i want to write about leaving home
how it feels to not know where the grocery store is
how it feels to try and convince the people around you
that you're not crazy
before they find out for themselves that you probably are.

everytime i try to write about leaving home
all i do is think of home.

a place that tried to **** me.
a place i could have been a better grandson.
a place that feels warm in my mind
but cold on my skin.

can i really blame the riverbed
and that old rope swing
for taking away the only thing
i ever really loved.
maybe we could have found
some other way to get there.
we were too young to know better.

Love is like a bridge that connects
Two together towards a world
Where thoughts and sense of security
ran wild.

We create little worlds with each person
and with each person leaving
our little worlds vanish with them.

Bridge to Terabithia
In the 3rd grade

Where the Red Fern Grows
In the 6th grade

Eating raw chicken at the ******* barrel
And getting sick afterwards

Seeing my grandpa naked
When I was very little

My dad’s ****** and alcohol addiction
All through my life

And the way he forced me
The way my voice was not heard
It didn’t matter
To them
To anyone
Then

Or now.

The first time I sat down and wrote
I was just a little girl
Eleven... Twelve?
What a terrible thing to happen to a child
I read Bridge to Terabithia and wept bitterly
I just couldn't understand why anyone had to die
So I tried to turn it around
Have a story rewrite itself into perfection
But I quickly discovered the ending
That endings are the healing after heartbreak
And without the pain
There is no satisfaction in the ******
No release after the buildup
No rest after release
And it just made me notice
But that's not what I want to talk about just now
That's not the kind of mood I'm in
No, I'm in the kind of thrall that's only present
When you've already lost it all but almost no one knows
When you thought you knew how
And you thought that you could do this
But no one's sure you did it right
And no one really cares anyway
When I'd rather rave and rail
Thrash against the pain
And scream against the chains I know I wear
But cannot see them with my eyes
And who do I believe out there
All they say
The mysterious, murderous, undefined "they"
They say that good is evil, and evil good
And sin is art and art is something you can judge and **** and curse
And no two sides will take my side
Because there is no spectrum
Just a line you cross or do not cross
But I think I must exist somewhere
Lost between the infinitely small sides of the invisible line
And the middle ground is me
But there is no middle ground
Just a little girl who thought
That she could write her misery
Out of existence when she burned the pages
The pages of the Bridge on which she died

I try to travel
on make believe roads
I think this time
the ground will be solid
I sink
my mouth fills
with silly dreams
tastes bitter
I'm always surprised.

Some days it's hard to breathe. For the past two years, there's been a weight sitting on my chest. Drawing in oxygen feels like hiking through piles and piles of snow just moments after the storm. I don't know where I'm going.
Some days I take my glasses off at school. I like the way the world blurs in front of my eyes and fog settles in the forefront of my vision not unlike the way depression can blind you with only a small shift in perspective.

The first time I wanted to kiss a girl, I was fourteen, and the scars on my hips from feeling too much too young had barely healed. Picture a shy, high school freshman who hadn't yet figured out if she wanted to live. Her breath caught in a cloud of promise and mouth left open just enough to speak if she decided it was allowed, thoughts halted with the wonder of the girl laughing next to her. As the girl simultaneously overflowed with beauty and mirth as only girls can, I was terrified by the prospect of being different. I didn't know if it was allowed.

I went to see my therapist today, and he asked me why I tried to **** myself. I couldn't say it was because of my sexuality because my mother was sitting right next to me. Instead, I said it was because I felt numb. It wasn't a lie, I just left out the part where every Saturday dance class was becoming a steady stream of homophobic monologues and each passing comment left me staring at my wrists more often than the last like a lifeline- a final bridge to Terabithia where I could dance without worrying how my thighs looked and run without worrying about who from and love without the compulsory package of suicide.

My depression started as a fog. It crept over me while I watched powerless and stole away my friends one by one. Misery loves company, and we ran from it in a race to the death but we couldn't opt out. All I have left from what they call my suicide attempt is a vertical scratch on my left wrist where I was too afraid to press harder. I wasn't afraid of death. I was afraid of waking up, and the marathon that would come with it.

The sky rushed down to meet her
Embrace her slow decay
The roots of Terabithia
Wind round her to this day
The mountains she created
Shrink down to kiss her feet
And everywhere she ran
The soil tastes bittersweet

That day, she cracked her being
Against the sharpened *****
Her fingers gently spasming
Still stuck around the rope
And all the world was emerald
It watched her fade away
The birds could barely look and
The sunshine dropped a ray

While seeing this was frightening,
So grim it took my breath,
Who knew I could be jealous

Of Leslie's perfect death?