I need you to know:
every emotion,
every thought
because maybe if you hear it all
then the pain might disperse around each and every word
so the impact doesn’t feel like a shot to the chest
and I am sorry.

I love you.
How do you need to hear the words,
“but I am not in love with you anymore?”
How do I tell you that you’re my best friend.
I want you, need you in my life
but I think I’m being selfish?
I want you but not in the way that you want me
and what if that destroys you?
I want to protect your heart like my own
though you no longer hold it
and I am sorry.

When my therapist told me that I was already done from the looks of it,
I told her I would give anything to be in love with you like I’m supposed to be.
That’s who I am.
No.
I guess that’s who I was.
The girl who fell in love with her knight in shining armor
pulling her out of the black hole that was her own mind,
she no longer exists.
I am not her though she still lives in me.
The girl who fell in love with you would have taken this as a chance to draw in red,
but the girl I am now knows to wait only an hour and the yearning could be gone
though she still craves the silver poison fusing to her skin.
The girl who used to live in the recesses of my mind thought she could only live for you
but the girl holding the pen now knows she writes her own story and can live for herself.
My darling, you taught me how to live,
you breathed life into the caverns of my chest.
I never want to hurt you like I have been hurt
and I am so sorry.

Is it fair to tell you that I am not in love
but I believe with all my soul that if we are each other’s forever’s
then a few short months won’t matter.
I know it.
But I need this time to decide who I am without defining myself using your name.
I go off to a world filled with drowned out voices inside of a world built with books
while you are in a movie filmed between the bricks moved by your brothers before you,
served with orders to fulfill only more orders.
While I kiss the shoes of briefcase holding royalty,
you avoid eye contact with the gaze in front of your sweat drenched face.
I can’t tell you this because you used to say that you would come back for me,
so who will you return for if I’m not there?
I am so scared,
and I am sorry.

And now there’s a guilt weighing on my chest like I’ve never felt
and I think I may be bringing the black hole back myself so you can be my knight again
because maybe if I hate myself,
more love will be reserved for you.
And maybe that’s the reason I want to pick up this flame
and hold it next to my flesh to feel the pain of being burned by what you love.
And maybe it’s the reason I crave the cool, punishing preciosity of steel.
I know it now.
When I’m sad, I’m unbearable to be around
but when I’m happy, I don’t need you.
The trick is-
I want to need you,
which I guess means that
I
want
to
be
unhappy.
And I am sorry.

I don’t know how these words help you
except to show that I need to be alone.
I’m the problem
and problems are meant to be isolated and conquered.
I think there’s something broken inside me
so that I cannot love properly,
and I am sorry.

I want you to be my forever but for some reason I know that forever doesn’t start right now
so what do I tell my right now when our future seems conditional
only upon who we will grow to be in this next season of our lives?
And what if I never get to hold my forever
because these unsure hands held on too tightly to you?
I am so confused,
and I am sorry.

I’ve always clung to justice
but how is it fair to break your heart
when I am only breathing because you restored a beat to my chest?
I don’t know how to cushion these words but
we owe it to the people we will be in a short time to give them the best chance at love
and a life they couldn’t dream of now.
And I am sorry.

They look at me as if I've lost my mind when I tell them what I've been doing.
And maybe I did lose myself somewhere between deadlines and sleepless nights,
but honestly why can't they see that I'm better now?
I chose between two evils, yes-
smoking
or suicide.
Now,
which one is really the devil?
Their disappointment cuts into me when I see their eyes because I truly believe that I am happier now.
Isn't that what matters?
Isn't that more than what I had before- nothing?
I won't say that I'm close to okay but between
a pipe
and a blade,
there's really no choice.
I choose my poison but at least it's better than the pills I took as I tried
to drift to sleep and forget the world,
to stop seeing the scene that played out in my head of a peaceful face and a pool of red.
So what's the problem?
I'm still a straight A student,
I still play a sport,
I still have a job,
I still have a social life.

Why do they keep looking at me as if I lost my mind?
I think I'm finally finding it when the smoke trails upward.

November 21st, 2014
will forever be in my heart.
It was his birthday
and
it
was
perfect.
I got to spoil the love of my life
(my favorite hobby).
I got to drive him around to get his free drinks
and watch him be so awkwardly adorable because he wasn’t all that good at lying when the drinks were for me.
I got to walk around the pet store as we picked out fish that we wanted someday
together.
Simple things.
But it couldn’t have been any better.
He is perfect.
And he’s mine.
Forever,
I hope.

We went to dinner with his family
and I had a strange feeling.
A feeling of happiness and belonging
as rare and impossible as finding someone to love me-
what seemed to be a one in a million chance.
His family is real.
It’s messy and silly and a pain in the *** and sometimes broken
but it’s real.
It’s what I never had.
Or what I wasn’t old enough to comprehend when I did have it.
Family.
It’s my most secret desire.
The one that calls to me from the deepest reaches of my soul,
the crevices of my heart that see as much light as the dark side of the moon.
Hidden away so it cannot be taken before I hold it in my hands.

I had no idea where this poem would go.
But I know now.
It’s his birthday,
and with only eleven minutes left,
I know he’s giving me the more worthwhile gift-
the chance to be a part of something.

He doesn’t understand how broken I was.
How I wanted to be somewhere else,
anywhere else.
How I wanted to be someone else,
anyone else.
How I wanted to sleep endlessly because only while being unconscious were things okay.
How I wanted nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
I didn’t even want to be okay.
I just wanted it to be over.

Well, that’s a lie.
I wanted something.
I wanted everyone else to be okay.
I wanted to take away their pain and watch them flourish.
I was torn between thinking it was selfish to leave because someone might miss me
(a remote chance at best though)
and thinking it was selfish to stay and force them to watch me die a little every day.

Everything was torn and fractured and incomprehensible.
I was a vase shattered into tiny pieces and I couldn’t bear to have anyone cut their feet on my rough edges.
What I didn’t realize was that maneuvering around my broken pieces was just as difficult,
just as exhausting.

So I’m trying a little bit harder now.
No;
that’s a lie too.
I’m trying harder than I ever have.
I’m trying to show him what needs to be shown-
the dark pictures that stalk me in my dreams.
I'm trying to voice what needs to be uttered-
the twisted thoughts that haunt my waking hours.
Oh, my perfectly imperfect love,
I am trying.
And I think,
I think I am growing to be so drastically
better
but I am terrified,
almost to the point of paralysis,
to fall again.

Him and her,
He and she,
Fell together into each other guarded hearts.
He loved her
and she loved him.
But sacrifices had to be made
and who would it be that sacrificed themselves?
The trick,
the real unfortunate fact,
is that they both sacrificed themselves.
They became who they thought the other needed them to be.
And in this selfless act,
each lost themselves and the love with which they first acted on.
He was no longer what she needed and she was no longer what he needed.
In this selfless act of snuffing out their own selves,
they killed the love that they first snuffed for.
And that tragedy,
that could be the end.


(but it wasn’t, she is thrilled to say.)

For the group that is notoriously almost synonymous with
lost or troubled.
For my people-
the poets and the lost.

For my friends who can’t seem to speak with
eloquence,
yet pour out their soul on paper,
who spell out their heart in ink.

For anyone who uses a pen as their medium
and words as their art form.
For those whose blood turns to ink
or words on a bright screen piercing through the dark.

For those whose eyes glaze over as their minds furiously enact a story
or piece together just the right phrasing.

For those that are only okay and constantly exhausted.
For those that mutter, “I don’t think I can,”
or “I’m just tired.”
For those with a firm grip on insanity and caffeine.
For those who make plans but rarely follow through.

For those who too often hear,
“Stop worrying,”
“It’ll be okay,”
and “I don’t know how to help.”
Or “You have to let it go,”
“Just go with it,”
and “It doesn’t matter.”

For those with tired eyes, blank faces, and rare, genuine smiles.
For frazzled insomniacs or narcoleptics.
For those who laugh too loud but often stay silent.

For those huddled in blankets in bedrooms,
in corners observing the outside world.
For those who love small settings
and avoid large gatherings like the plague.

For the worriers and the wanderers seeking to find themselves
in a perfect combination
of letters.

For the groups that seem to go together
like a typewriter and frustration;
or a pen and paper.

For my people-
the poets and the lost.


~SES

I used to think my thoughts were complicated but now I realize,
if i could capture them in a pen and transfer them to paper,
then they weren't at all.

I was just young and foolish, not complicated.
But now,
well now I'm always at a loss for words.
Now,
now is when my is chaotic and complicated.

Now I can't even adequately envelop any aspect of my pain and my confusion.
No.
Now is when it's complicated.

-a silly girl who finally grew up and learned to be tired and helpless