it's becoming more and more apparent to me that the marks you left behind will forever remain
but I can choose to forget they are there in the first place.
I will pull down my sleeves and turn up my collar even if there is no wind
but only to shield the ever sharp eyes of mine reflecting back in the mirror;


*I will hide myself from                                                   me.

you were the summer's heat
and you kept me up all night
wetting my sheets with sweat and blood and tears.
you were the winter's icy wind
and you blew down my door
and got between my breath
and underneath my clothes;
making me shiver and struggle to breathe or keep warm.
you were the fall's leaves,
making my trees rain and the sky weep
and everything grew brown and withered and died.

but then you were the spring-
(where the flowers bloomed and the birds sang and things grew again and the sun shined again and the wind blew again)
and you made it all worth it, again.

you break me
and crush me
between your fingers
squeezing the life out of me
until I falter and give in.
like a soft pill that was once hard
but diluted by water
i am molded by your fingertips
the ones that once held me lovingly,
but now pulverize me,
letting the crumbs of my past
filter through your grip
and onto the ground
where I continue to be tread upon
by you and everyone i've ever fallen for.

I tore open the soft skin on my arm again*
soft skin? oh not anymore, actually.
more like scarred skin.
the healing scabs and emergency cells attempting to cover up old mistakes of the past.
seal them, heal them; leave them be.
what do I do now in this mess of blood and tears?
I sit here, undressed, a shivering mess-
afraid of nothing yet fearful of everything.
I am lost, confused,
hurting just to feel,
to feel alive again.
I'm afraid so please hold me
yet leave me alone because I am not sure what I want
what I should do
why I am still breathing.
**** me. leave me.
I think it is my time.

I don't think you get how difficult this is for me. Do you?

At home, I can never be alone, always around my family because they are convinced I am a danger to myself and they have to keep constant watch over me. It's more like I'm trapped. I do not feel cared for, or loved (even though they do) but it feels like a prison where privacy and solitude no longer exist.

On campus, I cannot be myself. This writer, poet, loner, silent girl who only speaks to people who seem decent or whom initiates a conversation because she is too scared to do it herself. This insecure girl who must now change to acquire friendship, company. She only wants to be liked, accepted, and to belong. **** on Wednesday, clubbing, flings, shisha. I do not understand why it takes so much to have a friend that would stay. I smoke, and that would be the limit, but my loneliness begs for so much more.

In public, I want to just shout out who I am and who I could really be. I want to walk up to strangers and spark up a conversation of similar interest. Ask how they're doing, or if their family is well. Let them know I could be their friend and allow them to cry on my shoulder about the trauma they've been through. But I cannot. No one smiles when I smile at them, they only walk faster and turn their heads away. Why is it that simple acts of kindness or just friendliness can be such a disgusting and rare thing?

When I'm alone, I can be myself. I can cry and shout and sing and write and dance and do stupid things. I can smoke and laugh and scribble and put on make-up and take selfies while no one's watching. I can be at my worst, and I can be my best when I'm alone. It's a blessing and a curse but it's solitude which I treasure so much.

It's funny how much I crave companionship; a friend, a partner, a love interest. Yet, I wish to be alone. Why is that?

I'd like to establish a relationship with an online poet so we can write away the time difference with words of uncertainty.*

and then maybe, after years of being hidden away behind screens and across borders and oceans we meet over a cup of hot beverage, shivering in the cold (preferably) and laugh about horrid lines we came up with and the confusion would be blown away by Jack Frost.

we'd be our raw vivid selves, poet to poet, human to human, friend to friend. maybe we won't even speak of poetry but of people we love, hate, bad things that happened, are happening, will happen. ordinary, extraordinary things.

and then perhaps; we might fall in love under the twinkling of eyes and sharing a love of words both complex and simple. perhaps.