I saw galaxies in your eyes
and you left stardust in your footprints
but I keep it in a jar on the shelf above my bed
you're not here anymore but you are
and the voices in my head won't shut up
shut up
shut up
sometimes they sound like you
and they whisper sweet things like good morning and you're pretty
but sometimes they are your mother screaming
screaming
screaming
I can't erase the scars on my skin
maybe I wouldn't have cut my arms up if I didn't shake all the time
sometimes I am numb and empty but seeing blood run down my wrist reminds me that I'm full of pretty colors
other times I feel like I am housing the universe and I  am too small to contain it
there's only one way out and you always said it was bad for me
but it's good for me I swear,
just like the drugs I force down my throat to forget ******
******
******
I can't think or form sentences right now
I am tired and I am sick
in my head
there are monsters in my head and I have not stopped to think
just typing like a machine
I am a robot to my own mind, just repeating
repeating
repeating
sequences like math but it's not numbers
it's swallowing pills or slicing my body into pretty geometric patterns
caffeine is a drug and I am awake even though I feel dead
last night I cried for three hours straight
and I was terrified of not knowing what I was capable of
suicide is not pretty
you can't romanticize it with pictures of ****** wrists and hand guns next to a bouquet of daisies
even though sometimes that's what it looks like in my head.

you were so beautiful
the first time he told you that you
were too big for any man to handle
you were so beautiful

when he told you your stretch
marks were ugly so you cut them open
they were only evidence of you growing, becoming
now there's only the proof that you are lost, not knowing
you are something so beautiful

even though I know the heart
shaped bruises covering this
body do not feel like love bites
even though this body does not feel like yours anymore

even though he left you shaking
on the bathroom floor just trying
to find the strength to lift you
head to the toilet to ***** some more
you are so beautiful

even though this body
your body
has been empty for so long
you are so beautiful

I wrote a piece for class and had it critiqued, all about how
I can't remember Eddie's voice
and can't ask his parents for videos
to keep from digging up their pain.
Today I found a flash drive, one I can't place in mind. Popped it in, and tears leaked to my chin because there sat
video file after video file of Jake, Dennis, Eddie, and me on birthdays and outings, at the archery range. It's strange that the voices are young but I can hear him, I can hear him, I can remember

you planted flowers in my rib cage but they died when you left,
now my lungs are filled with dust and smoke and I can't ******* breathe.
you made butterflies grow in my stomach but they flew out of my mouth as sweet nothings and now I have nothing else to say.
sometimes you leave drunk voice mails saying you miss me and your words burn the back of my throat but ***** still burns worse.
you said I had the prettiest blue eyes you had ever seen, I guess you met someone prettier because my eyes are sunken and grey now.
you poisoned my blood with your *******, I guess warning labels weren't made for this kind of drug (not that I would have stayed away anyway).
I've replaced the dark purple love bites you left on my neck with razor sharp kisses across my wrist,
I'm doing okay now.

you are a mirror,
already shattered and left with razor sharp edges,
but made of the same pieces as before
you were dropped.
alcohol and meaningless *** are only a temporary glue
and five months time have worn it thin.
resist your predisposition to push everyone away
before hearing the way her voice shakes,
begging you to stay until tomorrow,
as you drown yourself in self destruction.
let the oceans of her eyes swallow the pills for you,
and her own scarred skin fend against the knives you pull out of your back.
you have rebuilt the broken glass walls of your mind
with your one-night-stand's skin-tight leather pants,
strong enough to defend against the words that slip out of her mouth
but not pictures of her bare skin.
use your hands to make something tangible,
like a hand-written letter to your mother
or a mixtape for the sweet girl you shared a cab with,
instead of giving yourself bruises and four second *******.
but *******,
you never once asked how I was doing.

kisses from strangers don't taste as sweet as your *******,
but I'm so ******* hungry.
crimson paintings on my wrist don't rid my body of your touch,
but maybe in a few years I'll forget the burns you left on my skin.
replacing my blood with alcohol doesn't help me forget you,
but I might as well get drunk instead of seeing you in my dreams.
washing my sheets daily doesn't wash away the smell of your cologne,
but it's so familiar and I can't fall asleep without you surrounding me.
five cups of coffee don't wake me up as quickly as your hand on my thigh,
but hopefully soon I won't have to.

you are not the smell before rain, you are a ******* hurricane. you tore through every ******* wall I put up and now I'm left with broken pieces of your old coffee mug and ripped receipts with ****** I love you's written drunkenly on the back. my hands are numb but my mind is as sharp as the razor blade that kisses my wrist and I'm cutting up my arms trying to cover up the slashes you left on the inside of my collapsing rib cage but nothing pierces through me the way your ice blue eyes did when I woke up next to you. my head is spinning from brandy and coke and your voice is ringing in my ears and my eyes are burning but I haven't slept in two weeks. I started binge drinking tea instead of liquor and I guess that's a good thing although I'm just poisoning my heart with caffeine instead of my liver with alcohol. maybe I should start reading again but I'm only attracted to the beautiful things that are constantly destroying me.