to stay alive
nor did i want to experience
the epitome of a nightmare.

i was afraid.
love was an unfamiliar concept,
spilling out of their skulls,
staining the tile floor
and there’s no way to pour
it all back,
so im left homeless
in a dark alley way,
begging for a miracle
i know won’t come.

tar sends tingle down my spine,
but the regrets race back up-
choking me.
dread spreads in my stomach,
twisting and churning,
expanding until all that's left are
the remains of my past.
the smoke sets in,
engulfing what's left of my
torn up body,
the fire blazing away the bygones.

evidently, it never happened.
i never saw him rip the dignity out of her heart.
she never dissected his tear stained soul-
i didn't swallow myself whole after
realizing i had nowhere to go.

i am an apparition not to be messed with,
an unconquerable phantom ready to
haunt your deepest dreams
and i will rise regardless of
who's standing in my way.

i am a force to be reckoned with,
and you will never see the end of me.

you never feared death;
you embraced it.
you let the demons linger
in the background,
gnawing at faded photographs
and grey memories
of the years past-
when life was simple.
when recollection didn’t
fester up in open wounds,
and your darkest secrets
weren’t crawling in grungy corners
amongst the hidden truth.

you never feared death;
you welcomed it.
you allowed the beasts to creep
into the depths of your demise,
conjuring up nightmares within
the shadows of your subconscious,
screeching to be saved,
yet you can’t hear it.

you never feared death;
you accepted it.
you fell in love with
the anatomy of a gun,
how bullets gracefully leave
the barrel until
the entire magazine is gone-
and the glorious recoil.

but somehow,
there was no warning,
no bright yellow caution sign screaming,
“help me”
no “i love you’s,” and no “goodbyes”;
now,
all we have left is
the ghost of you-
the blood-stained wall,
the haunting images
of your bloodshot eyes
and limp carcass-
on a bed i used to sleep in.

I can't contain the love I have for you
It devours me whole then throws me under
Creating a typhoon like no other
Its still not as big as the lies you threw

I am afraid tonset our love anew
Because it would be hard to recover
From the terrible effects of thunder
Now I have got nothing else to pursue

Yet, I stray away from you everyday
I am no longer in a fairy tale
My dreams with you are slowly degrading

My Nightingale is being blown away
And I'm starting to feel like I've failed
Too bad your spirit is starting to fade

honey suckle runs through my veins.

i am adrift,
she approaches me,
brightness glowing around her.

her arms reach out,
touching my brittle ***** body,
replenishing the strength i never had.

i cry tears of joy;
redemption is here.
the light has been restored.

i am renewed.

A mind wanders in the dead of night
With only its thoughts for company in the dark of night

A girl wears her heart on her sleeve
She is lonely, drinking away the memories of that night

A toddler screams until there is no longer any air left in his tiny lungs,
He had been smothered to the bots from that night

A boy injects love into his bloodstream
Crying out oceans to the silence of the night

An arrow stays stuck in a man's battered and bruised chest
Only because his life didn't matter that night

The bow is placed in the hands of a tattered and tainted woman
Because a man wouldn't give his soul away to the night

And Kathryn sits and smirks at how no one seems to know
That life is coming to and end, after tonight
©
~amanda

my soul is in another dimension
these thoughts are floating in space,
fingertips frozen in place,
and my heart is encased in a steel cage;
my key has been thrown away.

i can't reach my reality
it hovers in front of me,
pleading to be caught.

it's too far to grasp.

        i'm afraid i'll never reach it.

my heart throbs with every breath.
bodies hit the ground one by one,
and i am left with the smell of copper and sulfur
swimming in my nostrils.
fevered with fatigue,
and twisted with despair,
i run;
i run till my legs go weak,
till my lungs shriek,
till the tears in my eyes run dry,
and i am held captive on this road of brutal ******
and merciless destruction.

there is no refuge,
no safe haven -
just hollow spirits
combined with empty caverns
where organs used to reside.
gunshots echo in my ears,
am i really here?
why is the smoke swallowing me whole?

i have no home,
so i hide;
i trip over emaciated fragments
of my family,
hesitating to hold them.
where's the hope?