Ribs,
Protruding proof
Of a girl in pain
With a need for control.
Ribs,
A mark of willpower
Or is it weakness
A false sense of control
A puppet governed
By insecurity.
The monster inside,
Taunting.
Empty stomach
Is it applauding your strength,
Or growling at your cruelty?

The only constant in life id impermanence.
As hard as it is to accept,
We will all have our day.
Rocks will weather.
Our bodies will decay.
My only goal in this life
Is to become, to be.
It's not something tangible,
Nor is it a title.
It's just being.
Being one with life.
Sitting with a delicate flower,
Whose petals are so fragile and vibrant,
Knowing one day it will darken and wilt
And with tears in my eyes
That I know soon will dry
I will become aware.
I will be.

These words are an expansion of myself.
With every letter my pen forms on paper,
My heart joins it.
A written contract,
Formally bonded
When the ink sets.
I write not for the recognition,
But for the sake of my sanity.
For without this action
The emotions flowing through me
Would have no place to go.
Backing up until they could no longer course through me.
Stopping still.
They must move
Or else they'll solidify.
Turning me into stone.
A statue whose visage
Does not smile nor frown
For there is no sculptor
To define it's countenance.
It simply goes with the fate
It was handed-
A girl lacking the emotions
Only her pen can form.

Dark days,
Late nights.
Staying up 'til three,
If only I could remain asleep
To avoid the lonely hours
That consciousness brings.
You gave me an idea for the future,
If you could even call it that.
I'd be a lady of the night,
As they have coined the term
Because they are too conservative to say *****,
As if the word would burn their self-righteous lips.
So I give my body to men
Night after restless night
Because you taught me that that was all I was good for.
A broken toy you used
Simply because it was available
Leaving me feeling worthless and destroyed.

The longer you've been gone the more I forget what your face looked like, I thought it'd be etched into my vision forever.
I've almost forgotten what your voice sounded like,
how your lips curved around my name.
I almost feel guilty for forgetting,
as if it means that I never cared enough.
Almost like the guilt I have for having felt too self important to reply to your messages,
as if you being so far away was an excuse for emotional distance,
almost like the distance of our physical bodies paralleled with the distance I wanted to keep from you with vulnerability.
Maybe that's why when you first talked about suicide,
I didn't try hard enough to keep you safe.
I didn't want to be so close to someone that I be the thing that keeps them alive.
But I still tried,
tried to make sure you were okay.
That was when you promised me that you would never hurt yourself, that you were just stressed.
Who knew that five months later you'd be dead by your own hand.
I wonder what your thoughts were as you slid the blade along your wrist. He says it was an accident.
That you were just trying to relieve a little bit of pain.
But I imagine you sitting there,
with this thing that's almost as sharp as the pain you felt,
and I know,
I know that the extra pressure you used was intentional.
I know you.
I know the pain you felt.
I was there.
And sometimes I feel guilt for being the survivor.
As if one of us had to die.
I think sometimes about what it would be like to take your place,
to be nothing.
But as I sit here and ponder what could have been,
I know that I'm glad to be the one alive.
Because if the roles were switched,
you might have to feel the pain I feel now,
and this gut wrenching sting that's arising in my stomach.
Maybe if the roles were switched,
neither of us would have made it.
Because maybe you wouldn't have gotten the help that I have now.
And while it hurts that you're gone,
I know that you'd be proud of me now.
Because now I am alive,
like I never was before.
I'm just sorry it took your death to bring me into hell
so I could climb back up to life again.

I used to think my heart beat just for you but now I'm starting to realize it's just pumping my blood keeping me stuck in this disease we all call living.

To feel the rise and fall of your chest
And to hear your soft heart beat
Leaves me impressed.