A child’s love is not the same as someone who is grown.

A child’s love is like sunshine in April
Like dew on the grass in the morning
Like a stream running through your fingers
Like apples picked from a tree in August

A child’s love is pure
Whole
Without expectations
Without exceptions

A child’s love is innocent
Untarnished
Untouched
Perfect

A child’s love cannot be broken
Whether you are their mother, brother, sister, or father
A child’s love is everything
And should not be taken for granted

I’m always trapped in a cage,
No matter how much I age,
People’s expectations,
My own limitations,
The iron bars surround me,
The cages won’t let me free,
I’m surrounded by my failures and guilt,
It was a cage I built,
But a cage nonetheless,
My soul bleeds pain like pus from an abscess,
Everything I’ve done,
Every failure on rerun,
Maybe eventually I’ll heal from all of this,
But I’m within the cages abyss,
Unable to fully be,
Until my cages set me free,

Chitter chatter
I’ve understood from a young age that I don’t have to think if I’m talking.
So when I don’t want to think I talk,
And when I’m thinking I’m silent,
I don’t think anyone has ever understood that.

Silence allows my brain converse with my heart,
My soul and logic tugging back and forth,
Constant
Chitter
Chatter.

When the chitter chatters too much I start talking,
The noise has to quiet enough for me to get words out.
They may sound like nonsense,
Even to my own ears,
But it makes the chitter stop chattering
And that’s enough for me.

I do not care if you don’t understand why I ramble on and on about nonsense.
Because it makes my mind quiet and my body at peace,
So I will not stop filling the air with my words
Until my vocabulary is empty
And my brain is happy.

I can’t date men now
You took
I am scared of them touching me
And took
Their anger terrifies me
And took
What if they don’t listen
And took
What if they don’t ask
And took
What if they haunt me
And took
As your hands do

When their lungs are still expanding
But your world is crashing
When their heart still beats
But you just feel defeat
When neither of you intended this
But your pain is an endless abyss
How do you thrive
When you are grieving someone who is alive

I am a liar
I lie everyday with the makeup I put on my face
With the prescription pills I take
I lie with the smile I keep in place
with my coping mechanisms that I use till I break
And with every turn
I feel my heart burn
Because all of this
Is a lie

Under different circumstances who I could have become
She would be
Carefree
Smart,
Confident
Friendly
Trusting
Loving
She wouldn’t think everyone is going to leave her
She wouldn’t see memories of the past in people’s actions
She would trust that people mean what they say
She could love
And be loved
But I am not her
I grew up hard and rough
I wasn’t able to be that carefree
I will never be smart and confident
I will always struggle to make and keep friends
I will always struggle to love
And I will never be able to be loved

I am not without my sins
But neither are you
We both have scars
We both have caused harm
But I admit that I have slashed
While you say that you slipped
I defend you in front of peers
As you drag my name through the mud
I kneel before you asking for a truce
And you spit in my face

I can't breathe
This darkness is consuming me
I can't breathe
I am drowning in my misery
I can't breathe
I am blind in this void
I can't breathe
I am being pulled under by something
I cannot avoid

I mourn the person that is lost
The young mind i will never be again
But I know she is best
Encased in the coffin of time
No longer exposed to the harsh light of reality
Forever happy
Kept in the memories of the past

I see you
I see you as the leaves in the trees
I see you in the dew on the breeze
I see you as the smell of coffee in the morning
As the bees that buzz when I’m gardening

I see you as only I can see you
You are there laughing with me in my late nights
You are there talking to me in the early morning
You are there when I am talking about my delights
You are there when I am mourning

You will never see me in the same light
You will never see me as the flowers in the spring
You will never see me as rainbow after a midday storm
You will never see me as all the joy I bring
You will never see me as the hot chocolate that keeps you warm

Because you will never see me as I see you
And I will never mean as much to you
As you do to me
And that’s how we will always be

I would stop hating myself if you asked
My body would stop being a crime if you kissed it
My thoughts kind thinking about your eyes
My heart not a burden if you filled it
My brain not toxic when filled with your memories
My skin healed if you touched it
My soul repaired with your love
Your voice is a melody
Your very presence is my remedy

Leaves fall all around
Collapsing to the ground
As the days pass
Shriveling in the grass
The weather gets colder
The weight gets heavier on my shoulders
My mind gets darker like the night
The snow is all that is in sight

Do you ever feel like all you are is the sum of everything that ever happened to you?
All that I am is
My mother’s anger multiplied
My father’s pain cubed
My sister’s sadness squared
My grandpa’s emptiness added to my grandma’s spite
My grandmother’s love has to have my grandfather’s hate subtracted.
My happiness is divided by everyone who has left.

I have not changed
The same memories haunt me
I have not escaped
The same monsters chase me

The words still play in my mind
The boat is sinking
They have never been kind
I am overthinking

I am not the captain of this boat
I cannot outrun these nightmares
The cries stuck in my throat
My eyes dry of tears

Recovery is brutal
Is trying futile?

Sharks have to move to breathe
Sometimes I feel as though I am the same
If I stop moving I will suffocate
Relaxation feels like a pillow smothering my face

If I stop running they will catch me
All the pain I’ve spilt
My shame
My guilt

All combined into a lurking monster
Chasing me through the forest
I want to pause
But I can feel the monsters claws

My lungs start to ache
The tears stream down my face
I cannot brake
I cannot lose this race

You would think having little pieces of them everywhere would be a comfort
A reminder that they never truly leave you
But instead of a comforting hand on your shoulder
It’s a cold haunting feeling of what you lost
Of who is gone
Because the comfort of ghosts
Is no comfort at all

The flow is knives

Chronic pain is an endless loop
Like Sisyphus and the stone
Pushing to be able to do regular tasks
And the pain as the boulder rolling back down over and over

Go with the flow they say
As if the flow isn’t knives
The water burning my skin
The fish eating my soul

Don’t focus on the pain
The pain is all I can think of as I lie on the floor waiting for it to pass
As I am unable to get up due to the agony
As I have to ask for help again and again

I do not like asking for help
I do not like doctors
I do not like hospitals
I do not like admitting defeat

But yoga is not going to fix the pain in my bones
Water is not going to fix the feeling that my skin is burning
Eating more veggies is not going to fix the exhaustion
Exercising is not going to fix the grief over who I used to be

People do not understand the amount of grief that accompanies chronic pain
Grief over who I was
Grief over who I will never become
Grief over what I am unable to do

The fight that you will inevitably lose
The feeling of just getting sick and never getting better

They say that the world is held together by the love and passion of very few people.
The people that keep the world from falling
That keep the world from breaking
That prevent the cracks from becoming chasms on the ground
That keep the earth going around

The children ask
Are these people doctors
Or lawyers
Who could possibly handle this task

No, children
You are mistaken
I say
For those are not the protectors of today

I whisper to the children
As they lean closer, unbidden
The very few people who keep the world working
Are the people who keep the world learning

They are the teachers
And professors
And mothers
And fathers

Those are who keep the world turning
The populations learning
They make the doctors into doctors
And the lawyers into lawyers

The world would stop turning
All the fires would stop burning
For if the teachers stopped teaching
The people would stop learning

There’s more than one way to die
Little pieces of me die every time a loved one leaves
Every time a friend betrays me
Every time a dream is crushed
Every time I am hurt
Every time someone dies
I may still be alive
But pieces of me rot away
Slowly each day

Tick tick
Life’s moving so fast
It’s making me motion sick
Tock tock
Why does my heart feel like a rock
Tick tick
I’m home
but homesick
Tock tock
Why can’t I turn back the clock

Me and you could never be us
If we had been different people, maybe
But I am still me and you are still you
But then again the attraction was between me and you not him and her
And I know it was my fault
That makes sense
There is no I in us, after all
But I still think about if you weren’t you and I wasn’t me.

I hate the phrase
“You are only given what you can handle”
It negates everyone who has drowned in their pain
Everyone who is told they will burn for who they are
Everyone who was traumatized as a child
Everyone who has lost people to their demons
Everyone who has burned bridges to protect others
Everyone who goes through hell to keep fighting
You may be “only given what you can handle”
But you shouldn’t have to handle that