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

Stupid white girl.
We are not allowed to do anything.
We're prim and proper, white girls.
We are not allowed to fight back.
Put us in our place, white girls.
We are not allowed real work.
We still want our twenty three cents back.

The child of fair skin and blue eyes.
But with all my female privilege,
Came a nasty stamp on my body.
Like a watermark.
FEMALE.
I have heard that when a woman looks in the mirror, she sees a woman.
But when a man looks in the mirror, he sees a human.

Even with that watermark, our pale skin is used as a canvas.
And everyone else has been handed the tools to color in our curves.
Covering us in blue and black and purple and red.
Redrawing our minds so they cannot process the discrimination,
Painting over our tears so our feelings can be buried,
Manufacturing open legs when you want them,
Closed when you don't.
Erasing the lips we use to speak out,
Erasing the eyes we use to see all of this.

You think just because you held the brush,
Just because you created this monstrosity of a "masterpiece"
You get to claim ownership of this piece of artwork
That you blatantly disregard
Is my BODY.

The "fe" you tack onto "male"
Does not stand for Free Entry.
The "wo" you tack onto "man"
Does not stand for Wipe Out.

Women are barely able hold a pencil.
I was lucky to hold one long enough to draw myself
A conscience, a backbone, legs to stand on, and a mind.
We were only taught how to use the back end of that pencil
To erase our mouth and keep the secrets.
But these days the secrets are keeping themselves.

I will not be put in a glass case
You will not charge admission
To have people come and analyze me.
Buy me.
Give me value.
Categorize me.
Preserve me the way you created.

You are no artists.
You are vandals.

Writing is safer, I feel

Because letters looped together can flow fluently

Through pens, not speech

They can stand their ground when my legs give way

And words written down don’t get stuck in my hand

Like they do in my throat

They can’t stutter, can’t stumble

Like my tongue when I try to steady my breath

And no one can tell if I’m laughing

         or crying

                     through written words alone.

Are human beings programmed to stay?
"Beginning to end"
could be programmed into a person's make-up but
disregard of human design is detrimental to
everyone around that human.
For everyone involved,
getting hurt is inevitable.
Help is not on its way,
instead you are left to fend for yourself.
Just waking up could become impossible,
killing yourself slowly through
love or cigarettes or
more drugs and alcohol than the city could handle.
Nothing could ever
open up the world of
pain better than
quarreling with your own demons.
Reaching out for a hand that
stops reaching for yours
teaches self-harm better than
underdeveloped scars ever could.
Veins are paint trays begging to be opened,
watered down with the
x-ray's of splintered bones from the first hit.
Your pain is inevitable,
zipping with the force of unrequited love.