awhile back i met a girl
a girl with a mouth all cut up
from speaking too many broken promises.
i guess i can hardly blame her,
i could see how the earthquakes
in her eyes wracked her mind.
her lips were painted crimson
from cuts on the inside of her cheeks
and she could hardly speak past
the mouthful of lies she spit
at her doctors, her parents
her sister, her brother, her best friend
"i'm okay, you see," she whispered
blood dripping past pearly whites
draped in a pained smile.
"i'm doing much better."
her words were sharp like
shattered glass and squirmed their way
past tightened lips and onto her sleeve
as she whispered to me
"we all ******* die eventually. everything just ******* dies."
awhile back,
i saw a girl in the mirror with mouth full of scars.

seeds of doubt are sown in the dark patches
of soil beneath my eyes,
the winter frost seeps color
from my once rosy cheeks,
bruises bloom on my knees from greeting
the bathroom floor too many times,
lines of red poppy flowers grace
my rib cage.

ever since your dad stopped teaching you how to skip stones
and started making your heart skip a beat in fear whenever he came close
you've been looking for a way to stop feeling so unloved
but let me tell you sweetheart, his voice isn't an escape.
just because he tells you he wants to ******* raw doesn't mean
he won't leave you with wrists slit just as ******* raw,
and it certainly doesn't mean he wants to love you.
i know you haven't felt present in three years,
but i can tell you for sure
you won't feel any less like an empty house
when he tells you he'll fill you up.
just because you're both broken on the inside
doesn't mean
your pieces are going to fit,
how many times can i tell you that?
you need someone whole to help you put yourself back together
not a boy so set on destroying himself
that you met him in the mental hospital.
not a boy so set in his ways he tells you
to stick your finger down your throat.
you need someone whole, not someone to hand you a hammer and show you how hard to hit
to
make
everything
shatter.

i reached for his hair
as if he'd jumped off the side of a building and
that was all that was left to hold onto.
i grasped at his clothes
as if he'd filled his pockets with stones and
that was the last part of him above the depths of a lake.
i looked at my reflection in his eyes
as if he'd stopped loving me and
i could make him love me again just by making eye contact.

the kind of girl that can't go out in public without people taking a second look;
but not at her face they look at the lines of destruction
trailing her arms and legs,
the void in her eyes,
the hollowness of her soul nearly stops them
in their tracks if they bump against her,
she is a walking black hole.

i have been living in an age
of constant pain,
and the clock ticks down endlessly
with a bladed pain;
cuts streak my wrists from its sharp tip
and i am forever bruised from beating myself
against the walls of this cage.
it seems to me that the only way to unlock it
is to lock my lungs
let loose my blood
set free my organs
cut open my throat
until i am choking on the metallic taste of finality.

three years since i got so scarred up
from beating my head against a wall
and a blade against my wrist
and i've still not quite figured out how
to hit rock bottom with a ladder
instead of a shovel.
it's all i've ever known how to do,
i've been in a steady decline like the
***** of a line and
i fear the line will go on forever
unless i end it myself.
i could end it with a gun to my head,
a noose around my neck,
alcohol poisoning my liver,
anything to **** the thoughts inside my head.
i wish i could say i've survived this onslaught
of thoughts
but it just keeps battering against the walls
of my head,
slamming into them in a way
that leaves me all too ******.
maybe that's why i live so recklessly,
because these walls of my head
have only reflected what's inside and even
when i turn all the mirrors around i can't escape.
i don't have to look in the mirror
anymore to be well acquainted
with the demons inside my head,
i know they're sitting on my shoulders
holding a knife to my throat and
a gun to my head.