a child version of you holding a map of outdated versions of yourself saying,"there, right there, that's where you lost the war with yourself."

there will be days
where your very own breathing is exhausting, the four walls of your bedroom the only safe space.
days where the world doesn't accept you,
you were not meant for this life.
living, breathing, screaming epiphanies that the world would be a much greater place without you in it.
for so long, i was in a place with no sun.
the smell of day old liquor and blame,
a mother so broke within her addiction and self-destruct she's not even whole anymore.
you were only 9.
here, there were no flowers.
growing up was a nightmare- the coming, the going, the always going.
dropping everything and leaving is her strong suit.
the baby brother you felt you had to protect,
the questions.
"why are you always so tired".
the predisposition to the dark entity making a home inside of you was called for.
years plagued with lost innocence and trust issues.
no fight in the whole **** world left in you, but carrying on anyway.
but, every once in awhile, out of the darkness, would emerg something you loved that'd bring you to life again.
small joys- a candy sky, laughs with a friend, all the universe's way of sending tiny glimmers of hope. strength to continue.
faith in the words, "this too shall pass".
living is difficult, and living is difficult for everybody.
but it is in these moments of turmoil that we cannot succumb to the bad days, bad months, or bad years.
healing, loving, and growing through these hardships is easy to say, but hard to surmount to.
it is struggling, two steps forward and one step back.
again, and again, and again.
it's trial. it's error. it's trial again. it's more error.
it's holding on to the small hopes. not allowing our hearts to grow cold. having the courage to continue. choosing the carry on.
i find my strength in the bodies of water much larger than i am.
it's in family. blood or chosen.
it's sunrises.
sunsets.
falling in love.
with people or places.
kind strangers.
it's realizing you've started dancing again.
its healing, loving, and growing through this tough life.
as long as we are breathing, we must keep dancing.

white-walled ER at 3 a.m., so silent despite muffled groans and the lady in the room next to yours with auditory hallucinations, you could've almost heard mum when she broke.
morphine does funny things to people.
the doctor thinks she fakes the pain,
write "broken goods" on her chart.
she's in a million little pieces,
i think but never say.
words never come out the way i'd like them to.
show me what's damaged and why.
childhood was not pink dresses or blueberry pancakes,
it's mum dancing, yes, metaphorically.
her head filled with so much fairy dust and abandonment issues.
a body so filled with self-destruct it asks your depression if its dark enough for you.
slurred words and confessions,
the morphine or your mother talking?
bedtime stories composed of her last words being "more please"
somebody teach me how to forgive myself for not being able to save everybody.

names eventually stop tasting like stomach acid
2. the light does come through
3. don't call him back

someday, someone will be soft & gentle with your heart and you'll be glad you kept it open.
you're gonna wonder why you ever considered quieting down.
2020 will be soft and forgiving.

confront this dark entity which found home behind my ribcage.
i want to tell him to give me back what was rightfully mine.
give back the 13 year old i was with so much life beneath my eyelids,
the time before i became all too acquainted with the monster under my bed
the 14 year old that realized that the hollowness in her chest was what would become a very old friend.
i want him to apologize for the wreckage he caused upon my body,
i want the time back trying to him him with sharp objects, trying to **** him in bed sheets of boys who do not cry, trying to **** him by wrenching over a toilet bowl trying to remember where i even met him in the first place.
i want the nights back where the four walls of my bedroom became so concave,
the nights he'd call me 'baby', telling me to never love something larger than he was, even myself.
the happiness he enticed me with but kept so far out of reach.
i want to say to him, "i see you", "the scars have faded now".
to the old friend that has grown with me,
i have tried so ******* hard to say goodbye.

you are on the floor crying, and you've been crying for days now,
but that is your brave.
that is you getting through as best as you know how.
no one gets to decide what your tough looks like.