A dirtless ditch,
you tongue the plains
and stretch numb arms
in sleeves of ink.

Eroding stone
and carmine vines  
claw into shoulders
and dry eyes.

Please heed my words
escape artist.
I would not lie
on withered leaves.

With rope and wall
you cannot climb
so high to fall
and deaden nerves.

Hands tingle now,
needles alive
like clouds and slate
that built the skies.

Throat thresh and whine
at coal-charred mouth
while legs do shine
angelic fright.

Wolves prowl the grounds
to kiss the cheeks
of those they yearn
to eat but twice.

A need for none
is apex sin
that Love does not,
with ease, forgive.

Look up to sky
with smirk alight,
and stretch your arms
so wide.

A stray dog's brow
shows only strength.
There is much hope
for you.

I used to wake up
wishing I could sleep forever.
I used to dream of
living in the stars, away from pain,
away from air
and all things human.
I used to dread what I loved most,
used to think of death
with every possible encounter.
I even used to get genuinely mad because
I was still breathing.

I stayed up late most every night
because my mind would not shut up;
it would taunt and whisper
promise peace with just a handful of pills
or a jump off a bridge.
The devil lived inside of my head;
sometimes he comes back for a visit
but not too often lately.
He's left too many thoughts behind,
thoughts he'll never bring back with him
(wherever he goes)
because they're etched
and scarred
in dusty corners
permanent.

I've written a note
the one that says goodbye to everyone I love
the one that people will remember
and cry over most
if I ever wanted them to find it.
It's all there, all these past memories
and tortured thoughts
sprinkled on my personality to stay.

Sometimes it all floods
every
inch
of
me,
makes me feel like I'm decaying from the
inside
out
but I pull through.
I always pull through
I always come back up for
air.

But Depression,
she's no quitter.
She'll always be here to try and
drown
me.

It's just my choice if she
succeeds.

girls like me, we can't make ourselves stay.
i wish i could, i do.
i can't shake the itchy-skin feeling of being here
and i can't help but want to get away.

we have fickle and jealous hearts, girls like me.
we can't trust ourselves to be loved
because we love so changeably.
we're difficult, girls like me.
difficult to love, difficult to fall out of love with.

we're born with anger.
we have all the ghosts and the wisdom our hearts can hold.
i am difficult to please and it's no one's fault but my own
and i get tired of people and i get tired of places
and no matter where i am i always want to leave.

i don't choose to be as restless and as jealous and as jittery as i am,
and i don't choose to feel so old some of the time
and i don't choose to be so guarded, so hypocritical, so abrasive.

girls like me, we are beautiful and strong and ages old -
it has been since the beginning and it will be till the end,
spirits like ours.
we are breakable and irrepressible
afraid and invincible
and we are made to survive things and to know things
and we are made for the wildest of laughter
and we are made for the too-big types of sadness
and we are something to see.

TWO loves had I. Now both are dead,
And both are marked by tombstones white.
The one stands in the churchyard near,
The other hid from mortal sight.

The name on one all men may read,        
And learn who lies beneath the stone;
The other name is written where
No eyes can read it but my own.

On one I plant a living flower,
And cherish it with loving hands;      
I shun the single withered leaf
That tells me where the other stands.

To that white tombstone on the hill
In summer days I often go;
From this white stone that nearer lies
I turn me with unuttered woe.

O God, I pray, if love must die,
And make no more of life a part,
Let witness be where all can see,
And not within a living heart.