I know you'd be happier
Without all of the struggles
I've brought along
But without you
Where would I be now?

You've made me laugh
Hell, you've even made me cry
I guess opposites attract
And we're too similar
For you to think of me
Any other way
Than you do already

I'm happy
I truly am
The sky more blue
The grass more green
The only thing
That could make me happier
Is *you

I feel
        Free
                Elated
                          Happy

For the first time in
                                Days
                                         Months
                                                     Years

And I think I like it enough to stay that way

What has made me feel this way?

I do not know

Probably all of the pills

But it doesn't matter because

I'm happy

Her blank canvas
Empty, but promising
To become something good

But her masterpiece took an evil turn

She used only one tool
Strokes of only deep reds
Letting the paint drop to the floor
Where it would then stain

She hid her canvas
Until the deep reds had faded to pinks and purples

Then she unveiled it to the world

It wasn't a masterpiece.
It wasn't a piece of art.
It wasn't beautiful.

It was ugly.
It was disgusting.
It was horrific.

No one liked it.
Except for her.
So she decided to continue filling the canvas

This time experimenting
Different tools
Yet still the only color she used was red

She went days
Weeks
Months
Years
Adding to her canvas
Until one day

She couldn't

Her canvas no longer meant anything to her

So instead, she burned it

How can her smile be so bright
While her heart is so dark?
How can there be a twinkle in her eyes
While her body is full of marks?

"I knew this girl once,
she had long hair, so long it whispered tiny kisses along her hips and waist
she had the oddest bluest eyes i'd ever seen, the color of the sky right before it gets completely dark
her thick, long eyelashes framed those eyes, and freckles formed constellations across her cheeks
i could almost draw the big dipper and Orion's belt on her milky white face.
She didn't know i existed but i admired her from afar. I could tell she was educated- She always had some form of poetry in her hand. But of all the things i could have noticed about her i noticed her bookmarks. She would lose them all the time, i would see her chasing after the scraps of paper as they flew through the wind down the street. She'd stick anything in between those pages, wrappers of all sorts, leaves, pennies, shoelaces, once i even saw a page ripped from a different book. It became my favorite game to guess what the next bookmark would be.  After awhile she stopped chasing the various bookmarks across the city and she cut all that long hair off, then awhile after that she started using unoriginal, uninspired plain old bookmarks.Then even awhile that she stopped bringing books altogether, until one day she didn't show up. Nobody knew that beautiful, mysterious, bookmark making girl was locked up inside her own mind. Nobody knew she hated her long hair and her freckles and even those baby blues. Nobody knew that she couldn't stand to live in her skin anymore so much that she swallowed a couple pills one night to ease away the pain. Even worse was she didn't know i watched her for so long and thought she was the most interesting human being i'd ever encountered. That girl committed suicide because she hated herself learn from her mistake, my mistake, everyone who ever noticed her bookmarks mistake, and don't do this, don't off yourself with a .45 before you've even had a chance to live" he's desperate now  
"please please you don't have to do this" he sputters

I answer simply " I never was much of a bookmark girl, i always dog-eared my pages"

*bang

Have you lost all hope, my dear?
Have you lost sight of what's fake and what's real?
Have you held everything in,
And took it out on that precious skin?

I have, I have, in the past
But this time, I swear, will be the last
I've said that quite a few times
And not followed my lines
But that's in the past
And this time will be my last.

I'm sure you've said that too
But you've done it again
And then your guilt grew
And regret came through
After you took it out on that precious skin
After holding every single thing in.

Have you taken a blade,
And used it for the wrong reason?
Because self-induced pain is all that you're seizing?
Have you hurt yourself, my dear,
Thinking no one will care?

Did you love seeing your own blood,
Pouring out of that precious skin,
Just like a flood?
Was that your rush?
And you thought it wasn't enough?

Have you lost all hope, my dear?
Have you lost sight of what's fake and what's real?
Have you held everything in,
And took it out on that precious skin?

I'm here to say
It isn't the right way
I'm not one to talk
Because that path I have walked
But I can say this:
Please, my dear,
Don't take it out on your precious skin.

On my right thigh is the most honest piece of art I have ever created.
You may call it my masterpiece,
Because the finished product
was created from years and years of major and minor additions.
****** brushstrokes that mark each time the phrase “not good enough” rang too heavy in my ears. 
Sick, faded tallies of scars that tell the story of my life the way some parents tally the heights of their children on the kitchen wall. 
But instead of growth these lines mark failure and unlike a child impatient to mature,
Each line makes me sick to my stomach for the regression it represents.
Lines and lines of railroad track designs left in the indelible ink of imperfection.
An autobiography written in the hieroglyphics of my sorrow,
Wounds sealed like an ancient tomb but with a map of scars proving that once these grounds were holy,
Governing my life like a pharaoh with a birthright.
A visual representation of a feeling constantly fought and lost
An unavoidable reminder that yes, sometimes the scariest enemy I have to face is myself and here are the marks left behind when the demons of my past manage to claim a brief but ferocious victory over my self control.

Now, I am a perfectionist.

This means by the time I was old enough to understand my shortcomings I had figured out that no lesson stings in your memory quite as much as when you start using blood instead of ink
When you let heartache become your muse and self loathing your mistress, 
and suddenly you’re imprisoned by the adrenaline of freeing warm red paint from behind a soft **** canvas.
The first time I felt the release of a razor on my skin, I was gripped with an infatuation strong enough to break the programming of nature and turn my own body against itself as my skin became the victim of my own hands. 
Heartache after heartache I eased the pain,
Becoming michael angelo with a thin metal paintbrush and a sistine chapel that burned when the shower was too hot.
Hiding my latest work of art under long pants and excuses.
Finding love only in the dark because what if he sees my skin and realizes that some days I can’t even love myself?
On my right thigh is the most devastating piece of art I’ve ever created. 
You may call it my Achilles heel,
Because the finished product, which I shamefully admit,I do still edit occasionally,
was created from years and years of marveling over the beauty of the world but never learning how to see the beauty in a blank canvas.
Cherish your beautiful blank canvas.