Maybe nothing will ever work out.
Maybe you will end up being rich.
Maybe you will have 8 kids.
Maybe you will be the president.
Maybe you will grow a garden.
Maybe you will fall in love..
You will never find out if you end it.
Please keep going.
I need to convince myself to keep going too. We can make it.
Its really our decision.

I'm trying
I have called for help
I have kept going
Done everything they said to do
And none of its working
Its like I have a knife in my neck and people keep checking my legs to find the problem.
I don't know if that makes sense
I don't think I make sense.
Going to start taking meds again
It makes me more suicidal
But it makes my mom happy
Makes her feel like she is helping
Makes her feel like I am trying to be better
Mom I am trying
My head just hates me and I don't know how to make it stop
I've given up.

old town
same house
same road.
memory ghosts shimmer in the breeze
first kiss
feeding the ducks
scraping my knee
best friends house
I can feel the ghosts try to drag me back to those times
I miss it
when life was simple
when the only thing I had to worry about was how to add
when I could play outside for hours climbing trees and riding bikes
I used to think being old was fun.
Its most definitely not
I would give almost anything to go back for a day
to be worry free and just play
but that is actually impossible
so instead I will sit here typing papers and taking tests
because one day I will be a mother
and I want my kids to have fun
I want them to have memory ghosts haunt them
begging to come back
I know that is kind of backwards
but living in memories is how I make it through real life.

do you ever feel horribly misplaced..?
or unsettled..?
like you don’t belong here
but not “here” as in location..
but “here” as in breathing/living..?

I shouldn’t have been born tbh.
I used to wish I was dead.
but now I just wish I had never existed in the first place.

growing up my parents always
told me that I was a “surprise”
but as I grew up I learned that “surprise” actually meant “mistake”

they weren’t planning on another kid.

but my mom forgot to take her birth control one day and then oops..
I came 9 months later.

me and my brother are only 16 months apart.
my mom had four kids in five years by the time she was 25.

she was young
she was tired.
and I can’t help but think that maybe if she wasn’t so tired, from the three kids.. that she wouldn’t have left her birth control pill untaken that day.
and then maybe, just maybe..
I wouldn’t be mistaken as a surprise
when I was obviously a letdown.
I just wouldn’t exist at all.

My mind is exploding.
I have so much in my head.
This oxygen, I'm breathing, I'm surviving.
I'm killing time.
I'm killing my thoughts.
I need less.
I need less of me.
I need less ideas.
I'm fighting my head.
It's a literal war.
The sad thing is that
I don't think I'm winning.

No matter what you do it will never be enough.
No matter how much the alcoholic drinks or how much the workahlolic works or how much the anorexic starves or the bulimic purges or the athlete runs..
It will never
                 never
           never
     never
be enough to escape your mind.

This is the time of year when I decide to get my fat self into shape.
I am so sick of repeating this pattern over and over.
I just crave consistency

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.

Hey there
guess what
you are going to make it
keep moving forward
keep pushing through
if you were getting chased by a bear you wouldn't stop
even if you were tired
you would keep going
so even though I know its hard
even though it *****
even though it feels like everything is wrong
I know that it is going to  be okay eventually
it is okay to be sad
it is okay to feel lonely
it is okay to cry
but don't unpack and live there
there are so many lovely things in this world
I would hate for you to miss all of it
so take a second
look outside
take a few deep breaths
and just be grateful that we have what we have
even though life may **** sometimes
it is all going to be alright
keep fighting.

The girl in the pictures
Smiles in the hallways
Laughs with friends
Ya, I wish you could see
That she is not me.

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 hate living
I hate dying
I hate everything
I hate the door
And the floor
But just tonight
Tomorrow I will see the sun again
Tomorrow I will love things
But not tonight
And that's hard.

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.

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}

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?

Gray sky
Gray ocean
Gray sand
There is something peaceful about gray
When everything is the same
The crashing waves over your head
Pulling you under.
Getting lost in nothing
Fading into the shadows
Leaving pieces of gray behind
Honestly I dream of oblivion
But dreams are never real.

My head is an ocean of empty
Which makes it a trench
It used to be full of life
Now it's dirt
If you tried to jump in you would fall so hard
Your head would break open
So please don't fall
I already did
Falling ***** when you don't have the energy to grab onto something to save you.
I don't think I want to be saved
I'm okay with falling tonight
Cause its easier to swim in an ocean without water anyways.

I’m really sad

and I don’t know if it’s because
of the world?
or if it’s all the natural disasters?
or if it’s just my head?
or if it’s because of this pandemic?
or if my meds are off?
or if it’s because they keep canceling everything that keeps me motivated to stay alive?

I don’t know why I’m sad?
I know one day I am going to look back and miss this part of my life..

yet I can’t enjoy it in the moment.
so I live my life hating myself for being sad when I have so much to be happy about.

then I get more depressed because I know I’m going to be sad in five years when I remember that I didn’t fully enjoy all of the good things in my life,
because I was too busy hating myself for
being so sad.

I know I will look back and remember how my head was filled with dark storm clouds and the stupid forecast told me that those clouds are staying for awhile..

all this rain from the clouds
tears from my eyes
make it hard to see clearly.
I can’t get this bad weather to clear up.

I cry a lot.
I’m just sad.
I’m just really sad.

I remember things that most people don't.
I remember small flowers that I love.
I remember what songs I listen to with certain people.
I remember playing hide and seek with my cousins in a field.
I remember a compliment from a six year old.
I also remember turning down food over and over and over.
I remember stretching again and again.
I remember getting smaller and smaller.
I remember the night my dad told me that I was going to eat protein powder or two pieces of butter toast and I almost started
crying.
I remember my sister asking me if I starved myself and I said no.
I remember my music getting sadder
I remember closing off.
I remember trying to please people.
That's all I live for anymore..
I live for other people.

i can’t stop thinking about this//
so i was getting ready to do
a performance today,
and i overheard a mom
doing her 6-ish year old daughters
makeup/hair
the little girl told her mom:
“mommy this hurts i dont like it”

and the frustrated mom simply said:
“beauty is pain sweetheart you might as well learn it now”

and i can’t stop thinking about how some of the things kids learn about so young, is so sad.

yeah i don’t know,

i can’t stop thinking about how//

beauty is pain
but pain isn’t beautiful.

Chill out
Take your meds
Don't worry
Just be normal
Stop stressing out
Talk to someone
You're not okay
You need help
Stop crying
Wake up you're an adult now
Why don't you want help
I want to help you.
Dear people who keep telling me this I honestly am so tired right now. I am trying to please too many people.
But I guess that's all I live for anymore
I live for other people.
So nevermind keep talking
Keep going
Cause I need it.

It all makes perfect chaos
How the shadows light up my face
The moon hates me
It tells me to **** myself
Depression works for the moon
They have an unhealthy obsession with me
Depression holds me captive at night until the moon says to let me go cause the sun starts to glare in.
The sun used to save me
Bring back my smile
But the night never leaves anymore
I try to ignore it.
But its hard to ignore something that has consumed you.
I'm scared.
What I'm going to do to myself.

Ignore me.
Don't look.
I'm destroying myself.
Don't watch.
I know you love me.
Walk away.
You will help me most by walking away.
Please.
I already hurt myself.
I don't want to hurt you too.

Actually I crave criticism.
I thrive off of it.
Please tell me I am wrong or I am terrible.
Please tell me to **** myself.
Please tell me that I am a fat ***.
Please tell me that I ruin things.
Because then maybe
Just maybe
I wouldn't feel as insane.

I cant quite connect with some poems
Cause it's
Their words
Their head
I'm sure they understand it though
It's theirs.
My words
My phrases
Become me
They are in my head
But not everyone understands my head
Even I don't understand my own head
For some reason though when I write it down it makes perfect sense to me.
And I that's what I find beautiful about poetry

This is a race.
You, against yourself.
Winning is all that’s important.
Rip and tear yourself apart.
Beaten.
When you fall in this race, you're on your own.
No one is going to help you up.
Fast enough?
never
You think you know how far you can push it
then you fall.
You fall in a hole of gritty hard dirt.
That hole of dark and dreary, starts to feel like home.
You give up on ever getting out of this hole that you fell into.
Wondering if you will ever get out and continue this race.
You could try to climb.
But you know this hole well.
And you don’t want to come out.
You won’t come out.
Race, failed.
Winning isn’t even possible.
You can’t anymore..
You're done.

It's been a year since I was really bad
I was on the edge of falling
I cleaned up my act
I started taking meds
I ate more
I cried less
I slept
I became numb to everything
It felt like I was living in a dream
My brain was empty
I hated it
I got fat
I lost control
I started making excuses
So then I stopped taking the meds
It does crazy stuff to your head when you stop cold turkey
Suicide was all that was on my mind
But I decided that I would rather be honest with myself
and feel what I'm feeling
Instead of masking my mind everyday
My aunt avoided her mind
Stacked her body full of pills
She stopped eating
Now she weighs 85 lbs and her kids have to watch her
I don't want to be like that
I would rather be dead
This isn't really a poem
More of a rant
I just want to die
And I decided that
It's actually okay to feel like that.
I'm getting bad again.

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}

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}

Playing a song on repeat
The same thing
Over and over
You play on repeat
Nasty words
Hard punches
Over and over
I'm done I can't do this anymore
You're stuck on repeat

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.

They shove me full of pills because something is wrong with me. I am a broken carnival ride and the pills are supposed to be the mechanic. They are supposed to fix me. My head is going insane. You don't care. The difference between me and you is I am in my bathroom and you are ******* someone in bed. The difference between me and you is I want to die and you want to live. The difference between me and you is I am dismantling myself and you are trying to ride me. I'm broken. The mechanics are making it worse. But don't worry the insurance covers it. The insurance covers my head. Can I lay my head on a soft train track? Insurance would you cover that for me? 4 5 6 pills. How will I feel, can someone ride me yet? I am destroying myself.

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.

The minutes leak away
I just needed you to stay
I'm tired of sculpting gifts for you
Then you just shatter them on the ground
The pieces of me disrupt your path
I hope that you can flicker enough light to make it through the night
I would tell you to walk slow
Take your time
Be careful not to cut yourself
But you won't listen to me
So ignore my shards and run through the night to your other options
I'm so incomplete
Maybe that's why no one ever stays
I didn't want you to stay anyways
I have a room full of art that I'm too scared to share
Because it will end up scattered all over the floor without a care
You taught me that
Thanks for being a good teacher
Now I know that I'm not going to light anyone's way, I can't
You threw me away
I won't keep handing you my pieces
Plaster can't fix all of this
Flicker your way through life without me
It's better like that
I guess this is goodbye

I like simple things.
Walking
Breathing
Talking
I don't like simple things that turn into compex things.
Sprinting
Hyperventilating
Arguing
I have a hard time focusing on simplicity when it all changes into complexity without warning.

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.

Sleep is good.
You need it.
Teens should get at least 8 hours.
Sleep is kinda like a break,
You close your eyes and escape reality.
Unless reality follows you into your sleep.
That started to happen to me.
I would fall asleep and thats when the monsters in my head would come out.
I wake up crying.
Dreams no longer exist.
People say to sleep more,
That's difficult when every time you wake up you want to make yourself sleep
Forever

I grew up in a small town where normal was stupid and above average was normal. Girls wore their 8 extra curricular activities and 4.0 GPA draped around their necks with pride. Along with the boy who ****** them last night. But oh at church on Sunday they are still going to be virgins. Maybe I'm rambling. Maybe I have to rethink every word I say because, they helped destroy me. They helped me pick apart my body. Pick apart my brain. Maybe their designer clothes were okay. But the way they would shove others off their golden pedestals with a simple glance is what ****** me off. We weren't special like them. We didn't know the ins and outs. We didn't get the football players begging at our feet. We were gifted knifes in our backs that would leave traces of poison for years. Careful, word travels fast. We were expected to be like them.
I am so bitter.
But it's just because I grew up in a small town where normal was stupid and above average was normal.

We are the field of flowers. Society, the weeds.
They have an unhealthy obsession with the flowers.
Prickly vines, ripping open the silk petals.
The teardrops dripping to the filthy dirt, slowly sinking further.
Flowers have this dry chalky taste from being smothered by the ground.
The bitter sweet sound from being simply buried.
Weeds want to smell the absence of breath in the stems.
The Plastics ruling their high school kingdom.
Decorated vines. Vultures, waiting for an innocent death.
Kicking us when we are already down.
So done
More and more billboards killing little girls.
“Sometimes you are putting more into it than you could ever get back out.”
The silent thunder of hatred.
The fake love shown by the weeds.
The plastics shrinking everyone to the size of flowers,
So they can tear them from their roots and put them in their hair.
Quiet Girl hiding away, terrified of peoples opinions.
Eventually Quiet Girl will be worn as an accessory in the Plastics hair.
The dark lightning of reality.
“You are like the missing word in sentence, pointless.”
Hakuna Matata,
Doesn’t exist.
The flowers scream. The weeds are too strong.
Little girls ***** fingernails scrambling to dig up their busted petals.

I fall in bed at night
I can finally take off my socks
It's 98° outside
Branches going up my ankles
The shape of trees in winter
If my family saw
it would raise panic
I honestly don't care anymore
I don't care about anything
I want my body to be a canvas and a blade to be the paintbrush
Showing that I actually hate myself
You think you're okay until you see red
The moon picked up the knife
Slid it across my skin
Ink falling on the white tile
Words I could never say spilling out
This is not okay
But neither is dying
And this is better than dying
So this is my choice.
I am going to end up dead.

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.

People ask me when I grew up
I don't really know.
My brother said its when my sister left for college.
My sister says its when high school got really hard.
My mom said its when I set my priorities straight.
I don't know.
I don't think I have grown up yet, I think I just got quiet. I stopped talking. I just stopped kinda everything.
I stopped watching movies with my dad.
I stopped singing in the car with people.
I stopped telling people how I felt.
I started hiding.
I started writing poetry.
I started faking smiles.
I don't think I've grown up yet..
I just started stopping.

It eats at you with ravenous guilt
Knowing that you need to be rebuilt
They welcome you with betraying hands
Controlling you from taking a strand
listening to the closing door
Memories splashing on the floor
I try so hard to make the monsters run away
They just barged in and demanded to play
In this game of life
Please don't choose the knife
Keep fighting for what you need
Or all your going to do is bleed

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 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.

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.

I sit here looking at the sky
wondering if you are more like a sunset or a sunrise
this mark on my arm
looks more like a storm
black clouds covering the blue sky
your pale hands
strong
too strong
wrapped around my arm as you tossed me to the ground
I am just an object to you
one that changes colors
you seem to like the colors black and blue
my body is covered
stains left by you
I love you so much
I am sorry I had to escape
I still sit here staring at the sky
my hands are shaking
my head is chaos
you are a sunset
the sun dies but it is so beautiful
until the sky turns to dark
you turn dark
just like the sky
I hate you so much.

If I ever commit suicide I think that as I die there will be a flash of pictures of what my future could have been.
That's one of the only things keeping me here.
The hope that things will get better.

I hope that one day I will actually be able to do things right.
I hope that one day I don't have to hide my head.
I hope that one day I will be skinny enough for ballet.
I hope that one day I can look in the mirror and smile.
I hope that one day I graduate college and move to a cute town.
I hope that one day I fall in love.

I am running out of hope
It's drizzling out my eyes and falling on the floor at my toes
I can't pick it up and put it back in my system.
I am running out of options.
I want to succeed but my life doesn't seem to work like that
I am so exhausted.