I heard my eight year old cousin call his sister a ******
because she is bisexual.
I heard the voice of an angel whisper
Daddy says **** go to hell.

That poor boy's mind has been poisoned since birth.
He has been fed line after line
of over-analyzed,
misunderstood scripture
and he believes it is his ticket
into heaven.

I can't wrap my head around
why homosexuals would go to hell
but the ones flicking Satan's tongue at them
are saved.

Love doesn't send you to hell.

Hate does.

January is ice cold, but it never snows.
You're always so angry but you never want to talk about it.
February it starts to get warm, then there's a week of snow days.
Just when I think you're letting me in you shut me out again.
March has cold mornings and hot afternoons; the trees start to turn green.
You call me at 3am crying and you're fine in the morning; you have good days sometimes.
April is hot and cold and wet and dry.
You've never been a very stable person.
May is rain. The humidity makes my clothes damp.
You get so broken sometimes that it breaks me, too.
June is perfect lake weather. The water is cold.
I want to know all of the dark corners of your mind.
July has no rain. The dirt dries out and cracks.
I wonder how many of your smiles are faked.
August is too hot to go outside. The lake is bath water.
As soon as you get close to someone you find an excuse to leave.
September has cool evenings. The mosquitoes are awful.
Sometimes you feel at peace with your demons.
October is more rain; autumn oranges and reds and yellows.
You say you're dying and I try to convince you it will get better soon.
November is a dry cold.
I wish you would let me help you.
December freezes the plants; the leaves are gone from the trees.
*You destroy yourself and wonder why you're so broken.

When that guy in my history class
announced to everyone
that I was "checking out Macy", my project partner,
I just stood at the front of the class,
feeling my face get redder and redder
as my teach simply said
"settle down."

I wish I had walked over
and punched him
in his huge, cocky mouth.

When those boys outside the bathroom at a campsite
told me I was pretty
and grabbed both my arms when I tried to walk away
so they could "get a better look",
I ****** away and walked back to the tent
and said it was nothing
when my mom asked why I seemed so shook up.

I wish I had slapped both of them
and given them a speech
about respecting women.

When that girl in my chemistry class
told me everyone secretly hated my boyfriend
and said if she was the reason he killed himself,
she wouldn't feel bad,
I turned to face away from her
and gripped the sides of my chair
and told her to stop talking.

I should have punched her in the nose
and refused to apologize
to someone who didn't value human life.

When my boyfriend
froze dead in his tracks
while we were walking down the street on Valentine's Day
and he saw the girl he claimed to be over,
I just tugged at his hand
and told him to keep walking
and pretended not to be hurt.

I wish I had slapped that longing look off of his face;
I could've taught him a lesson
about being a lying *******.

I wish I had the courage to stand up for myself.
I want people to know not to mess with me.
I want the swollen knuckles of victory.

I can picture it so clearly,

I'm sitting at a table by myself,
playing ukulele
because my friend left it
when he left me alone at a table,
and she walks by,
and she smiles at me,
and I stop playing
because I'm shy,
and she asks if she can listen to me play,
and she sits down,
and I play
and it sounds awful
because I'm nervous,
but she claps,
and she laughs because her clap sounds so lonely,
and the combination of those two sounds
is the most amazing thing I've ever heard,
and the crinkles by her eyes
(her astonishingly green eyes)
make me blush,
then she tells me her name
and it sounds like the only true thing I've ever heard,
and I ask for her number
and she gives it to me,
and I watch her leave,
hoping she'll look back and smile,
but she doesn't
and it makes me like her even more,

And my mind tortures me with these memories
that never happened
and wishes
that went unfulfilled,
And I will never love anyone more
than I love the girl with the clap that echoes through my veins
and the name
that sounds like truth.

Today I woke up and told you I wanted to jump off a bridge and you said you would talk to me all day and call me as soon as you got home to make sure I was okay but at 11:19am you stopped texting me and I would've understood if it was because of class but school ended at 3:30pm and you didn't call me like you said you would and you didn't text me until 9:17pm and you were surprised when I said I was doing well and I guess what I'm trying to say is I thought I needed you to be there for me today but you weren't and I got out of bed and pulled myself together on my own and I made everything better on my own and you might need me but I sure as hell don't need you and I hope you hate that I can be happy without you I hope you wish you had held onto me tighter I hope you know I'm okay on my own I hope you know I don't need anyone

When I gave you my bracelet I told you I wore it to remind myself that most pain is self inflicted and you still have it somewhere but you haven't mentioned it in a while and it's just some safety pins hooked together so I don't really need it back and I think you need it more than I do because you named the cuts on your arms after people and you blame them on events and it seems like you've forgotten why it's called self harm you say you tried to **** yourself because of your ex girlfriend and your dad and I know this isn't what you want to hear but I'm not going to sugarcoat anything you tried to **** yourself because you overreacted to a breakup you tried to **** yourself because you made yourself believe your dad hates you you tried to **** yourself because you thought yourself into a black hole and you named it after them and now you're on the verge of doing it again but this time you're screaming my name into it and I have apologized much more than necessary even though I didn't do anything wrong and you still blame me when we're on the phone at 2am on a Monday night and I'm trying to make you feel better and you keep saying you hate yourself and I'm wondering if that's actually true because most of the time it seems like you hate the people that are trying to help you and I'm begging you to start wearing my bracelet again