I don't understand why people are ashamed of their stretch marks. I am proud of the lines that wrap around my **** and thighs. Stretch marks show growth, they show life, they show that you are human.
Do not be ashamed of your marks.
Stretch marks show that you have gone from a young child into a mature adult. They show that you have stretched and grown from a tiny body, and that you're finding new ways to fit into yourself. Stretch marks show that you have fought with your skin to feel safe and comfortable in the body you own.
Stretch marks are beautiful.
You know what's not beautiful? Telling someone that their skin makes them ugly. Telling someone that they should, "do something about that," because their stretch marks to you are a sign of ugliness.
Embrace your stretch marks!
Embrace the fact that you are not a child anymore, you are full grown!
Embrace the sight of lines that wrap around your curves and show that you are developed!
Embrace the people who embrace your stretch marks.

"I can feel you inside of me, flowing through my veins"
Her voice was quite when she talked to him.
"You are poison in my blood stream, but I am addicted
You are my drug, and I cannot go on without you changing the chemistry of my brain."*
She talked to him as if he were an object.
He had become her anti-dressant, and she his.

Sleeping is dangerous: You will dream of sunshine and happiness, but wake up to a dark cold room where you are reminded of why you went to sleep in the first place. It may seem like a safe-haven at first but eventually it becomes your only way of coping.
Words can be deceiving: You'll learn to stop trusting what people say, mainly because your mom lied to you 27 times about her drinking. You were only 6 when you learned that people lie.
Scars are not beautiful: Occasionally you'll pick up a razor and slide it across your skin, thinking, "this will make me a warrior." You'll watch as blood blossoms and blooms out of your skin. After a year or two you'll discover that you made a mistake and your legs will never be the same.
Medicine isn't magic: After two years of counseling your doctor might suggest to you xanex, and you'll think, "wow these really work." Maybe they'll continue to amaze you for a year, but eventually it'll wear off and you'll come to the conclusion that your "magic meds" were merely masking emotions that you can't get rid of.
People aren't always nice: Once you enter school and find your place, it'll become clear that everyone is hateful in some aspect of life. Kids will be mean and say awful things to you, things that make you realize at 11 years old that you are not "normal."
Crying is okay: Some days, maybe even everyday, you will break down and cry. It might be a few tears, or an entire waterfall. There is nothing wrong with that.

After four years of being diagnosed with depression I've learned that coping isn't easy, and that recovery takes more effort than just thinking, "well, I am trying."

To be completely honest, I don’t think I have control over my body anymore.
I think someone else has peeled back my skin, climbed inside of me, and is now walking around as if they are me.
I do not feel human.
I feel as though I am an exoskeleton; or rather skin filled with nothing but bones.
There is nothing to me anymore.
Or maybe there is, but I cannot reach far enough inside of myself to pull that girl back up into her own body.
My mind is blank, yet at the same time it is churning out a million thoughts a second and twisting each syllable into a new form of language that I can not understand.

To be completely honest, I don’t think anyone has control over their bodies anymore.
I rarely see the faces I saw in elementary school, because for some reason we've all become hollow shells of what we used to be.
Our souls are empty.
I've begun to notice that people stare down at phones instead of looking at other individuals; I think it’s because they don’t want to acknowledge the fact that they are not the only carcasses around.

I think as society has developed, we've become more depressed. Not necessarily by the fact that we can no longer see the happiness in the world, but maybe because we look for our happiness in the eyes of the “mentally insane”.
It’s becoming a cycle of, “I’m not crazy, I’m not crazy, I’m not crazy.”
We all have the bodies of someone else inside of our skin and we cannot get them out.
We slice and cut, drown and suffocate, fill ourselves with drugs made by other empty human beings who are looking for a high to keep them happy.
I think we do these things because it’s the only way we know to get these intruders out.

At this day in age, we are experiencing an extreme identity crisis.
People do not know themselves anymore and in high school they blame their bad behaviors on, “experimenting, trying new things, and attempting to ‘find themselves’”.
In reality though, there is no one to find.

From the day you are born you are given a name that may not (may never) be your name.
You have been placed into a family that may not (may never) be your family.
You are forced into schools where you may not (may never) fit in.
Doctors shove pill capsules filled with chemicals down your throat that may not (may never) make you happy.

I had a bad thought.

Maybe I wasn't actually getting better or going anywhere positive in my life. Maybe I was on a downward spiral and I didn't realize until I had this thought.

"Don't be sad."

It wasn't simple anymore; being happy was almost like running a marathon without any practice beforehand.

I tried to stop thinking.

Maybe I'm literally tearing at the seams and for some reason I'm the only person who cannot see this.

Maybe the scars coating my right leg are a sign that things can't get better.

"Stop! You're breaking and I don't know how to fix you!"

*"I don't know how to fix me either! Its been four years and I'm thinking that I'm starting to disintegrate!"

I feel like people are watching me disintegrate and no one cares enough to keep me in one piece because WHY would you want to keep an unwanted human?

I feel like I live in a body that was designed to **** me and all I can do is feel its presence crushing me more and more each day.

I no longer know how to cope.

SOMETIMES I FEEL THE WAY I USED TO AND I JUST WANT TO SCREAM BECAUSE IVE NEVER BEEN SO TERRIFIED.

In school, they teach you math and science, but they don't teach you about boys who pick apart your heart like flower petals, singing,
"I love her not, I love her not, I love her not."
My teachers did not show me how to pick myself up off the ground when he leaves. They did not teach me how to delete your text messages, burn your letters, and tear apart your pictures.
When I was in school, they did not teach me that smiles are fragile, and that once they're broken, they take years to repair.
I was not taught about boys like you, who are gentle with scarred skin. I was not warned of boys like you, who cower in heaps on their bed when they're lonely.
Nor did my mother tell me how to be careful with my mind full of secrets.
Never in school did they tell me that bed sheets can get lonely when he's not there to fill the space.

Sometimes I like to press my palms against my chest,
And forced all the oxygen out.
I'm still not sure if it's because I don't want to live anymore,
Or because I feel that all my pain will attach itself to the air,
And someone else will breath in my depression.

I
"It's almost spring..."
His voice was quiet, I couldn't tell if it was because spring meant being happy, or because it meant I was leaving again. He rolled over onto his side as the sun came through the curtains and created stains of light on his bare skin. His hair fell in his face, and I began painting pictures in my head of the two of us together during the next few months.

II
It's been a month since I left him, and I'm stilling painting pictures. It isn't of the two of us anymore though, it's only him. I sketch out the shape of his face and shade around his darkest thoughts. I like to imagine his voice, cooing, in my ear. I write him letters filled with my tears. I don't know if he opens them but I know that just the envelope screams, "I miss you."

III
Two months, sixty-one days, one thousand four hundred and sixty-four hours since I left him. I didn't want to leave; I wanted to stay, wrapped in his worn out silhouette. I don't know if he'll accept my torn up body anymore. Sometimes, I see his name form in my scars, and I think it's a sign that I should go back.

IV
I've lost track of how long it's been since I left; All I know is that there are forty-one days until I can go back, and that I've begun to smell like tobacco and sunflowers.

V
The sun doesn't shine as much here, and I think it's because the sky doesn't see your beautiful smile. I'm not really sure why I'm still here, I miss you.

VI**
When I walked into our apartment, you weren't there. I don't think you knew I'd be coming back four days early. The second you walked through the door, grocery bags in hand, I saw your eyes fill with tears.
I was back.

"It's almost summer time."
You said these words with a smile instead of a frown, and I knew it was because I wasn't leaving again.

I replay the memory of ivory walls and messy bed sheets
Silent rooms and clutter all around
I relive the nostalgia of our old apartment
That chair you used to sit in and spin around a million times over
Because it made you happy
The map above our bed where we'd mark all the places we wish to go with push pins
And the mess in our kitchen because we'd rather be kissing than cleaning
I tend to remember the way we'd sit together on the couch when you were sad and I'd let you cry into my lap because that's what you do when you love someone
Now when I lay in bed without you I like to ponder over what went wrong in that little, cluttered apartment of ours
Why the light of the city during the day and motion of night wasn't enough to keep us

Three years ago your doctor gave you a diagnosis
You took his words and twisted them until each individual letter fell onto the floor with a loud thud
You carved the word into your skin and let it sink deep until it reached your heart
Depression
You let the word rip apart your veins and tear at your porcelain skin
You shoved the word
Sadness
Down your throat until you could no longer breath without feeling that word in every single inch of your body
Three years ago you picked up a blade and sliced through your arm
Spelling out the word
Anxiety
You let this word convulse throughout your soul
And you let it trap you in a glass box that could shatter at the slightest touch
You felt the words inside of you
And you let them break every part of you
You burned the word
Anxious
Into your brain and you let it char every bit of matter left
Three years ago your doctor gave you a diagnosis
You starved until the words were scarred into you organs in order to let you know that you were killing yourself with this word
Eating disorder
You deprived yourself of the things you needed because you thought it would **** the other words that you've placed on yourself
The doctor said that you were killing yourself
And you merely said
"Okay"

It's been three years
And you are covered in scars from the words you've carved into yourself
But the only difference is,
You're not letting these words rule over you any longer
You are strong
You are braver
You are better
Because you decided that these words do not control you
These words are not a life sentence

What is anxiety?

Anxiety is waking up in the middle of the night
Heart pounding
And senses spiking

Anxiety is walking out onto a cold balcony and staring down at a street full of taxi cabs,
And thinking,
"Should I jump...?"

Anxiety is full body shaking
And mind convulsing
While you're sitting completely still

Anxiety is standing in a full room
And feeling completely alone
And enclosed by an invisible box

Anxiety is the voice rising torture that fills your vocal cords and chokes you until you can't breath, and you're grasping at your lungs, trying to fill them with the air you can't seem to get
Anxiety is gasping, and gasping, and gasping

Empty  silhouettes wander down abandoned streets,
Dousing their souls in scotch and whiskey
Placing firey papers to their lips and their lungs full of tar
The only noise comes from the dead houses,
Filled with broken children
And tired parents with bags upon bags upon bags under their lonely eyes
And unowned women stand on the corners, climbing into old cars
Their mothers wouldn't be proud
And babies can be seen crying through cracked windows
While husbands caress their wives, the ones covered in bruises
And teenagers sit on stoops, covering their damaged arms and bandaged hearts

Her fragile bones ache
With the remembrance
Of hands grasping
At her empty forms
And voices cooing lies
Of calmness

Her skin was pins and needles
And her mind screamed no
Each kiss pierced her soul
And with each whisper
She wished for death

His body,
Pressing hard into hers,
Caused an explosion of rigidness
Arms forcing action
Out of her lifeless form

Small whimpers escape through her mouth
While her mind is screaming

NO

Her bones shatter
And her heart aches
Tears fall
And silence breaks

He is done

her ridged body
collapsed
under the pressure
and her soul
leaked
sadness because of you

her calloused hands
stained
with tainted blood
and her eyes
weeped
with the disgrace of night

she was a monster in
guise
and her heart
was lost in a
labyrinth

fragment*

Sad petals fall like tears
And lavender colors fill dying fields

"You're too beautiful
to be so sad"*

She no longer shows her efflorescence

"our existence is fractured"

his quite whispers in my ear pierce the silence that has enclosed my entire body.
my heart, a beating time bomb, slowly cracks and shatters, waiting to burst.
the sea foam walls encase us
and I
drown

fragment**
When she's awake at 3:30 in the morning out in the dark of night,
Standing on the balcony alone,
Don't touch her.
Her body is riddled with anxiety and could burst at any moment.
Her heart is land mine,
Waiting to explode at any minute.

So,
When she's crying in bed at 12 in the afternoon,
don't comfort her,
Because her tears are like razors,
And could slash your throat in seconds.
Her skin is infected with hatred,
And it could ****.

When she's feeling lonely,
Don't accompany her,
Because she's vicious,
And her venom is waiting to suffocate you.
She's a snake in disguise,
Waiting to attack.

I distinctly remember the white walls and the scratchy bed sheets that lay on top of those matts that gymnasts used. I remember these things because the walls and the sheets were riddled with names and dates of people who had been there before me, slept in that bed, craved their name into that wall. I remember their voices too, the ones that were compassionate but not really caring at all, just doing their job.
It was April 1st, 2013, to be completely exact, when they brought me to the hospital. I'd broken down crying earlier that day and I finally caved and told them I wanted to die. They picked me up off the floor and drove me to that white walled prison. I'll never forget the way my mother told the recprtionist, "our daughter is suicidal and needs to be admitted," and the way the receptionists face stayed constant and showed no emotion. She slapped a hospital bracelet on my wrist and sent me to the waiting room. I sat there for a few hours.
Finally, they came for me.
We walked into the emergency room and they put me in a secluded room with absolutely nothing I'm it. Police officers and nurse came in to collect my clothing and other belongings I'd had with me, which they then placed in a locker.
I sat alone for more hours.
It was night by the time I was evaluated. I'll never forget the monotone voice of the women evaluating me.
"You're suicidal?"
"Yes..."
"Have you ever been admitted to a hospital before?"
"No"
"Well, were going to admit you for a little while, and keep an eye on you."
Her voice was emotionless. She was emotionless.
They brought me upstairs to the adolescent behavioral unit at 11:00 PM, and checked me over a few times, took my vitals, and sent me to a room with a sleeping ******* one bed, and scratchy bed sheets on a second empty one. I cried myself to sleep that night.
When I woke up they took more vitals and blood tests and evaluated me again. The new doctor was the same as the nurse, absolutely monotone. It was as if these nurses and doctors didn't feel anything, because they worked with children trying to take their lives.
At the time of my hospitalization, I didn't believe that happiness was a choice, and that I would actually get better. To be completely honest, I thought I'd die just as sad as I'd been for the past two years. Although I thought this, the doctor continued to tell me after each session, "being happy is your choice, you can choose whether you want to live like this forever, or if you want to be happy."
Now that I'm out of the hospital, and in recovery, those words mean more to me than they'd ever meant before. Happiness truly is a choice to some people, and it's a choice between being sad or being happy. I'm aware that being sad is a natural emotion, but not depressed, depression was a trap. It took me a week in the hospital, plus 9 months, to finally understand that my happiness was a choice.

Even the deepest blue
Couldn't make me stop loving you

You set fire to your yard
Because you said it was fun
And you placed razor blades in books you hated
Because you said it kept them away from you
You put tea bags in the coffee ***
Because you said it made better sadness than energy
And you poured your tears into a bath tub
Because you said it held them better than your eyes did
You pick the weeds instead of flowers
Because you said they were just as beautiful and deserved the appreciation
Instead of picking the petals, you braided the stems
Because you didn't want to lose hope that he loves you not
You would lay on the floor with a duvet around you
Because the bed made you sad
And you would dance in your underwear
Because little black dresses were too revealing
You did these things
Because you said they made you feel better

the light seeped through the window and i lay awake with my head on your chest
i watched as the sun rose and cast shadows along the structure of your face
i'd run my fingers along the edge of your cheek bone
and listen as you mumbled sweet nothings in your sleep

sometimes i wondered what secrets you kept in the hallows of your skull
so i'd play with your hair and attempt to sneak my way into the life you'd locked away
sometimes i wondered if those secrets were the reason you became so cynical
and if those secrets were the reason you no longer talked to your father

the sun rose higher and played tricks on your arms
the arms you'd covered in purple and blue bruises
some days i wanted to reach into your skin and pull those blood vessels closed

eventually you'd wake and see me staring again
staring at your questionable eyes
blue, green, brown?
a combination of all three

and the sun would be high in the sky shinning through our window
creating mirages all over the lavender room that matched the spots on your skin
you'd smile and pull me close because your only reaction was to love
love someone else, but not yourself

I love you so -

*"dont lie"

Even the deepest blue couldn't make you feel as though it's all okay
Strangers arms grasping at your empty bones
Filling the gaps in your soul
Cars racing past the window on dark cold nights
Leaving you silent on grey balconies
The city is busy and you're alone
Smoking your cigarette
Hoping that chemicals will be better than crying
Blasting music and dancing in your skinniest little dress because at least the mirror loves you
Ripping up photos of forgotten memories
Memories that broke you and shattered your heart like a glass piggy bank
Wrapping lonely duvets around your  broken silhouette
Your body curls and your heart races and your senses spike because being alone is horrifying without someone by your side

a puff of smoke escaped his lips as he leaned against the balcony
the stars glowed and the city was loud with night goers
his hand stroked through his hair while the other hand tapped the cigarette on the edge of the stone anxiously

tap, tap ,tap

"you're going to die if you keep doing that."

her voice pierced through the night
turning around, he saw her standing at the large window, watching him pull the cig up to his mouth, and back down over the balcony

"that's the point, darling."

her puzzled expression tightened as she walked over to him and pulled the cigarette from his hand, dropping it off the balcony and watching it fall to the ground

"i'm not losing you"

the anxiety in her voice was obvious and her body clearly convulsed with panic
she leaned against his shoulder and kissed the side of his arm
gently, he pulled her long sleeve down and placed the pale skin in the yellow light, illuminating the red welts that stuck up

"you're going to die if you keep doing that"

repeating her words in a soft tone
he pulled her into his arms and caressed her hair
releasing her, he pulled out two cigarettes and a lighter

**"want to speed up the process together?"

Old, and weak
Laying in a casket full of cala lilies
Hearts beating slow
And tears spilling fast

"you're dead, my dear."

Words spoken in whispers
Collapsing out of the mouth
Thoughts of grief
Regret
Sadness
Anger
Denial

Standing at a podium
At the center of the holy place made for whorship
Say goodbye to loved ones
Write a eulogy and tell the world

"you were an amazing person"

"but you're dead now"

You played with her heart like a toy
Because it reminded you of a toy soldier
Keeping a beat with each move it made
You placed it on your window sill and let the cold, rain, wind, snow, ruin it.
You let it ***** and gather dust
And didn't bother to clean it off
You let it sit alone and break more and more everyday
You handed it to your friends and let them handle it just as harshly and you had yourself
Played catch with this fragile ***** and let it fall to the ground

You held her heart and let it shatter
You didn't care because she wasn't leaving
You let scars form on the edges of the tissue and blood seep out of the cuts
You didn't notice you'd ruined her until you walked to the window sill one day
And found nothing but dust where her heart used to be

She left your heart, black and blue, in the garbage
Because she decided to treat you
As badly as you treated her

Feeling like *******
While staring at unpainted walls
Letting their loneliness drown you

White like your skin
Like the scars you've filled your body with
Disheveled sighs and cumbersome lies

Empty sheets that wrapped themselves around you
Suffocated you under the pressure of despondency
Crashing over you like an ocean

His hands grabbing at your wrists

"Why'd you do this to your beautiful self?!"

Tears stream and words fall and nothing seems right anymore because you've lost hope
Hope that once kept you alive and breathing
It's now gone along with your soul
Nothing makes it better
Because you're cynical and mean

Quite pillow talk
Reveals your true thoughts of me
Late night discussions over cigarettes
"You're odd"
"But so are you, my love, and maybe that's why we work."
An awkward equation of random and weird
Two people meant to be
Spinning in a circle of curiosity

Sometimes,
i miss you
Goes deeper

When the demons crawl into bed with you
Don't let them take over
Breath in deep and fill your lungs
Not with air,
With smoke
And when you can't breath anymore
Pull out a blade
And slash across your ribs
Letting the oxygen fill the wound
Waiting for your lungs to collapse
And when they find you empty and broken
Don't let them pick you back up
Go and pull yourself together
Because no ones truly there for you
Put on a fake smile
And cover up the injury so no one sees
Wait for them to walk away and then cry
Cry until you can't cry anymore
Cry until the air leaves your lungs again
And your forced to repeat these steps once again
So grab your razor and welcome the demons and breath in the smoke because there the only ones there for you
Grab your razor and welcome the demons and breath in the smoke because you don't want to be this cynical anymore
You're a despondent soul wasting away