I feel one hundred and two
decaying from the inside out
a skeleton of mistakes
and regrets of things I should have done
broken teeth scattered across my bathroom floor
and empty pill bottles lining my shelves
I feel older than I should
already preparing for death
it looks me in the eyes
and tells me everything is all right
so I will go quietly with it
into the night,
I feel my bones shifting as I sit
waiting for another day to pass
until it doesn’t anymore
and I am somewhere that isn’t here
not living but free
escaping from what I tried to be
but I never was,
fingernails gnawed to the bone
and bones jutting out from the crevices
of my own mind
I am too young to feel this old
ready to give up
who I am
to anything that promises relief
irreconcilable futures rest in the horizon
and I am here bargaining away
what time I have left.

I’ve been trying to remember who I was
before all of this changed me,
further than two steps from a grave
fighting away demons with the back of my hand
and looking at the grey-blue sky
with something more than indifference.
Who was I
before broken glass slipped its way
into my skin
burrowed into every vein
and threatened to cut me from the inside
if I dared to move,
feet planted in the dirt
hoping not to scare what soul I had left
shattered on the side of the road
where hope left me
to fend for myself.
Where was I headed
before this pain was implanted
into my brain
pushing its way into every nerve
and screaming at me to give up
before I lost my mind,
legs buckling under the pressure to fight
for people who would never understand what it meant
to be waging a war within my body.
I had to change
before life brought me down
into the pit of ignorance
where everything is bliss
but everything is a lie,
I couldn’t stand to be there
any longer than I could survive here
as I was.
I am not who I used to be,
care free and warm
I would have suffocated in my sleep
trying to be something that
wouldn’t live to see another day,
I have changed
into someone that sees pain
but also the beauty that it becomes.

At 12 years old
you learned the majority of stars
were already dead.
They are masters of deception
giving you hope that beauty
is permanent
and love is forever.
You learned that love
is too often a lie
and promises find themselves
shattered on linoleum floors
that you step on in the night.
At twelve,
you learned that your bones are fragile
paper thin like the birth certificate
you’ve never seen,
buried under other things
you never really cared about.
You found truth
at 3 am in your bedroom
followed by rivers of tears
and open pill bottles.
You saw life
and you saw death
and sometimes those nights
when you were twelve
are the only things that make you feel
like the world is real.
When you were twelve
you found out the stars were dead.
When you were twelve
you found out that you were not.

One.
I am broken
fully shattered by myself and others,
trying to pick up the puzzle pieces
I’ve been left to find.
Worn into a two edged sword
that has cut my skin and left me unloveable.

Two.
Some days it will seem like I am cured.
I will look whole,
as if a miracle came from heaven
and fixed my aching skin
and wrapped me up in something that will never happen.
I will seem okay as if everything before was just a phase,
but I need you to know that tomorrow
I will be me again.
Jagged lines drawn across rainy skies
that never quite made a connection.

Three.
I am trying.
Can’t you see from the bags under my eyes
that this is eating me alive?
I was two steps from Hell,
but now I am four,
trying to dig my way back to sanity.
There is peace in giving up,
but I have opted for chaos.

When I was thirteen
I thought that I wouldn’t make it through the year
birthdays felt like due dates
that I was never going to make
and each day brought me closer
to my ultimate fate of nothingness.
My bones felt like they were
filled with lead
and my eyelids sank as if they
only knew how to fall
like the rest of my body
into sleep.
I thought each moment was
a ticking time bomb
that was going to blow up
and leave my family to mourn
the life of someone who chose not to live it anymore.
I was so broken by my own brain
that nothing seemed worth it
and the easiest thing would have been
to step into the water
and let my leaden bones
pull me down.
When I was thirteen
I saw nothing but emptiness
within my own chest
and a body that would soon be useless.
When I was thirteen
I did not know what the future held for me
with laughter and love
and everything I would eventually dream of.
When I was thirteen
I was wrong
about most everything,
especially that I would never make it
through the year.

I thought my catharsis was death,
slowly falling into a hole of darkness
rotting against soil
that would bring life again,
giving up eternity to be happy
for one single second
I thought death would bring me closer
to peace.
Six feet under sounded like
an inevitable place
found too early by my fate
of unhappiness within
tired eyes and cracking bones
it was too late to turn back
from the future I was building myself
with glass and dirt.
I thought relief would come
right after the pain
left my body,
singing songs of who I used to be
but destroyed in order to be whole again,
memories of what could have been
but became impossible when I chose
to look for release
in a damaging
damning place.
Instead,
I found catharsis
in killing who I was at the time
and becoming someone new,
painting a picture of rebirth
and taking it out on the page
instead of my skin,
looking beyond an inevitable demise
and seeing light.
I found catharsis
within myself,
begging to be created new
in the image of someone
that was happy
and believed it.

Your love was like a car crash
my entire body numb
to the moment
impact inevitable in the face
of what we were,
all twisted metal
and twisted arms
each part holding the other tight
as the world collapsed around us.
We were just teens
driving at eighty three
reckless in the name of freedom
moments passed like bullets
on the battle ground
we didn’t know was coming,
it was all broken phones
against yelling
and no way to understand hearts swelling,
crying eyes against night skies
and two wrecked cars in between us.
This love broke me
lying in the backseat
waiting for us to get home,
trying to apologize
with blood stuck in my throat,
and expectations that never made it
left totaled against each other
in the dark.