good girls
are not supposed to
get angry
or raise their voices
when they argue
or argue at all
in the first place.

good girls
are not supposed to
wear ripped jeans
or tight shirts
or say the word “****.”
good girls
are not supposed to
even think about *******.

and here I am,
having already used
the word “****”
three times in this poem.

good girls
are not supposed to
get plastered
on school nights
or tipsy before classes
or listen to music
with the volume
cranked all the way up.

good girls
are not supposed to
know which windows
make the least noise
when they’re sneaking out
or know where they can
buy cheap alcohol underage
or know who they can kiss
and where to kiss them
to get what they want.

good girls
are supposed to
smile silently and be pure
and go to church
or wherever they pray
to cleanse their filthy souls.

good girls
are supposed
to believe in
and put their trust in
and have faith in a god.

good girls
are supposed to
expect this god to
keep them away from harm,
and to never learn how to
keep themselves safe
if this god fails to.

good girls
are not supposed to
act anything like me.

the only thing
I have ever truly
believed in is poetry.

I outgrew religion by
the time I turned seventeen,
long before then
if I’m being honest.

I never turned to prayer for
advice on how to live my life.

I never turned to anyone
but myself.

I only consulted the bible
when I needed inspiration
for some tragic poem.

good girls
are not supposed to
write poetry
the way that I
write poetry.

good girls
never speak of or write about
*** and drugs and violent minds
and suicide and more ***
and broken hearts.

good girls
don’t sing along to
the lyrics of sad songs
in front of open windows
just for the ******* sake of it.

but good girls
don’t realize that life is short
until it’s too late.

good girls don’t ever
get to feel alive.

a girl like me
who gets into trouble
and refuses to stay quiet
and causes a scene
everywhere she goes
is not a good girl.

a girl like me
might be too reckless
and die too young.

but a girl like me
will die with no regrets
and plenty of memories
and so many *******
stories to tell.

a girl like me
will live the life that
good girls dream of,
but never get to talk about.

as you held me,
your hands moved across me,
your fingertips tracing
every curve of my body.

your hands wandered
until they found my scars.
every muscle in my body tensed up,
waiting for you to comment on them.

they weren’t new.
by this time, I had dealt
with all types of reactions.

there were the people
who were disgusted
and didn’t try to hide it,

the people who were made so
uncomfortable that
they didn’t know what to say,

the people who
insisted they understood
when it was obvious that they didn’t.

you were hard to read.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from you.
you pulled me closer to you
and held me tighter,
and I felt myself relax.

you didn’t tell me you were fine with them, you didn’t tell me you were sorry,
and you didn’t tell me they were beautiful.

you were honest,
and I loved that.

you weren’t fine with them,
but neither was I,
and that didn’t stop you
from caring about me.
you weren’t sorry,
you didn’t pity me,
and you didn’t change
the way you acted around me
like most people do.

but most importantly,
you did not call them beautiful.
they aren’t.

there is nothing beautiful
about self-hatred,
and these scars
are nothing more
than its byproducts.

self-harm is not pretty.
my past is not pretty.
my scars are not pretty.
I told you all of this.

you didn’t disagree with me,
you didn’t try to argue.
you simply held me.
you didn’t look at my scars,
you looked at me.
you didn’t say much.
you didn’t have to.

when you did finally speak,
you told me,

“you’re right.
your past isn’t pretty.
but that doesn’t mean
your future can’t be.”

each moment that you survive
takes you one step closer
to the time when
things will be better.

it might still be far away.
it might not be an easy journey.

but right now,
you are reading this

which means you are awake

which means you are alive

which means that
you have survived
every single moment
up to this point.

you have survived
every heartbreak

every loss

every laugh

every smile

and

you have survived
through times where
you weren’t sure you could do it.
but you did.

and now, you are done reading.
now, you are a few minutes
and 127 words closer
to seeing better days.
better days are coming.
just keep reading.
just keep breathing.

keep breathing…
keep breathing…
keep breathing…

you are the type of person I’d
write poems
about

but you’re also the reason
I stopped writing poetry
in the first place.

what can you say
to someone who is slowly
sinking into their own self-hatred?

to a person who can’t even
cry themselves to sleep?

to a dreamer
turned insomniac?

to a hopeless romantic
now only hopeless?

to someone with tired eyes
and bruised knuckles?

to someone who flinches
at your touch
as if it hurts,
but can hurt themselves
without a second thought?

to someone who drives
down a small-town road
at 76 miles per hour,
who isn’t trying to crash
but wouldn’t care if they did?

to someone who loves the earth
but hates the people
living here?

to someone who assures you
that everything will be alright
despite not believing in
their own words?

to someone who you are
terrified to lose,
but who claims
to have lost themselves
a long time ago?

you can say
“please don’t leave me”
or
“I love you”
or
“I need you”
or
“I’m trying to be ok
and I’m doing my best.
but I don’t know how
to get through this
without you by my side.”

you can say
all of this and more,
but you have to realize
that they might not be listening.

I can rewrite this poem
as many times as I want.

that’s the reason I do this.
the reason I sit up at night,
scribbling down sentences
that may never reach anyone’s ears,
stringing together words
that may never inspire anyone,
forming poems that may
never actually matter.

that’s the reality of it.
one day, these poems
aren’t going to be remembered.
maybe they aren’t even
remembered now.
maybe when they
reach my readers,
they go in one ear
and straight out the other.

but here, on paper,
I can erase what happened.
here, I can change the story.
here, I am in control.

I can rewrite this poem
as many times as I want,
but I will never be able
to rewrite the past.

I don’t know if I feel happy anymore,
but sometimes I don’t feel numb
and I call that happiness.
it’s more peace than happiness.
it’s more of a relief.
in these moments, I feel something
and I know that I’m still alive.
I must be alive
if I can still feel
…right?

when I get asked about my scars
and how I could possibly do something
so cruel to myself,
I want to say that
when I did it,
it wasn’t cruel.
I wasn’t trying to die.
I was trying to remind myself
that I’m not dead yet.

I’m a writer.
I’m supposed to be good with words,
and I am.
so why can’t I tell you how
I’m really doing?
why do I keep saying “I’m fine”
when I’m anything but fine?
why can’t I find the words to express
this feeling?

no,
it’s not a feeling.
it’s the lack of a feeling.

I haven’t learned
how to explain this yet.
I’ve spent years leaving and entering
this numbness,
over and over.
I think I’ve spent more time in it
than out of it.

I didn’t learn much, but
now I know that

the only thing worse
than feeling pain
is feeling nothing.