sometimes disappearing sounds appealing.
others I need to be included

I throw you away
and then pick you back up

i had forgotten your laugh.
i had forgotten your smile.
i had forgotten your eyes.
i had forgotten the way you whispered on the phone.
i had forgotten the way you hated your thigh.
i had forgotten Sam and Alex.
i had forgotten how you giggled when i cried.
i had forgotten why you giggled when i cried.
i had forgotten the nights i didn't like myself.
i had forgotten your favorite color.
i had forgotten how big your ambitions were.
i had forgotten it all.
but i will never forget the color of your hair.

he doesn't like me for me.

he doesn't like me for my poetry.
he doesn't like me for my thoughts.
he doesn't like me for how i look.
he doesn't like me for how i act.
he doesn't like me for how i am.

he looks at me and sees not a person.

he looks at me and sees not a girl.
he looks at me and sees not a poet.
he looks at me and sees not a smart girl.

he sees a wasteland.

he sees a girl without love.
he sees broken skin and flaws.

he loves ruins.
he loves fixing people.

you can't fix everyone.
you can't fix a heart that has so many bandages on it that you can't tell what's latex and what's muscle.
you can't fix me unless i break even more.

do you want me to break more?
you love seeing me break.
that's kind of sad.
pathetic.
you love when i hate myself.
and i hate myself so you won't go away.

he claims to just be blatantly honest.
but he calls me lovely.
and compliments me.
and listens wholly.
and has extreme dysmorphia towards my weight.
and reads my poetry.
and compliments it.
and treats me as if I possess some sort of innate value.
and makes me feel secure.
---
was he lying about being honest?
or am I lying to myself about my value?

lose two grandmothers
begin panicking about death
eat to avoid panicking
get bullied every day
wear larger clothes than your mother
suffer from extreme dysmorphia
begin self harming
keep self harming
try to stop
keep going
begin cycling consumption
fail
write about how food is the only thing that hasn't left
get told by your mother to go to church
go to church
begin to get better
get worse
reject common beliefs of your church
become a red-letter Christian
fall in love
fall hard
move schools
pass mirrors
don't cry anymore
start dieting
not starving
dieting
lose seven pounds
realize weight doesn't define you
weight doesn't define you.

colour and crashes
big eyes and lashes
this is you in mourning.

white latex gloves
white flying doves
this is you today.

careful breathes
careless lefts
this is you without.

bright flowy skirt
a smile that can flirt
this is you with him.

big perfect grin
crying over him
this is you at your finest.

smoke in the air
thick curly hair
this is you and me.

step one: find someone with the correct qualifications. make sure he has taken the correct courses and has credentials.
step two: if your lawyer has a double major in medicine, run away.
step three: he is a person, not a house. do not treat him as such. don’t begin to use his bones as beams and his heart as a generator.
step four: you are a person, and just because you have legal issues doesn’t take away from that statement. you are a person, not a project. make sure your lawyer realizes this too.
step five: if he tries to fix you, run away. go back to step one and pay extra attention to step two.
step six: doctors are bad news. stay away from them at all costs, even if they are a good lawyer too.
step seven: don’t try to fix him either, even if he needs the help. he needs the help, but he’ll never actually accept it.
step eight: he’s just a boy. not an angel, not a superhero, not a saviour, not a lawyer, not a doctor, not a repairman.
step nine: he is not a song. don’t make him a song. he is not a song. don’t compare him to “broken crown” by mumford and sons or “ice” by lights.
step ten: if you need legal advice, a professional works but ultimately a convicted girl is the best advice.
step eleven: whatever you do, don’t hurt him because you’re afraid of being hurt.
step twelve: don’t give him your sharps. save yourself. you don’t need him.
step thirteen: don’t **** yourself because he doesn’t care.
step fourteen: he cares.

you remind me of myself.
you make me remember how I was as a little naive girl.
I trusted all those who would listen.
I gave my heart away and never got any of it back.
and now I watch you.
you're on a strict no-food diet.
you say it makes you feel powerful, not eating.
but I know it makes you feel extra alone.
you drink coffee black because only important people get sugar and creamer.
you run every Wednesday, you say it helps you remember your marathon-running mom.
I know it helps you forget what he did.
I didn't go through what you did, but I know your lies.
I know, as I lied too.

normal girls call you up at midnight needing *** but i, i just need you.
i don't need ***.
that is beyond me.
i am too fat, too ugly, too unmarried for ***.
and you have a purity ring etched in your heart.
i just need you.

nearly 2 years later,
i am gracious that you were my first love.
if i hadn't have fallen so hard,
everything would be different.
so thank you.
thank you for ******* me up.

you're like a prince
because you always
save me from my
demons. I have
so many demons
and they haunt me
at night and when
I let my guard
down. but I only
let my guard down
around you. some
how you save me
from yourself

this is me saying
that i don't care how i am
treated, i love you.

falling in love with you was like making tea on a hot summer day; useless but kinda okay because tea makes everything better.

you were like a massive piece of cake that was drizzled with arsenic because once someone could peel away the poisonous parts you were pretty **** tasty.

you didn't understand my disorders and I helped you with yours, and that's the worst.

**** Emma. really, **** Emma because she's the one who got you addicted.

you're a *** addict and a drug addict and I do not want you and I do not need you and I do not love you.

but I miss you.

you make me feel like,
with you,
I am important

i will walk
away
and watch you crash
and burn.
you are nothing with out me.

I have this really bad habit of not getting angry.
I don't allow myself to.
I shut down all human emotions.
Like when a friend treats me like a backup plan, a just-in-case friend,
I just shut down.
I begin yelling at myself in the mirror, imagining that it's my friend I'm looking at and not me and really if they were here there'd be no problem,
but before I get done with the first sentence,
I stop.
Breathe.
Feel nothing again.
Maybe it's because I think so little of myself.
Even expressing negative reactions toward a friend makes me less of a person and a super ****** friend.
Maybe, I've always lined up with my friend's favorite person in believing
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
Because if they try,
I get back at them by not feeling at all.

if I was skinny,
could I please hold your hand?

my scars are faded.
I hate it.
I wish my scars could be permanent.
tattooed on my skin.
if my scars held more weight,
if they didn't fade after three hours,
I'd be satisfied.
nothing stays, ever.
everything leaves.

and when you consider leaving too,
just remember that
I would never
leave your health in the hands of a broken failure with a blade.

i have no idea what to do.
i am so lost.
last time i was in this situation,
i pulled away and realized how little she cared.
i do not want to realize the same about you.
but i can't make it work for both of us.
-
i told him.
i know that i said i wouldn't.
i had to get his advice.
he said to break it off and pull away.
he said you'd snap back.
but i can't believe him for a second.
-
im sorry.
i am torn between hoping you see this
and hoping you never do.
this has to be done and i hate this so much.
im sorry.
but i know i will be sorry.
-
when she started giving me resistance,
when i was clearly more in it that she was,
i pulled away.
i tried getting close to her again and she was stuck.
i had changed so much.
but the part of me that loved her stayed the same.
-
this isn't you and her fighting each other.
it's you and me.

just in case you forget how to breathe, I would pump my oxygen into your lungs.

just in case you forget how to love yourself, I would kiss every bruised inch of skin on your body.

just in case you forget how to eat, I would spoon feed you myself.

just in case you forget how to live, I would give up my life for you.

when asked what i got for christmas,
couldn't say you.

I am not so much mad.
it was my fault.
what was I to expect?
I'm not good enough.

I am not so much upset.
you still love her
oh god
love me instead.

I will not waste tears,
only ink.

a small girl sits alone in a crowded room.
she watches groups of people have fun
and laugh
and forget about her.
she replays the thought that has haunted her for a while.
**** yourself, you're rather worthless.
she feels worthless.
she has a list of people she could talk to, but none of them are helping her.
she doesn't wanna ask for help, that makes her feel small and needy.
so she waits.
the girl is so busy looking for suicide that she never looks at the people who want to help her.
if she truly looked around, she'd see that suicide would not just hurt her.
but she's too busy looking for suicide to look for reasons to live.

he doesn't add up.
he's like a nice problem with a twist.
like √-25.
it's perfect.
just too negative.
sadly, someone already tried to figure him out.
to add him up.
so they took imagination out and made him perfect.
and although at this part in my academic career I can properly reduce √-25,
i'd much rather leave you imperfect.

you told me i was a creative light in a colourless world.
you told me i was resilient.
you told me i was beautiful.

and now, even though it's been hard,
i believe you.

i love the you no one gets to see.
don't get me wrong, you're beautiful all the time.
but i love seeing your shield shatter.

I don't know if I am the writer
or the character.

I don't know who has control.

Am I the mun?
The writer?
The one who makes decisions?

Or am I the muse?
The character?
The puppet?

If I am the muse,
what mun would **** up
a character this bad?

he is the sun in
a world covered in darkness

its getting harder
to even breathe
without you.
without air.

i love you*
it took a year to realize that

dear ---
I am not pretty.
I am not smart.
I am not worth it.
I am not poetic.
I am not perfect.
I am not good enough.
******* for making me feel like I was.

you never read my poems.

did you even know I wrote poems?

you knew I wrote short stories.
you wrote with me.

but poetry?
my very soul?
the thing that makes days, weeks, months, years, bearable?

you never read any of it.
you didn't care.

holly jeanette (you loved my middle name) you need to write more!

I wrote tons.
you didn't mean poems.
you meant stories that benefitted you, not me.
you never cared.
I was so afraid to share that big part of myself.

but you never asked.
I dropped subtle hints.
ugh, need a new poetry journal
I prefer poems to stories.
and once, hey babe, wanna read this thing I wrote?

but my poetry never appealed to you.
my poetry didn't do anything for you.
mís poemas te dejaste friá.

you never cared about the thing that made me happiest.
you cared only about the thing that you thought made me happiest, you.

it is 19:43 and I think of how you hate military time and how I always have to change it myself for you when you ask the time.

"recover holly!" you always say, but I think to last night when you handed me a blade. sure, it was was for styrofoam cutting and not skin cutting, but for a guy who remembers everything else so well, you seemed to forget that I would be triggered .

you never allow me to help you, and it hurts because everyone always underestimates what I'm capable of and what I can do and I thought you were different.

you assure me that my weight doesn't matter, but look how you spin Natalie and Alayna around. why can I not be skinny enough to fly in your arms?

I'll probably send this to Madison later, not you though. you're my inspiration, you help so much. but you hate poetry and my creative outlet is lesser than yours.

I feel as if I would be truly sad if you moved next year, but you wouldn't miss me.

and what will you do if I get better? you are nothing more than a 911 operator; you'll save me and then leave.

oh dear, I feel like I don't need you.

but I do.

I need you because you get me and I ******* hate how much you understand me. I wish you were a dumb boy.

I need you because no one else ******* cares about me anymore.

and no, I don't 'like' you. I just can't ******* lose my life line.

I know that the clo-
ser I get to you, the hard-
er I fall apart.

things aren't okay.
i hope my suicide jokes catch your eye.
but they don't.
you don't care about me.
you don't love me.
and you don't need me.

I have this little pink composition notebook with that title written across it.
After feverishly writing in it while I was in Europe, a ******* our trip asked what I meant by that title.
I made up some excuse,
because when you are stuck in a room with three girls, the last thing you want to admit is that you aren't quite a girl.
This notebook is full of prose and poetry about gender and binaries and prefixes that a national merit scholar has trouble understanding.
Most people on that trip would not need a notebook on why they don't belong.
Because they do,
and I do not.

I don't know why
I keep you around.
you beat me down
and make me cry.
but when you try
to help me out
I have no doubt
you should be mine.
when I'm with you
I know how to be
and nothing can hurt.
I'm not blue,
nothing's too heavy,
and you'll never break my heart.