my father told me
to just come home
once i hit my
breaking point

how do i explain to him
that i don't have a breaking point?

my body will twist and turn
it will boil and bubble from
the inside out but i will
not break and my lungs
will scream for air my
heart tied together with
knots and crosses my hair
falling away in the air
that just isn't enough for me
to breathe

how do i tell him that
my sadness will keep growing
until i am dead and that
there is no 'point' at which it will
be 'bad enough' for me to say
'i give up- take me home'
there will be no point because
father, i will tell him,
father, you raised me as a fighter,
and i do not know how to give up
not when it is the smart option
not when it is the only option
i am not one who gives up and that
is both stupid and deadly but
i know myself to know that i will
stay and stay and stay till it was
far past time to leave
that is why i loved the boy
who wrote poetry on me with a blade
and that is why when he told me he'd **** me
i still stayed
i don't know how to let go
of places or people or things
i don't know how to give up
on ideas or love
that is why
when the nurse asks me
how bad the pain is
on a scale of 1-10
i will always say
something along the lines
of 5
even with a broken spine
and a dislocated skull
i will tell her the pain is 5
because i do not know
what my 10 is
where do i stop to say
this
this is
enough

father, when you tell me to come home
when i've had enough
know that i do not know what 'enough' is
i have always been trying to be 'enough'
i always want to give more than 'enough'
but this strange place called 'enough'
has never been home to me

i'll fight till my
anxiety ties around my neck
and i am blue in the face
purple fingertips
and yellow eyeballs
i'll fight until my
depression creeps into the
veins of my bloodless body
and soars through them
mercilessly
i'll fight until
you put the last of the dirt
upon my fractured grave
because death always came easier
than ever saying
i give up