How can you love me?
There's nothing to like
Yet you can't look away
So what is that like?
To look at me and see some good
I'd never know
I wish I could
You see the light inside
That I thought burned out long ago
You told me to look and I tried
But nothing was there even so
Yet here you stand not willing to leave
And here I stay only able to grieve
So why do you love me?
Why do you care?
All hope is lost
And yet you're still there

Sometimes, I wish I hadn’t just been the backseat of your car,
Intoxicated. My first drunk hook up. My first. Period.
I picture myself being champagne on Valentine’s Day.
I picture myself being you, nervous in the car, holding Starbucks
because you know I love coffee. Sometimes, I picture myself as her,
calling you a stalker and ignoring your calls,
but then I see myself. I call you beautiful,
turn you into poetry, laugh at your bad jokes,
I see myself as I become your drunk Wednesday night
when you’re sad. I see myself as I say no,
I become a “this is not a good idea”
and you a “we’ll deal with the consequences in the morning.”
We laugh because this hurts too much.
You take her out for dinner and I burrow money
for Plan B because you forgot you don’t like condoms
and clearly have no idea how children are made.
I have already named him. He has your curls and
my anxiety. He is smart. Except, I never wanted kids and
you would be a great father. Instead, you tell her
the beach reminds you of her and I cry in a McDonald’s
bathroom with my friend as relief floods through me that
the test comes negative. I stop talking to you,
move forward, meet someone new and before long
see myself becoming you. Because isn’t that the cycle?
Bad men turn good women into bad women who turn
good men into bad men. I’ll set him free so he can hurt
someone like me, and I drink red wine as I read her
poems about him and me.

if insecurity was a religion people would follow nothing else
if self doubt was a political party people would vote for no one else
if depression was a country people would feel at home nowhere else

i have to show the world that what you three did to me only scratched my surface,
only took off the shiny layer of myself that i had previously perfected for the eyes of society’s critical audience.
but you didn’t.
you’ve broken my soul
and torn my heart
and punctured my lungs
and i’m finding it harder to live and breathe every single day.
people think that the pain caused by an experience like this lives and dies in the moment that it happens,
but those people are sincerely wrong.
it's been three hundred and twenty-seven days since it happened,
since each of you violated me
and took advantage of me
and abused my right to consent.
but i bet you didn’t know that those days equate to seven thousand, eight hundred and forty-eight hours that it’s been on my mind
and i bet you didn’t know that the nightmare is now burned into my skin
and flowing through my blood
and coded into my dna.
the constant feeling that my body is no longer mine will not leave.
the feeling that i’m missing a part of myself is going to stick with me.
the feeling that my heart strings are severed,
that my lungs have burst,
that my legs can no longer carry the weight of my newly found burden
and that my life has been tainted by your evil touch
will never disperse.
these feelings cannot be brushed under a rug,
but i’ve got to appear like they can to the outside world.
do you know what else hurts?
what also hurts is that this trauma,
the same trauma that is making me want to end my life,
constantly hoping that the last of my heart strings will break so that my heart can plummet to the depths of my destroyed soul to lay with my sanity,
is being used to mock me.
as if my life could be forced into further submission without the teasing and bullying of my peers.
thank you,
to the three boys that took my innocence,
turned my meaning of the word ‘no’ into ‘yes’
and made my body into a lighthouse as a guide for the devil.
he’s found me.
you’ve broke me.
you win.

People like you and me have grown used to dancing along,
To the raggedy tune of someone else's song.
We are able to dance, and smile, and duck, and roll, and weave,
While still clinging tightly to the things that we believe.
Sometimes we are led to believe we will lose it all; our heart, our soul, our very name,
Afraid they'll take away the us-ness of us; but still we play their game.

I wonder how many others know how to fake their hand?
Who keep the love caged up inside, to appear "normal" and bland?
Perhaps it is just us, perhaps just you, or, again, perhaps just me,
Or perhaps each individual just sees what they want to see.

Perhaps.

Perhaps...

Or perhaps, but...

I had a vision once; all the bad thoughts in the world were mine;
I ****** them in from everyone else, so that all the world felt fine,
And while all other folk were safe at rest, I cried and cried and cried,
And toddled down some empty street, slumped down a wall, and died,
Taking with me all the evil thoughts- the hate, the pain, the strife;
I believe it was the happiest I'd felt in all my life.

I tell you that to tell you this; all people's pain is pain to me,
And I would gladly give you happiness, in exchange for misery.
Don't keep those thoughts locked up inside, and hoard them for your own,
Or both you and I will surely die depressed- afraid- alone.

you will never be forgotten.
ever.
your name twisted into metaphors and colors and distractions will forever
be painted across pages and pages of her favorite brand of notebook,
no matter how many she burns
there will always be one she forgot,
and she will only find it once she had almost forgotten you.
she will find the one Papyrus notebook
and all of your metaphors and colors and disractions will come flooding back,
just like how the ocean in your eyes
flooded her heart all those years ago.

(read forward, then backward, line by line)

I ran.
Not knowing what else to do
There was so much blood on my hands
It was mine
The kitchen knife
Caught in my chest
Guilt
Consumed by
Fear
I was heightened by
Adrenaline
But running on
Wasn’t enough
While trying to stay calm,
Losing control
It was me that would end up
Dead. Because
He was
In front of me
The whole time
It was too late
Trapped
I found myself
Locked in chains
My fate was
Death.