The look on your father's face
When he signed the divorce papers.
(He'll always love her.
He loved her enough to let her go.)

She wonders why there is still yelling within the
Inside of the walls of her auditory cortex.
This little girl has been begging to be freed,
"I am constantly tired," she admits.
"I am constantly afraid."

I sunk myself in a sea of bitterness with an
Unforgiving weight on my chest.
There's enough hate weighing in
My bones to sink a ship.

If you'd like to know what it
Feels like to love you, stand at
The edge of a cliff and
Give yourself reasons to not jump.
I can think of seven and they all start
With the letters of your first name.

Who knew that being buried alive did
Not mean piles of dirt,
But rather the weight in your chest is enough.
Your rib cage was a prison,
I just found out too late.

I made room for the monsters under my bed;
We get along just fine.
How sickening it is to know I'll never have
Enough room in my heart for anyone but you.

"I don't want to play anymore,"
The little girl told the voices.
"Please let me go."

I am not making progress and
Maybe I never will.

I knew giving my all to a boy
With such destructive tendencies
Was my biggest failure, but
Who could deny your hands or
The way you whispered
"I want you"?

Your ocean eyes and sand-colored hair
Sould have warned me because the
First time we touched was a day after
The beach, and I remember every
Person in your house on that given day
And I swear there are ghosts in
My walls that sound just like your bed.

I wonder now why the ghosts I hide
Under piles of our clothes (the same clothes
That have seen your bedroom floor)
Have taken on the form of you.

I need you because you are familiar
And because of that I will always
Feel alone in a crowded room regardless
Of the faces that plague my life daily.

Kiss me until the bitterness of fear
Leaves my veins and the oxygen in
My lungs is no longer his.

The only thing left to give up on me
Is my own bones, but I feel the rust
Through the marrow and
I am out of time.

How much time did we have?
How many bars of soap must
One person go through to remove
The feel of another from their skin?

I can confirm that if he is anything like you
I will not be able to keep breathing and
That is not a metaphor for how
You took my breath away.

Stop wasting your time on me,
I am nothing but broken bones
And broken hearts, stiched incorrectly
As so and I do not have enough glue to
Fix what is left in shambles.

The last time we spoke you asked me
Why I told you I still loved you and no
Longer wanted go be with you,
But that still stands and
I'll love you til the day I die.

I tell my mother that I love her through
The same gritted teeth that I whispered
"I hope you leave" through.
(It sounds quite the same).

I feel like the pieces of my skin are
Ripping off, one by one, and I swear
I cannot wait seven years for
My body to forget that you once touched it.
I wish there was a faster way to
Sever your physical memory that is sketched
Bone-deep, but seven years is the
Price I pay for letting you too far in.

You could excordinate from my
Goose-bumped chest and hold it, beating,
In your shaking hands and I know you'd
Swear on your great-grandfather's grave that
You loved every inch of me.
But you only loved the chest you destroyed
And a heart can only be an anchor
To those who lost themselves between
A false-lover's sheets.

The one who watched me tremble as
Words spilt from my mouth is the
One who made me choke them back down.
I picked up my death wish and I
Placed it in my pocket, hoping to God
You'd someday forget the look in my eyes
When I told you I'd never make it
Through the past year. But you were
The one who begged me to try and
You were the one who begged me to die.
I swear to God I remember you saying
That I kept you up at night, but now
I'd be lucky if I could fall asleep.

I wonder now what has kept me here;
So desperately victim to the sound of your voice.
I hope to pack bags full of anything but your
Memory, but everything just seems to admonish
And I can't forget the way your hair
Reminds me of the hot sand that
Listened more intently to every displeasure
You ever caused. I must leave that place behind,
And yet it calls me towards it everytime
I want to scream. I still imagine the
Look on your face, I still imagine the way
Your voice quivered as you said
"Please, just don't hurt yourself.
Please, just promise me."
And I remember the way you begged
Me to go against my every promise. So
Now I am packing bags;
I will not be the fool that chose to stay here.

being in your own personal prison is so lonely.
I cannot stand the sight of my own body and
it's like there is life trapped inside of a home I am not programmed to love.
chemical imbalances are easy to blame
so instead I focus on that fact that I cannot go longer than 26 hours
without caving into the persistent animal that
lives under my diaphragm.
the loneliest moments of my life
are when I find myself in a dark room
with my clothes off and my demons out to play.
they laugh and they pull at every inch of my collapsing body.
with tears streaming down my face I cup at my stomach and thighs.
it's like I'm screaming
I'm sorry
but actions speak louder than words
so I'm probably whispering.
the structure of temple may be beautiful
but the demons that reside inside
do not agree.
I am not fighting a battle with myself.
I am fighting against myself.
against my flesh and bones.