I wish I could mend it for you
and I wish you’d look in the mirror and see
past the tear-stained cheeks and the flushed skin,
and the neat little slices through skin on your wrists,
and the dilation of your pupils, marking you as artificially uninhibited,
and the scrapes up your arms and the bruises on your shins.

I wish you’d see the life beneath these things;
the blood being forced through arteries and veins and capillaries,
and rhythmic thumping that presses your life source
through the tunnels inside you
over and over and over,
just like the tide meeting the shore
and the day cycling into night
and the thumping of feet on a city street.

I wish you’d look and you’d love what you see
whether it’s the curve of your thighs or
the cowlick in your hair or
the way your eyes crinkle when you smile or
the freckles sprinkled across your nose or
the way your fingernails grow or
even your belly button.

I wish you’d feel like you were alive
and that whatever it was that you were going through
would eventually slip away into the history books.
This too shall pass, they say,
and they’re right.

I wish you could see that
this moment will pass
and your happiness will come
and it will flit away
and come back differently
but that’s okay.

I wish you could see that we’re in flux
(our lives are in flux
our emotions are in flux
our ideas are in flux
our inspiration is in flux
and you are alive and kicking and in flux)
and you are big and brave and better than you can imagine
and please don’t leave here
because a world without you isn’t much of a world at all
and you’re worth so much more than
the sadness and hatred and anger and frustration and anxiety
that makes the tears leak from your eyes and
disturbs the peace that you deserve so much.