Why is it that I can never write about myself? Why am I a hollowed, wilted wallflower? Why is it that I tell the stories from the viewpoint of someone I love? Your mother, she was a cruel and twisted woman, your mother she force fed medicine down your fragile swollen throat, tired of screaming. He ran in circles, she picked apart her wrists, fingers tripping over scabs like a minefield. She wrote a song and faded away, chopped vegetables for skinny soup then held the knife to her belly, swaddled in lost lover grief, cookie crumb hangover, swallowing sadness like dessert until she throws up and dies. Boy tells her she is ugly. She is suddenly on two diets, one where she sheds tears and one where she sheds pounds. Your hair is long. Your grandfather says over my shoulder, ghost that doesn't like the confines of a grave, he tells me "Wiffle. He needs a wiffle." Your hair covers your eyes, acne, you love to watch it fly. You watched yourself fly, maybe a foot down, from a noose. You hung and then the rope cracked and the air had to let you go, concrete caught you. You told this story and I thought maybe God is concrete and he just takes us back. She has no mother, no lady to clap on her wedding day, well maybe a step mother, but who loves her anyway. She had long hair but it died and her dreams flew away in October as she cried, she didn't **** herself, she was **** sure. And him, he who touched me and then kept his hands to himself, smiling to the memory of me crying, looking up, afraid of what I have to touch. I am still afraid. I have been torn up dozens of times, my insides spill out, but of all the things I spat I cannot spit out abuse. Forgive me, mom. I can feel bile crawl up my throat like sour milk, forgive me God.

I see myself in you all, but I can't bring myself above boring. I toss pills between hands but they never land in my mouth, it's too full of stumbling apologizes and sacrifice. Of course, I'll take care of you. I am happy, so happy until I am sad and then I am as good as dead.

I love my boyfriend. I love him and his spotty skin. I love my best friend, all 5 of them. I love my mother, father, my young, impressionable and thoughtless sister. I love myself at her age, so tender and sore, broken and cracked open in places young girls shouldn't be. I had my heart broken at 13 when the boy I liked said I was ugly. I had it broken again when the boy I was in love with touched me. I had it broken at 14 when the boy I loved dumped me, even though I wanted to leave him, let's just be friends, I said. And we did but then I was 15, and I had my heart broken when my boyfriend tried to silence the ringings of my I love you's with pills. The story doesn't end, sunshine does not go through scar tissue it rests on top and burns, my heart is bleeding red. I bang my head on the wall to spill it on the ground, I stand tall when I say that I am alright, I do not need to stay overnight at the hospital I am not going to **** myself I just like the idea of my nose bleeding and mind receding and then my heart stops beating, I'm good. And I am happy, I am just sunshine, but when will this love that keeps me going become a burden? When will I grow tired and crumble beneath the weight, the crown of a queen weighting too heavy on my bruised mind. Love thy neighbor, and I do. We are all one in the same, and I do know it'll all be alright.