if I were to get famous
for some talent that
I haven't discovered yet,

and stand in front
of an audience with
hundreds of people,

I don't think I could do it.

but that's not because
of my stage fright.

I don't need to imagine the
audience in their underwear,
or whatever trick performers use.

I don't think I could do it
because my eyes would never
stop scanning the crowd.

even in a sea of
people who love me,

I could not stop
searching for you.

and it's so much easier
to imagine that the audience
is wearing something dumb

than it is to imagine
you being a part of that audience.

I couldn't trick myself into
believing that you are there.
you're not.

my imagination can't change that.

we were fourteen kids.
there were enough of us
to fill a classroom,
but we rarely went to school.
we learned what
we needed to know
from the streets.
school was pointless.
multiplication and cursive
wouldn't keep us alive.

one of us was almost sixteen,
in the wrong place
at the wrong time.
he got mistaken for
someone else, and he was
stabbed over and over
and over and over again.
we were thirteen kids.

two of us were nineteen
and almost twenty,
walking down a block
that wasn't ours.
we heard the shots
from our street
a few blocks over.
we were eleven kids.

one of us was thirteen
and on our block
where she thought
she would be safe.
she was pulled into an alley
and hurt in the worst ways.
she found out
she was pregnant
a few weeks after.
we didn't hear the gunshot
when she took her own life,
but we all knew she was gone.
we were ten kids.

one of us saw his brother
gunned down in
broad daylight.
he couldn't stop
replaying the scene
in the back of his mind.
he grabbed a Glock 19,
and he took the lives
of four kids from
the other side of town.
he disappeared that night
into the glow of
blue and red lights.
he rotted away in a cell.
we were nine kids.

one of us was a hero.
he pulled a woman
out of a burning car
and lost his life
in the process.
the newspapers refused
to show his story
when they heard
what neighborhood
he came from.
he died a hero, but
he would never be seen
as anything but a villain.
we were eight kids.

five of us lost so much
that eventually we had
nothing left to lose.
the gang life called,
and five of us answered.
we knew that
they couldn't be saved.
these streets don't
give people back.
and they'll take you,
dead or alive.
we were three kids.

one of us was twenty
and he thought that
he would make it out
of here, onto better things.
he was making dinner
for his younger sisters,
two beautiful little girls.
a stray bullet burst
through the window
and took him down.
the last thing he saw
was those two little girls
who he loved more
than you could ever imagine.
he was their older brother
and their parent and
their best friend, all at once.
they watched him fall
and never get back up.
we were two kids.

one of us made it.
she grew up, and she
moved far away from
our old neighborhood.
but those memories and
those losses and that pain
never left her mind.
she turned to pills
and then to needles,
and one day, she
took a little too much.
I was one kid.

I am one kid, now grown,
with thirteen dead friends.
I am a survivor, but that
isn't something to celebrate.
I shouldn't be a survivor
because none of this
should've ever happened.
we should still be fourteen kids.

if these streetlights could speak,
they'd narrate stories that would
keep you awake at night

and if these corners could scream,
they would never stop screaming

and if these streetlights could speak,
and these corners could scream,
would you listen?

are you listening?

I’m so scared,

and I don’t even know
what I’m scared of.



I don't even know
what I'm scared of,

but I know that
I need to be scared.

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.

if I die,
I know that my eulogy
would be read aloud
by my biological family
with tears in their eyes
and sad, solemn voices.

it’s scary to think
that if I die,
my eulogy would be read
by the same people who
once wished for my death.

your mother fights with your father
over anything and everything.
you realize at a young age that
your parents will always put
more effort into hating each other
than they'll ever put into loving you.

your mother surprises you and
picks you up from school one day.
she tells you that you're
going on a vacation,
and you're happy because
she's never done this before.

she takes you out of state,
and she promises that
you'll go to the beach soon.
you're so excited.

a few days go by
and you finally realize
that your mother took you
away from your father,

and that once again,
this is about hating him
and not about loving you.

you never go to the beach.

as you get older,
you figure out that
your mother does drugs.

you mop up her *****
some mornings, and you
worry about her health.

there's a program at school
that tells you all about
addiction and drug abuse.

you act like it's dumb,
and you say that you
don't want to sit through
some boring presentation
because that's what all
of the other kids are saying.

but secretly, you want
to know everything.
you can't understand
why your mother
would do something
that hurts her so badly.

you watch your mother
steal money, and you begin
to hide your own cash
in a hole in the wall.

there are times when
your mother runs out of money.
you know that when this happens,
she is going to be very mean.

your mother runs out of money
again. this time, she tells you that
she tried to have an abortion,
and that you are only alive
because she didn't have the money
or a ride to the clinic.

she tells you that if you weren't born,
nothing would be the way that is is.
she says that you were
the one child too many,
the final unwanted responsibility
that she needed to push her off
the edge of sobriety.

you believe her.

as the years go by,
you try every drug that
you come across.

you do drugs to forget.
you assume that your mother
does drugs for the same reason.
you wonder what she's
been trying so hard to forget.
you think that maybe
she's trying to forget you.

your mother leaves your life.
you blame yourself
because she blamed you,
and even if you didn't believe
a single word that she said,
you know that
she truly believed it.
and that hurts.

you move in with your father,
who makes it obvious that
you aren't wanted there either.

you've never had a curfew.
but when you come home
around midnight, your father says,
"only ****** come home this late."

your ask your father what time
to be home, and he tells you.
but he starts locking the front door
a few hours before
whatever time he gave.
sometimes, you sleep outside
on the front porch.

by sixteen, you rarely spend
nights at your father's house,
and you have no idea
where your mother is or
what she's been doing with her life.

you've been told
by your parents that
you are a *****, a failure,
a failed abortion,
and a waste of space.

you tried to commit suicide once,
and when you came home,
your father complained
about the hospital bill.

he wasn't worried
or sympathetic.
he was angry.

in an argument later
he tells you,
"next time, do it right."

you've been told
by your parents
that you don't matter.
you aren't loved.
you aren't wanted.

your parents were
your first tormentors.
they were bullying you
before you even started school.

society tells us that
our parents are always right.

for some kids,
that's good advice.

but if your parents
tell you the things
that my parents told me,

when they make you feel
the way that they made me feel,

you are being told that
you're supposed to believe them.

I still feel like I should be sorry
for not believing their words,

but if I believed everything
that my parents have said,

I would have listened to my father
and made sure that if I tried to
**** myself again, I would finish the job.

if I believed everything
that my parents have said,

I would be dead right now.

if I went backwards,



you'd find me underneath
those dim city streetlights

laughing with the other
kids on my block.



you'd find me at
the first funeral

and then the
second and third

staring ahead with
blank eyes and a
tear-stained face,

brown dirt on
my black shoes

and you'd never again
find me laughing at
the end of my block.



you'd find me
running, running,
always running

from the cops
from rival gangs
from foster homes
from mean kids

from my responsibilities
and my guilt and the truth
and eventually from my past

and I wouldn't slow down
until I collapsed.



you'd find me on a
pool table in a basement
with my first boyfriend
on top of me.

he whispered that
he loved me,
but the bruises
said otherwise.

I listened to his voice
and ignored his actions.



again, you'd find me
running, running,
always running

from my ex and his abuse
from my self-hatred
from my confusion
from more cops

and I wouldn't slow down
until I collapsed.



if I went backwards,
I would be running.

I'm still running.

if I go forward,
will I stop?

will I always
be running?

what feels good can’t hurt you
until it’s not good anymore.

reality doesn’t touch the bedroom
until someone opens the door.

you can grasp skin and
pull someone close,
but it doesn’t stop them
from leaving
once you let go.

when he called me a *****,
I said "thank you."

if a ***** is what a woman is
when she calls you out
on your ignorance,
then yes,
I am a *****.

if a ***** is what a woman is
when she tells you "no"
and it hurts your fragile ego,
then yes,
I am a *****.

if a ***** is what a woman is
when she uses her voice
and stands up for herself,
then yes,
I am a *****.

so if you call me a *****,
my response will
always be "thank you."

if having my own opinions
and my own thoughts
makes me a *****
then yes,
I am a *****.

and I am proud of that.

I want to recover.
I want to open up in therapy
and take my medication like I should.
I want to feel again.
I want this numbness to end.
I want to, I do.

but for that to happen,
my disorders and diagnoses
would have to go away.
I would be left to face
the real world all on my own.

this safe world that my disorders
have built around me would be gone.
I would no longer feel so
disconnected from my body.
I would no longer feel so
disconnected from the world around me.
my disorders would leave me.

I can’t lose any more friends.
I’m still hurt from those endings
that I never saw coming

and whether I like it or not,
these disorder are my best friends.
I can’t lose them yet.
I’m not strong enough.

I think about my daughter
awake at 3am, crying silently
over some boy who just
broke her heart.

I think about my daughter
who, with shaky hands,
comes to me sobbing,
begging me to love her
even if she falls in love
with another girl.

I think about my daughter
feeling like she's alone.
she doesn't talk to me
because maybe I'm
stuck late at work or
maybe I'm tired after
such a long day, but
for whatever reason,
I'm not there.

I think about my daughter
pulling up her sleeves
as she walks by me.
maybe I notice, but
I don't say anything.

maybe I just don't
know what to say.
or maybe I don't notice.

I think about my daughter
and how she's going to be
stuck raising her siblings
if I have any more children.

she'll be raising my children,
who she didn't choose to have,
because I'm not there.

she'll be tired and sad,
living her life the same
way that her siblings did
when she was young.



I think about my daughter,
who might exist one day,
growing up how I did
and feeling how I felt.

I think about my daughter
and I promise her that
she will never be alone.
I promise her that
I will always be there.

I promise myself that
one day, if I bring a
daughter into this world,
I will always be there.



I will break this cycle.
I will show her that
history doesn't always
have to repeat itself.

I will love my daughter
and she will know that I do.
she will never feel unloved.

I will be the mother
that I never got to have.

my father hates me
because I remind him
of my mother,

and he hates that
he fell in love with her
only for it to end
the way that it did.



my mother hates me
because I am
my father's daughter,

and she hates that he
believed there was romance
when all it was to her was
a warm body and a fun night.



my father hates me
because he hates my mother.

my mother hates me
because she hates herself.



my parents never failed
to make me feel unwanted,

but now I realize that
it wasn't about me.

they wanted children.
what they didn't want
was each other.

their hatred for one another
outweighed their love for us.



I know now that
all of that pain was aimed
at each other.

it ricocheted off of
the walls I tried to build
to protect myself,
and it hit us instead.

it hurt me so badly

but I realize now that
it was never my fault.

I used to be addicted
to the feeling of a blade
pressing into my skin.

I used to be addicted
to seeing those red dots
forming a ****** line.

I used to be addicted
to my own blood and
the relief it brought me.

I used to be addicted
to metal.


the world must be addicted
to the feeling of power and
violence and destruction.

the world must be addicted
to bullets in brown flesh
and mothers' cries.

just like I was, the world
must be addicted to blood.
its iron still tastes metallic.
it's still red.

just like blood,
guns also taste metallic
when the barrel is
in your mouth.


the world and I
have different views,
but we have one
thing in common.

we're both addicted
to metal.

my abuser was a predator,
and I'm sure he still is.

predators don't change.
they are naturally
carnivorous creatures.

they are all the same.
it must be one monster
inhabiting millions
of human bodies,

and that monster seems
impossible to ****.

he enjoys draining
the life from his prey.

he has an
insatiable appetite

and a sweet tooth
for my innocence.

he uses the salty
taste of my tears
to season his meal.

and when he finally
sinks his teeth
into my skin,

the force of his jaws
crack open my skull.

he leaves a bite mark
on my brain itself.

he's inhuman.
he's soulless.
he feels no pain.
he has no remorse.

it's too late for me.
he's already bitten,
and his jaws are
difficult to pry off.

but it's not too late
for all of those women
that this monster
is busy luring in.

if you are out there,
please save them.

another child
will be taken
and forced to
grow up overnight.

another woman
will lose her life.

these women
are everywhere.

if you know one,
please, help her
to run away.

if you are one,
please, leave and
don't look back.

there is no
human heart
inside of a monster.

you cannot change him.
you can only leave,
and change yourself.

you can
pick me apart
piece by piece.

I promise you
that I can
handle the pain.

experiment on me,
sedate me,
cut me open
and study me.
I can take it.

all I ask is that
when you put me
back together again,
please leave my trauma
out on the operating table.

if you tell me that you want to know
what it’s like to live the way that I do,
I will laugh to myself, because
the truth is you don’t want to know.

you don’t want to live the way
that I live, or feel how I feel.

and even if you did, you can’t.
you can hear about it
and learn about it,
but you can never feel
the way that I do.

don’t keep trying to understand
the way that my mind operates.
don’t keep trying to feel like me.

be thankful that you can’t.

but if you must know,
imagine this:

it’s early in the morning
and you’re at the end of a dream,
or maybe a nightmare.

you’re kind of awake,
but not quite. you’re groggy.
you haven’t gotten out of bed yet,
and you don’t feel like it.

and then you hear your
alarm clock going off,
and you realize, oh ****,
you’re late to work.

you need to get up now
and you know that.
but when you try to,
you suddenly can’t.

you’re stuck in your bed,
unable to even open your eyes.
you’re not paralyzed.
you seem physically fine,
but you’re stuck there.
you have an overwhelming
need to wake yourself up.
you don’t know why you can’t.

you’re stuck in your bed for so long,
you begin to think that maybe
the dream that you’re in is now real.
maybe the real world isn’t there anymore. you can’t think of a logical explanation.
it doesn’t make any sense.

yesterday, you woke up
and got out of bed, and you
made it to work on time.
you were even a few minutes early.
there was no problem at all.

but wait, how long ago
was yesterday?
you don’t know
if yesterday was yesterday,
or if yesterday was a year ago.

you’ve been stuck here,
frozen in your bed while
the earth keeps spinning.
you have no way of knowing
what’s going on
in the world around you.

you know that this feels wrong.
you should’ve been able
to start your day.
you shouldn’t be stuck.

you know that you can’t
be living in a dream.
that’s not possible.

you know you’re not asleep.
you’re wide awake, but you’re stuck.
you can’t scream. you can’t move at all.
you’ve lost control over your body.
you can’t wake yourself up.

imagine that no matter what you do,
you can’t wake yourself up.

I am not afraid of
showing you my body.

I am afraid of
only showing you my body.

my mind is a mess.
a deep, beautiful,
complicated mess
of thoughts that twist
and turn and tangle.

I want you to be more interested
in prying open my mind
than prying open my legs.

I want you to be more interested
in me than my skin.

anyone can hear a heartbeat.
anyone can see a body
if it’s in front of them.

not everyone can hear thoughts.
not everyone can see love
if it’s in front of them.

*******

for preying on my naïveté
and the innocence
that I hadn't lost yet

and destroying my trust
when I idolized you
like a ******* god

and taking my heart
knowing **** well that
you planned to break it.




but also,
thank you

for showing me how to
spot those red flags

and teaching me
the lessons that I would
eventually need to learn
with or without you

and proving to me that
I deserve so much better.

I am broken.

there is nothing
beautiful about that.

brokenness is painful
and ugly and terrifying.

but no matter what,
I do not need you to
piece me back together.



yes, I am broken.

but I don't need
to be fixed.

it’s 3am right now
and I’m wide awake,
sitting on the edge
of my bed with
tears in my eyes.

I am in exactly the
same position I was
frozen in last year

and two years ago

and the year before that

and when I was young,
something like thirteen,

and basically every year
that I was old enough
to have some memory of.

I’m still that same
sad girl who writes
depressing poetry and
makes reckless decisions.



she sees a future sometimes,
but sometimes all she sees
and hears is television static.

sometimes she wants to
fill in the blanks and
paint a colorful future

and other times she’s
not so sure she wants
to see any future at all,
existing or not.

I’m still that girl.



I have a bed that
the love of my life
is asleep in right now.

my room is painted
a dull blue-grayish
color that I once
would have hated.

I no longer have
fan memorabilia from
concerts and emo bands.

instead of posters,
my walls hold
pretty picture frames.



there’s one of me
and my love at the top
of a mountain we hiked,

although truthfully it
was more of a hill.

we laughed at how
overrated that hike was.

in this picture,
we’re still laughing.



my room is in a
beautiful house in a
suburban neighborhood.

unlike so many people
who I once knew, I
made it out of the city.

I have a diploma and
the start of a college degree.
I received an education
instead of dropping out.

the school district here
is rated highly.
this is a safe place
for my future children
to grow up in.

there is green grass
in a spacious yard,
and a patio outside
where one day
I might sit and watch
my children play.

I have an amazing life
that I never thought
I could possibly have.

I am genuinely happy.



but for some reason,
I’m sitting here crying
in the middle of the night.

3am is still a time when I
am almost always
wide awake.

I am still a sad girl

who sometimes sees
a wonderful future

and sometimes sees
no future at all.



my surroundings have
drastically changed

and right now,
my life is truly good.

I have already begun
to build a new
life for myself.

I am somewhere
safe and happy.



but I know now that
all of that means nothing.

I have begun to build
a life that I once only
dreamed about living,

but when I moved,

I had to bring myself
with me.



nothing can change
until I do.

I forgive the fifth-floor window
who I once asked to swallow
me into the night.

I forgive the water who
once called out to me
when I walked above
its rushing currents.

I forgive the Aisle 10
in Home Depot
who once sold me
the razor blades
that kept my hoodie
on all summer.

I forgive the basement rafters
who once held the rope
that I planned to use
as my permanent escape.

I forgive the bathroom mirror
who once failed to disagree
when I sobbed to it
about the ugliness of
each feature on my face.

I forgive the scale who once
hurled numbers at me
without mentioning that
my weight was not
something to fret over.

I forgive the scars who
were once a release to me,
and who neglected to tell me
that they would not leave
even if I asked them to.

I forgive the pen whose ink
once helped write what I
thought would be my last words.

I forgive the doorknob who
once let me lock myself away
from everyone who loved me,
and who watched as I tried
to never come out again.

and above all,
I forgive the person
who I once hated most.

I forgive her for her anger,
and her hateful words,
and her nonstop cruelty.

I forgive her for
being the hardest person
I've ever had to forgive.

I forgive myself.

dystopian novels and
post-apocalyptic movies
somehow captivate
everyone that I know.

humans enjoy violence.
maybe it's the fear,
maybe it's the power,
maybe it's some sort
of adrenaline rush.
I don't know.

humans spend
so much time focusing
on the end of the world.
will it be zombies?
aliens? an outbreak
of some form of virus?
will we turn to anarchy
and cause our own demise?
again, I don't know.

I can't figure out why
this is so appealing.
I don't understand
other humans.

maybe my trauma
won't let me learn.

maybe my disconnect
comes from the horrors
I tried to leave in my past.

maybe I'm not interested
in the end of the world

because it feels like
my world ended
a very long time ago.

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.

seated on the back
of your motorcycle,
I held onto you
a little too tight.

you laughed
at my fear.

but what you didn't know
was that I wasn't afraid
of letting go and falling
and hurting myself.

I was afraid because
for my whole life,
letting go of things meant
never seeing them again.

I was afraid that
if I loosened my grip,
you would drive away
and you would be gone.

injuries are temporary
and skin always heals,
but sometimes
heartbreak doesn't.

I wasn't afraid
of broken bones
or bloodied clothes.

I was afraid
of losing you

because I knew
that losing you would
hurt far worse than
scrapes and bruises.

fall in love with yourself
the way that you want
to be loved.

stop letting strangers take
refuge in your body.

you are not a
momentary place.

you were not built to be
someone’s hideaway
or vacation house.

you were not designed
to handle people
walking in and out
of your life.

your body is tired
of hurting.

tell these short-term
visitors to leave.

the scratches and
scuff marks left by
their careless actions
do not define you.

you expect abandonment.
permanence feels foreign.
someone staying feels
unnatural to you.

but please remember that
you deserve to be
so much more than a
resting spot for someone
to briefly stop at, and
continue on their way.

despite what you may
believe about yourself,
you are not temporary.

please, be kind to yourself.

as you travel through life,
remember that it doesn’t matter
whether you believe it or not.
you are worth it.
and not believing that doesn’t
make it any less true.

please, stop searching
for another guest.

find someone who
feels less like a tourist,
and more like a home.

I won't say "no" twice.

if you didn't listen
the first time,

then I have no reason
to believe that you'll
listen to the second.

and you cannot
complain that you
were not warned
before I scorched
every inch of
your skin.

that one "no"
was your warning.

you won't feel
those warm breaths
you expected to feel
against your neck.

you will feel pain,
because I will
breathe fire.

I will watch
as your life
goes up in flames

and I will smile
the same sadistic smile
that you thought you
would have right now.

the tables have turned.
now, you are the person
coated in fear and gasoline

and I am the person
holding the matches.

your last text to me
wasn't anything special.
"Mcdonald's or Burger King?"
that's all you said.

I thought that maybe
it would be easier because
we didn't have any amazing,
memorable last conversation.

I thought that maybe
it being so normal
would be good,
but it's not.


it's not good
because your last words
were in the form of a question.
a silly question, yes,
but a question nonetheless.

"Mcdonald's or Burger King?"
you asked me
and I didn't respond in time
and now the weight of
everything that I could've said
is forever on my shoulders.

"McDonald's or Burger King?"
you asked me
and I didn't respond in time
and now whenever I drive past
either of those billion locations,
I think of you
and all of the things that
we left unsaid.


"Mcdonald's or Burger King?"
you asked me
and then you died,

and you left me
with no more time
and no right answers.

you say that it
can't happen to you.

oh honey,
that's what we all say.

this isn't real.
this isn't real.
t h i s   i s n ' t   r e a l .



you place another tab
of acid on your tongue,
at least you think it's acid,

and the earth begins
to distort itself.



trees with pink trunks
and leaves with faces

and the ground shakes,
or maybe it only feels
like it's shaking,

and everything is loud
and quiet all at once.

the strangeness of it all
is somehow so comforting.



Addiction smiles at you
like The Cheshire Cat,

a character that seems
only fictional

in a world that
doesn't seem like ours.



Addiction's voice
is suddenly everywhere.

you hear it in the gusts
of hurricane winds,

or maybe they're nothing
but zephyrs, and maybe the
calm breeze feels stronger
than it actually is.



you hear it from the clouds
above your head

from the ground
beneath your feet

from all around you,
and maybe even
from inside of you,

and it doesn't stop.



it gets louder
and  l o u d e r
and   l  o  u  d  e  r

and soon, you won't know
if this is your world
or Addiction's world.



you won't know
what is real

and what is imaginary

and soon, it will
all feel the same.



soon, it won't matter
whose mind this is

or what dream you're in

or whether or not this
is even a dream.

soon, all that will matter
is where you can get
your next high.



you'll walk to the corner
and buy another bag
or another needle.

you'll pump that feeling
into your veins

and it will come rushing
right back to you.



trees with pink trunks
and leaves with faces

and the ground shakes,
or maybe it only feels
like it's shaking,

and everything is loud
and quiet all at once.

the strangeness of it all
is somehow so comforting.



this isn't real.
this isn't real.
t h i s   i s n ' t   r e a l .



but even if it is,
even if this is real
and this is your world now,

it doesn't matter anymore.
it doesn't matter anymore.



you see, honey,

i t   d o e s n ' t   m a t t e r
a n y m o r e.

even as a kid, I knew that
forever didn’t exist.
I pulled tulips from the earth
and brought them home with me,
but I wasn’t looking at the petals.
I was looking at the tiny hole
left behind in the soil
after the roots were ripped out.

it wasn’t about the
beautiful thing I had taken;
it was about taking something
from the planet that had
taken everything from me.

the tulips went into a vase and
I kept them, like any other kid.
but I wasn’t the kid
who marched in and proudly
showed them to their parents.
I didn’t show them to anyone.
I sat by the vase and
watched them rot.

they were my physical proof
that death is real,
evidence that my friend’s dog
did not run away to a butterfly farm,
and the old man down the road
did not mysteriously go to a better place.
they died, and they rotted.

I think about this often now.
I killed flowers not to admire them,
but to prove to myself that
even beautiful things can die.

I know how morbid that sounds,
but what you have to understand
is that my whole life had
revolved around death.

my childhood memories
were a sickening collection
of wilted flowers, of worms
burned into the concrete
after a storm, of rotting fruit
and swarms of flies.

my young mind showed me
the same images on repeat.
dead friends, dead relatives,
people who left me,
people who left this earth.

for my entire childhood,
I never got to stop seeing
lives that weren’t fully lived.

even as a kid, death didn’t faze me.
violence was nothing to me.
pain wasn’t fun, but it was tolerable.
even back then, I was numb.

I remember how being
so numb at such a young age
terrified my teachers and
scared my friends’ parents.

I didn’t know how
to explain that I was numb
because no matter what
horrors I was shown,
I had already seen worse.

you tell your six year old daughter
all about stranger danger.

“don’t get into a car
with someone you don’t know.”

“don’t listen if they say
that they have a puppy
or candy or something fun.
they don’t.”

your six year old daughter
knows exactly what to do
if she is ever approached or touched
by a strange, unknown man.
but does she know what to do
if the man who touches her
has a seat at the Thanksgiving table?


you tell your thirteen year old daughter
that someone who she loves
should never hit her.

“if punches are thrown, leave.”

“use that can of pepper spray.”

“if you have to hit back,
aim for the eyes, or the groin,
or anywhere weak.”

“run away.”

your thirteen year old daughter
knows to never let a man hit her.
but if he yells at her,
and degrades her, and scares her,
and maybe even grabs her
but not quite hard enough
to leave a bruise, that is still abuse.
did you tell her that?
does she know what to do
if he doesn’t leave any marks
and tells her over and over again
that he’s sorry?


you tell your sixteen year old daughter
to yell “fire!” instead of “****!”

“people will care more
about the well-being
of their own property
than they will about your life.”

“they will come running,
but only if the situation
affects them too.”

your sixteen year old daughter
knows that people can be selfish,
and if they don’t want to see something,
they’ll simply turn the other way.
but there is good in this world too.
there are people who will care
and who will love her
and who she can trust.
did you tell her that?
if she stops believing in love
and genuine people,
does she know what to do?
or will she settle for the first man
who gives her any attention,
thinking that he is all
she will ever find?


you tell your twenty-four year old daughter
that one day, you hope
her future is beautiful.

“marry an amazing man.”

“have grandchildren.”

“live happily.”

when you tell her this,
you unintentionally add
your hope for her happiness
at the very end of your sentence,
almost like an afterthought.
your twenty-four year old daughter
wants to get married
and live in a nice house
and give you grandchildren.
but does she know to put herself first?
or will she marry a man because
she thinks he wants her to,
and have grandchildren
because she thinks that’s what you want?
does she know that
she has her own voice?
did you tell her that
she doesn’t need anyone
other than herself
to find happiness?

when I found love,
it was nighttime.

I remember hoping that
maybe he couldn't see
what I looked like
in the darkness.
we laugh at that now.

it was a real fear then,
but now I realize how
irrational it was.

how does that make any sense?
someone who loves you
will see you eventually.
if they wouldn't want to see you,
then how can you call that love
in the first place?

you shouldn't need to
dress up and go on dates.
true love is found
wearing sweatpants
and a baggy shirt,
with no makeup on.

you shouldn't need to
go looking for love.

the truth is that
you will be alone
for a while, maybe even
for a long time.

and the truth is
that loneliness will hurt
and it will not be easy.

but if you go looking
for love before you are
meant to come across it,
you will only find it
in the wrong places.

when you do find love,
it won't be perfect.
it will be messy sometimes
and awkward and hard,
but don't throw it away.

it's that messiness and
that imperfection and
those awkward moments.

those are love.

love is being yourself
with someone who loves you
for being yourself,

and who doesn't
just want to love you.

they want you to love yourself
the same way that they love you.

they want you to see yourself
through their eyes,
so that you can finally know
how truly amazing you are.

when the therapist asked
about my family history,
I gave her a history lesson.

I told her that growing up,
my house was a war zone.

I don't remember
what year it was, but eventually
the house collapsed into itself.
that trauma left me scared and hurt
with nowhere to go.

my mother moved out first.
she moved straight into
a life of addiction, and then
she found a new house
in the form of a jail cell.

my father also began
to call a jail cell his home.
he moved into the newspaper,
and then into the database of the
national *** offender registry.

now, we have separate houses
and conflicting beliefs.

we don't share anything
besides that story
and our DNA.

I couldn't tell her
about my family history,
because I don't
have parents anymore.

I have no family.
all I have is history.

words were always being launched
across the rooms of my house.
insults and accusations were flung
from one room to the next.

it wasn’t long before those words
were replaced by objects.

whenever I came home,
ceramic plates and decorative vases
would already be splayed out across
our kitchen floor, wrecked and broken.

I learned quickly
how to tiptoe around the mess.
if I wasn’t careful, the soles
of my feet would drip blood.

I accidentally learned pointe
by avoiding broken glass.

until someone pointed it out,
I never realized I was dancing.

my movements were somehow
considered to be a performance,

but all they were ever meant to be
was an avoidance of pain.

I slept in a little too late
a few days that week.

when the pharmacist called
about my prescriptions,
I didn't refill them
for the next month.

I forgot to eat breakfast
and maybe lunch
and I didn't remember
whether or not I ate dinner.

I didn't buckle my seatbelt
when I got into my car.

I didn't show up
when we made plans,
and eventually I stopped
making plans altogether.

I stopped joking about suicide
and you thought that
was a good sign,

but you didn't realize
I stopped joking
because this time,
I was serious.

when I hung up the phone
I said "goodbye"
instead of "goodnight."

and no one tried to stop me
because no one knew

because all of these little changes
seemed to mean nothing.

you didn't see
that I was hurting
until the tiles on
our bathroom floor
turned red.

you didn't see
that I was bleeding
until I had already bled out.

but on that day,
my story did not end.
my funeral was not
that weekend.
my death was not
on that Wednesday.



and now,
when I end the call,
I don't say "goodbye."

I never say "goodbye"
because tomorrow,
I will still be here.

even when it hurts
to simply get out of bed,
I will be here.

I will be here
because I am still breathing.
I am still alive

and there are so many
beautiful Wednesdays
that I haven't seen yet.

once, you opened a box of Tic Tacs
and I smacked it out of your hands,
and I watched as all of those
little mints fell to the floor.

you looked at me in shock
and asked,
"why did you do that?"

and I went silent.

I didn't know how to tell you
that it was impulse, because
Tic Tacs make the same sound
as benzos do when they're rattling
around inside a pill bottle.

__________

once, we got into an argument
over something stupid,
and we yelled at each other
and we both said things
that we didn't mean.

you got up to leave
but I had stolen your car keys.
you couldn't go anywhere.
I locked myself in my room
and you fell asleep on my couch.

the next day,
I gave them back to you
and again, you asked,
"why did you do that?"

and I went silent.

I didn't know how to tell you
that you could've crashed and
your car could've gone up in flames
and you could've never made it home

and if that happened, the last thing
that I would've ever said
to you would be "I hate you."
and if that happened,
I would never forgive myself.

__________

once, I woke up screaming
and you tried to comfort me
with a hug, and when I felt that,
I hit you as hard as I could.

when your nose
finally stopped bleeding,
and you had gone through
and entire box of tissues,
you looked at me and asked,
"why did you do that?"

and I went silent.

I didn't know how to tell you
that almost every night, I relive
experiences that I wish I never had.

I couldn't tell if I screamed out loud
or if it was only in my head.
I couldn't tell my nightmares
apart from reality, because
my dreams always feel so real.

I couldn't tell that it
was just you hugging me,
because your embrace
reminded me of the man who
held me down once and
hurt me in ways that I'll never forget.
I didn't know how to say that
every night, he reappears in my head.

I spend all day fighting off my past, and
when I let myself relax to go to sleep,
I let my guard down. and he returns
to haunt me all over again.

__________

once, you packed your bags
and you told me that you were leaving.
you were crying and so was I, and it felt
like my entire world was imploding
and on the verge of collapse.

I wiped away a tear
from my cheek and asked,
"why would you do that?"

for a moment, you went silent.

and when you answered, you told me
that you didn't know me,
and I realized that you were right.

every time you had asked me
who I was, I went silent.

when you asked about my trauma,
you were asking me who I was

and this whole time,
I hadn't realized that my trauma
was such a big part of me.

I hate having to accept it,
but I know that it's true.

my trauma made me who I am,
and I don't like that person.

I'm not expecting
to go to heaven.

the truth is that
I don't even
want to die.

I just want to
be someone new
with a fresh start.

I just want to
leave this life behind.

if I have to die to leave,
I can't promise you
that I won't.

I need to leave.
I need to go

to heaven or hell
or a forgotten town
off the grid somewhere.
I don't care.
I just need to go.

anywhere but here...
anywhere but here...
a n y w h e r e   b u t   h e r e