I have a problem with going to funerals.

But, with the way that I dress, the way that I act, you would think that I would be fine hanging out with a dead family member, right?

Yeah, no.

I hate funerals.

And, it’s not because I’m an insensitive *******.

You’ve all witness my breakdowns.

I eat the food afterwards.

Listen to people pray to a god that I don’t believe in.

Listen to people talk about a heaven that I don’t believe in, and wouldn’t get into, anyway, even if I did.

I drink the watery coffee.

I listen to my family talk about how proud they were with themselves because they didn’t cry, and feel weak and broken, ****** up, flawed, for sobbing so hard that my shoulders shook.

I look at the person in the coffin.

But I don’t see them.

I have a problem with funerals in general.

I tend to stand there, useless.

Though I have been known to give hugs to people when they are about to cry.

My problem, though, is not that I am afraid of death.

I am afraid of living, and being alone, more than anything.

My problem is that I have the strongest urge to run up to the coffin, and shake the person laying there, yell at them to wake up.

To just wake up.

To please just wake up.

Because they promised that they wouldn’t leave me.

But, everybody leaves.

Everybody leaves.

Fill a bathtub

with my sorrow

so sweet

so cold

so sharp

so

I can drown

myself in it

Now

Don’t you worry

your pretty little head,

my love

Safe is my middle name

On every day that

doesn’t end

in

Y

I was drinking tea.

Or, trying to.

The key word is trying.

I kept on choking,

and coughing,

and gagging.

Now my throat hurts.

Almost as much as it did

when I decided to strangle myself.

Second -hand smoke

it doesn’t bother me

anymore.

After all both of my parents

smoke

smoked

smoke

******.

I could name

so many people that I know

walking around with packs

of cancer sticks

in their back pockets.

All the people that

I have

walked with

behind

careful not the breathe too deeply.

All the people that

I have

talked with

kept quiet

inhaling and exhaling

in perfectly murderous synchronization

I want to *** a smoke

cancer stick

like you used to smoke

swallow their lighters

little booklets of matches

burn apart from the inside out

drowning in my own blood

I am

the breakfast I didn’t eat

day old scars littering my arms

the burning peroxide running down the drain

water not yet tinged pink by blood

I am

the chips eaten at 2 AM

pills swallowed dry

scraping their way down my throat

contemplating a silent suicide

I am

the hand tremors

so bad I can hardly write

unfortunate side affect of the meds

keeping the demons at bay

I am

the last fare well

apologizing until my throat bleeds

for the slip ups and people I failed

scattered over my skin over and over again

I

am

human

but

I

don’t

really

want

to

live

You are a novel

lodged behind my ribs

jammed into the shattered remains of my heart

I can feel the internal bleeding

slowly killing me

how I wish it would hurry the **** up

You are a novel

stuck in my lungs

worse than cigarette smoke

You are a novel

a novel

a novel

a novel

A NOVEL

You are a novel

with

blank

pages

invisible ink

and dried blood

You are a novel

and I want to tear out

shred

maim

massacre

and burn

every single mother ******* page