I don't think I'm okay with you filling in the space between my fingers.
It scares me that I could ruin such a beautiful thing with one sentence.
I don't like things that begin
Because they always have to have an end.
What goes up must come down
I hate the coming down part.
So let's not begin
Let's never start so that we
Never
Have
To stop.

I am trying to turn over a new leaf
I am going to smile more on the inside
I am going to try and think positive
I am going to make goals
I am going to reach them
I will become a better person
I want to help others
I want to help myself
I have hope that I can do it
I don't have to be perfect but
I have to keep trying.
Just like the Marathon runner doesn't give up when he is tired
I am going to be strong
Be better
I know I will have falls
But if I just stand up and keep sprinting
I know I can make it
We all can.

When I was five my mom taught me how to count to ten.
I liked the number ten
I thought that I could rule the world cause I knew how to count to ten.
I could play hide and seek now
I could make a hopscotch
I could be like my older sister
The number ten made me so happy.
When I was six I went to kindergarten
Counting to ten was baby stuff
But I still liked ten
My kindergarten teacher taught me that counting to ten ten times makes one hundred.
I cried to my mom when I got home
It seemed too complicated
So I kept counting to ten
Life was easier when only numbers one through ten existed.
When I was twelve there was a group of mean girls
Ten of them
I didn't like the number ten
that much anymore.
Cause according to them it was
How much weight I needed to lose (10lbs)
How many of my friends hate me (10)
How high I would score on a test (10%)
I could always hear them coming
all their ten steps in sync
Walking in a V
They were a flock of birds
Getting ready to attack a poor penguin who couldn't fly like them.
When I was sixteen all of the mean girls went to a different school.
I didn't have to be with the ten anymore.
I had to be with myself
I lost 10 lbs
Plus extra
I have no friends now, turns out the ten friends I had really didn't like me.
When I was sixteen boys would line up one through ten
One and two would make me cry
I told three and four that they were a waste of time, they would just hurt me
I gave five a chance
He broke me
The other five didn't get to know me
Even though they tried
They could never really know me
The me who liked only the numbers one through ten.
The me who cries at night remembering the monsters
The me who hates myself
I fake it so well
I put up a wall
Ten bricks up
Ten bricks across
My second grade teacher would have asked me how many bricks I used
But it doesn't really matter anymore
Cause behind that wall I'm self destructing
I wish I only had to count 1-10

I tried
I tried to hold it in
I tried not to interrupt
I wish I was nothing
Why can't I be a shadow
Getting lost behind movement
Fading into the background
I tried to hide the monster inside of me
It just promised to come out
The shadows ripped it out with their teeth
My teacher thought I was being dramatic maybe she would get it if she was locked in my mind for a day.
It has ups and downs
Why is anything there
I wish that I could disappear into nothing
No future
No past
It sounds sad
But relaxing
I know this is a jumbled mess
This is post anxiety attack
Sorry I'm trying to calm down
To talk reasonably with myself
I can't
All it comes back to is how I break everything.
Well I guess this poem doesn't have an end.
It wasn't really a poem anyways.

It hurts to pretend all the time
It hurts to fake life
It hurts to find what's hidden under your skin
It hurts to look in the mirror
It hurts to stand on the wrong number
It hurts hating yourself.
It hurts when you don't live for yourself anymore
I don't know why I am alive
I ruin everything
I ruin people
I break things
I don't know what I'm saying
I don't know why I am typing
I don't know anything anymore
Including myself

it sweeps across you with a loathsome eloquence,
Weaseling it's way into you,
Grasping for your hopes and dreams.
Soon you find yourself upside down
Choking on what you once were.
The feeling is inevitable.
You're desperately seeking for your effervescent personality.
Its been drained from you, seeping out into a puddle at your toes.
You're left standing there as an outline.
There is nothing inside of you anymore, just empty space.
No matter how hard you try to fill yourself in, you will never be how you were before.
Don't bother trying to retrace the lines

Art
Art is a way for people to express themselves.
Art is taking what is in your head and making it real.
I could watch someone draw or paint for hours.
Watching them carefully trace all of the shadows in their minds
There is something about art that grabs my eyes and makes them stay
The musicians create music to compose a fraction of what is in their head
Dancers use the music like a canvas and their bodies as the paintbrush
Art is getting lost
Its becoming something to brag about.
Art is not caring who sees or hears it
Because you need it more than anything else.
But by default you have an effect on other peoples lives.

Don't be afraid to say no.
No is a powerful word.
A simple "no" can change lives.
Do you want your life to be changed?
Well it's easy
Don't be afraid to say no.

I wish I was six.
I could build a castle and be the most beautiful princess when I was six.
All I needed to fall asleep was my door cracked open and my momma's voice.
The cloud of kool aid dust made me happier than a lot of things, especially if I got to pour it.
When I was six I was amazing
When I was six I fought dragons and won.
Now that I am older I realize I'm not a princess and I can't quite remember how I built that castle.
Now I can't sleep with my door cracked open. I haven't been able to sleep much at all anymore.
Kool Aid has more sugar than water. It just makes me sad now.
I'm weak
The dragons fight me
And I keep trying to fight back
But I just don't win anymore.

Bullying *****
It messes people up
I still remember the words that they would stab into my back.
I remember watching the flock of perfect swans weaving through the crowd praying that they wouldn't see me.
People can be brutal.
But people grow up and we learn how to deal with the daggers.
We learn how to deal with the rumors that infect our heads leaving traces of poison for years.
I also learned that believing them was easier.
Believing that I was the problem.
That I was nothing.
They were right
I was dumb.
I knew it was wrong, I know it is wrong.
I let myself get bullied
because I deserved it.
I went to school knowing that the bullying was going to happen, knowing I was going to lose.
I remember thinking
"Just bully me
I need it, I am not worth anything"
When I switched schools the bullying stopped.
Without being bullied, without being judged, without anxiety
I just wasn't me anymore.
I was still dumb, I was still the problem, I still needed to have something hurt me.
Since no one would do it for me, I guess I just started to do it to myself.
But what is scary about being your own bully, is that you can't run.
You can't escape your own head
And when you say
"Just bully me"
To yourself
You listen and its hard to stop

I feel better
I feel like an altered dress
Fixed so that I can fit onto this life
But this life has nothing left
Nothing is right
No pink in my cheeks
Or green in my eyes
Water color paint brushes
Slowly filling with more plain
I try to paint a picture
Its hard without color
I try but eventually
I give up
When you bleed clear
When your world turns black and white
Its hard to get life back to the way it was.
I guess I'm just colorblind now
Careful you could become colorblind too.

The tears broke off my face
as the floor pulled me closer
my spine sliding down the wall.
The same room.
The same smell.
The same feeling.
It doesn't leave me alone anymore
It follows me
Its becoming me.
I am becoming it.
What is it?
I don't know.
That's the scariest part.

You tasted it for two seconds
Now its gone
Do you even remember it
Do you even want to change
Was that worth it
Was that food worth the sacrifice
I hope it was
Because honestly you are so stupid..
I hope you learn
I hope you learn to fail better
To fall farther
When you ask yourself,
have you reached your goal?
You are always going to be stuck saying
              Not Yet.

Its hard when you remember
When you get the feeling back
The anxiety
The scale
The lower number
Its hard because you remember
how bad you wanted it.
How bad you still want it.
How bad you still need it.
Remembering how simple it really is
Once you get past your mind
Everything gets easier.

{SM}

Mirrors
Shattering myself into pieces
Sharp edges pointing out all the flaws
I stare at the glassy eyes
I don't know if they are mine
The reflections rip me open
making all of the imperfections
seep through the paper skin
Outlining me in red
Tracing what to fix
Tears bleed through my surface
Stinging my insides
I want this to end
The mirror is killing me.
What's in the mirror is killing me
So I guess I'm killing myself.

{SM}

Health class
We have a strange assignment
I have to write my own obituary
When I want to die
How I'm going to die
Its cruel
I can't answer it truthfully
Because if I did
It would raise panic
So I guess I will have to lie
This isn't the first time

In the pitch black night I lay awake
Staring at this stupid
Screen typing
Another
Stupid
Poem
To
Be
Forgotten

Dancers can't have eating disorders.
We are meant to be thin.
We are made this way
We are made to hide food
to starve
to throw it up
As long as no one sees us
As long as we can fake it
Cause as dancers
We have to fake it till we make it
And we aren't going to make
it if we are as fat as pigs.
People don't like watching hogs dance.
Don't worry the mirrors will tell us if we are the size of a stick or a stump.
So no I don't have an eating disorder
Dancers can't have those.
We are created this way.

{SM}

Back when I was a real girl I bounced
in the hallways licking my popsicle.
Back when I was a real girl
I smiled from the inside out.
Back before toothbrushes
became my best friend.
Back when food was normal.
When I could close my eyes without
seeing monsters and nightmares.
When I liked myself.
Before any of the mean girls
decided that I was going to be the
rock in their pile of diamonds.
When music was
meant to make you happy.
Before the world messed me up.
When I was a real girl
I never thought about death.
When I was a real girl my
mind never went this deep.
Now I smile just from the outside.
Real girls don't have to sleep
with their eyes half open.
But I do
Because I'm not a real girl anymore.
I changed a long time ago and there is no way back now.

{SM}

Sleepless nights
I get consumed in my thoughts
I get tired
I sit here listening to music trying to distract myself from myself.
Notes leaking into my ears just whisking up my already mixed up mind.
It doesn't work
It makes it worse
The shadows of the night eat at my mind until I have shadows where my brain used to be.
I feel numb
Except kind of a deeper feeling than numb
It's undescribable
It's a feeling of terror
Its a feeling of failure
Its a feeling of loneliness
Its a feeling of being so done with everything inside of yourself.
I guess it's not numb
Its careless
It hurts
And when you want it all to be over that's when it gets the worst.
I am so sorry if you have ever felt like this
No one deserves to feel like this
Except me.

{SM}

Sometimes I get lost
I get lost in my head
In my mind
In my brain
Sometimes I can't find my way out
I can't find common sense
I can't find sanity
Sometimes
I get lost
I can't find my way out
I can't stand up
I can't walk
I can't keep looking
But I have to keep trying
I can't give up
Yet
I need to find myself
I think I have gone beyond myself
But I'm going to keep trying
To
   Find
       My
          Way
Back out.

Pink ballet tights don't hide cuts.
Leotards black as smoke don't conceal all the regrets I have swallowed.
My perfect bunhead doesn't pull together all the loose ends of my mind.
I'm sorry mom that somewhere between your migraines and stress your daughter ran into the bathroom.
I'm sorry Dad that you try so hard and you always end up with ***** ups.
I was supposed to be the perfect one.
I have tried to be perfect for so long.
I gave up when I learned that society feeds us chocolate covered concrete.
I gave up when the sun went down and the moon never came up.
I gave up when the mirror started to grab my eyes and made me stare.
I gave up when I couldnt give up.
Now I'm just trying to appear perfect.
I'm faking everyone out
I'm so fun to talk to
I'm such a happy girl
Mom I will do ballet and help you clean
Daddy I will run so you can be proud
You deserve to be proud of something
I'm just sorry that it has to be fake.
I don't know how long this will go on
Just try to enjoy the show while it lasts.

You left today
I heard it from a friend
You're not coming back.
I'm happy for you
You won't have to be in this prison
Stuck in a box of thoughts
I wonder what life is like for you now.
What are you going to do
without me
without us.
I hope you don't think about me
Please don't.
Just think of me as an old friend
We used to talk
We used to be close
We used to share secrets that no one else would ever understand.
Sit in a empty car for hours and fill it with our deepest fears and dreams until they would seep out the windows.
Its okay that you left without saying bye
You didn't want to risk me pulling you back in.
I don't either.
So thank you
Because of you I know for a
fact that I'm the problem.
I'm contagious.
Don't catch me.

Sticks
Bones
Lines
Length
You.
want.
this.
Is it worth
Starving
Injuries
Sickness
Cuts
Abuse
y e s.

Isnt it weird to think that we will never live this exact moment ever again
Slowly we age and all we have left are memories of what these moments felt like.
Pictures
Songs
Letters
They bring back more than memories they bring back feelings.
Which is good and bad depending on the memory.

"You're better now right?"
"Yes."
That is the biggest lie
You can't just get better from suicide.
You can't just get better from depression.
It always sits there haunting you.
Waiting for you to fail
Again
And
again
And
Again

Whats hard about life is that you don't get a time out or a chance to catch your breath.
You have to keep playing.
Life isn't like a game.

I was looking at this piece of broken glass and I started laughing
Because me and that piece of glass have a lot in common.
I used to be
S H I N Y
Now I'm
d u l l.
I used to be apart of something
Now I'm just pieces.
I used to make up maybe
A window  A door  Art  Stained glass.
Now instead I'm just broken pieces.
People used to be able to look through me and enjoy the view on the other side.
Now people only see the dust and lies and filth and brokenness of me.
I'm trying to piece
m y s e l f    back together.
But I know that it's too late.

I'm so excited for the outcome.
But getting there is going to be torture.

I found some jeans in my closet
They are from last year
I got really excited
I decided to try them on
They didn't fit over my thighs
It really made me cry
I know I have gained weight
These jeans are just another reason why
I am going to give starving another try.
I will fit into those jeans
Even if I die trying.
They hang in my closet with a smile
Just mocking me as I stuff my face with food. They are killing me. I'm killing me. Food is not worth it.

If you feel hungry
Drink water.
Drink as much water as you can.
Still hungry?
Go take a shower.
Take four showers for all I care.
Still hungry?
Draw a picture.
Paint your toenails.
Do anything except eat.
Someone just offered you food.
What are you going to do?
Are you going to eat it?
Are you going to waste your whole day?
Eating doesn't help anything.
You aren't even hungry.
You are the problem.
Why would you make yourself fatter?
Why feed the problem?
Stop.
Put it down.
Say no.

This is what I go through every single day.
I am getting so tired.
It *****.

I feel like I keep waking up in a nightmare of my mind.
I'm so trapped.
I can't escape the fact that I have to
wake up again.
               And again.
                     And again.
When will I learn that I'm the nightmare.
I'm never going to wake up from this one cause I created it.
The only way to wake up is to destroy it,
Destroy myself.
I need to wake up.

I grew up learning that
*** before marriage was bad
Being mean to others is bad
Smile to make other people smile
Get good grades
Make your family proud.
I was never specifically taught that
Suicide is bad
Starving is bad
Making yourself throw up is bad
Hurting yourself is bad
Faking is not okay
I was never taught that hurting yourself is not acceptable.
Maybe its because kids don't usually hurt themselves on purpose.
I was always told to be nice to others.
To be grateful for what you have.
I was never nice to myself,
I deserve much worse.
So ya I hate myself, I am just really good at faking.
Its easy when you've been doing it for as long as you remember.

The only way that I will ever end up getting help is if it gets so bad that someone notices.
I will always deny it.
I am functioning and healthy.
No one can physically see that I want to **** myself.
It's all in my head.

I don't know why growing up is so hard for me.
Maybe it's because things are already so painfully real to me..
people say that after highschool life gets real.
I don't know if I will be able to handle life if it gets more real.
Everyone who grows up changes.
I want to change, I hate who I am.
But I think that I will change for the worse.
I think that's why growing up is so scary for me.
I don't want to keep changing this way.

I don't know why I took metal to my skin
I don't know why I stopped eating
I don't know why I expect so much of myself.
All I know is that it's me.
I'm the issue
Blood used to scare me and now I crave it.
I don't understand what I did to myself.
I don't get why I changed so much
I scare myself.
I wish I was different
But I found out that wishing for the impossible just makes you start to blame other things.
If you want to get anywhere, sometimes you have to blame yourself.

Maybe beyond today
There is something waiting
There is a clock ticking
Waiting.
Its waiting for you to do something
Waiting for you to kick a gear on this clock
Waiting for you to go to tomorrow
Okay so don't give up
The clock is waiting
Do something
Stop taking advantage of the clock
Soon it will break down

There was a girl
She was beautiful
Everyone loved her
She wore a smile, whiter than snow
She talked in the halls
She laughed in the locker room
She flirted with the jocks
Even though on the outside she looked beautiful and happy, she wasn't.
Her clothes got bigger
Her friends became mean
Her smile got faker
Her parents thought she was fine
She wasn't
No one knew it but she was plotting her own self destruction
She locked herself in her room
Put a chair against the doorknob and started swallowing.
Swallowing demons friends life
She never came out of the room.
The ambulance took the body
But they left the girl
She couldn't leave.
But maybe she was already gone.

I never thought I would be the girl who sits all alone in her car at lunch.
I never thought I would be the girl who lies about things deeper than highschool.
I never thought I would be the girl who wants to leave this world.
Permanently.
I never wanted to be that girl.
But here I am.
I'm that girl.
Maybe it was my choice..
Maybe I chose this.
I really don't know
But it happened and life does that sometimes.
It just seems to happen in the worst ways and we are just expected to deal.
Well thats life I guess.

Pictures are just moments
Moments bring back memories
Memories bring back feelings
Feelings bring back people
People are this life.
So next time you look at a picture try to look for the layers.
Cause they are there.
You just have to look.

I had a dream
I was in an empty room
Staring at a girl
I started to think about this girls  l i f e.
I started to wonder if she was  h a p p y.
I started to ask myself why she was
there.
In this pointless room.
Doing so much of  
e v e r y t h i n g  
but practically
n o t h i n g.
I don't know how to explain it.
I knew most the answers because I'm the girl standing in the pointless room.
But I wonder why I didn't know all the answers.
I'm that girl.
I should know.
But I don't.

I'm overwhelmed
With the sky and the trees and my house and my family.
But on top of all that I'm overwhelmed inside myself.
I don't know if you can grasp that.
Its similar to having a blender going on in your head all the time.
I can't think straight.
I can't eat.
I can't sleep.
My mom thinks I'm sick.
I'm actually just overwhelmed.

I can't please you.
No matter what I say you are going to be mad at me.
You are going to be mad at everything.
I know I'm not good enough for you.
I know that I don't say that right things.
I know you get sick of me.
I am sick of myself.
Throw me away then.
Why are you trying.
Why don't you give up.
I want you to give up.
Can't you see that?
I don't want you to care.
Okay?
You can't make me do anything.
It's my choice.
Everything is.

Drowning.
I am drowning
I am drowning in my thoughts
I am drowning in my body
I am drowning in school
I am drowning in stress
I am drowning in darkness
I want to drown
but not in these ways.
I want to drown in water.
I want to inhale the liquid
And exhale nothing.
I want to drown.

I think love is made up.
I think that people pretend to love each other until eventually they believe they do.
So technically you can choose who to love.
As long as they are willing to try and love you back.
But I have never been in love.
So I guess I wouldn't know.

Numbers
Numbers matter so much to people.
Math.
A scale.
Competition.
Money.
Time.
Numbers aren't even objects.
You can't hold a number.
We rank people, low class, middle class, high class, all by numbers.
Girls rank themselves by numbers
"She weighs 10 lbs less than me"
In competition the lower number the better, we all want first place.
When in the end its only a number.
Why why why
do we care
so much?

The night is beautiful.
You know when you look at someone and you see the dark beauty inside them,
You don't see the
Gloomy
Dark
Sad
Depressed.
You see the sparks of light througout their darkness.
Just
    Like
        Stars.

Tonight something in my brain clicked.
I am affecting others lives.
Alot.
So instead of looking sad.
Instead of sitting alone in my room.
Instead of being addicted to myself..
I need to fake happy better.
I need to fake everything more.
I do enough damage to myself.
I don't want to do that to someone else.
A gear in my head..
Just clicked.
Now I know..
I need to forget myself.

There is a little girl in a flowery sundress who is giggling and skipping through a field.
The little girl decided to make a flower crown.
She picked each flower carefully, and she examined each silk petal.
Her eyes squinting with excitement as she wove the stems together.
When she was finished she looked at the crown for a long time.
She decided that it wasn't very good.
She hated it.
She dug a hole and put the very special wilted flowers back where she found them.
She dug and dug and patted with her little fingers until the dirt was stuck in her nails.
She tried to make the little plants stand up straight again.
She couldnt.
She kept digging until she could fit in the hole quite nicely.
She reburied herself, scooting the soft dirt onto herself as she stood in the hole slowly inhaling the gritty powder.
Once she was completely buried she struggled to push her hand out of the ground.
She barely held the beautifully weak flowers just above the dirt.
The flowers needed to be beautiful again. Sacrificing herself was the only way that she could think of to make them feel normal one last time.
She was running out of air.
One breath in.
Her hand wavered as she gripped harshly onto the green stems.
One breath out.
The delicate flowers and small dirt stained fingernails slowly relaxed and layed down in the dirt to rest.
No breath in.

I deserve to be buried in the ground.
A part of me wants to be gone.
A piece of me needs to stay.
I hate me.
I can't fix anything ive done.
I've messed up my life so bad.
Maybe I changed too much.
I need to go back.
But I can't.
I need to work a hundred times harder to get the future I used to want.
I need to be okay.
I'm not okay.
I want to hurt myself.
I need to die.
I don't want to do this anymore.
Its okay.
I'm getting over it.
Breathe.