I was born on a belt
In the factory of man,
Rolled into a home,
Labeled and stamped.

My life was made honest
By ink on a page,
And my future controlled
By a system of wage.

My whole life thus far,
Two decades of lame,
Incompetent bureaucratic,
Institutional reign

Has seen us shuffled down
The educational lane,
Made unified products;
For unified gain.

And I think the part that hurts the most is that even though I jumped through hoops for you,
Even though I emptied my wallet, and spent all the ink I owned writing pages of poetry for you, and through all the nights where we drove for hours into the silence, singing our broken hearts out, spilling our worries out of the windows of my car as we escaped into the unknown, and with all the nights we laid under the stars and just watched as they all burned out into the sunrise, and the nights we spent sleeping in the back of my car listening to your favorite bands play through the stereo of those perfect moments, and after everything I did to try and show you how much you meant to me, to show you how beautiful you are, it all meant nothing to you, and that’s what hurts the most. Knowing that the next guy that comes wandering, broken hearted and hopelessly, down your path, will hear the same story I did,
How no one cares for you and how you've never had anyone to call your own or anyone to hold close, and how everyone leaves, and how you'd give anything to find that guy, and he too will **** himself over you until you get bored of him and disappear once more. But that's how you are, smoke and mirrors, a cold heart and a shy smile, and knowing that no matter what stories you tell your next victims, I loved every last part of you.
That's what hurts the most.

Mom says it's teenage hormones. Dad says I'm over-dramatic about it.

But I'm getting worse, not better. I'm anxious constantly, suffering from attacks ranging from small to so severe I grow ill. Thinking I could end my life should any of my fears become real was my only comfort, but even that has abandoned me. For I am a coward who cannot take her own life for fear of the unknown. A craven, afraid of deaths pain but still longing for his freeing slumber.

Apparently this is something all teenagers go through. Wanting to stay in bed all day playing dead and pretending the world can't hurt me when it can break through my windows and torture me to death whenever it pleases. Apparently every teenager sits around, wanting to die but too afraid to end it. We all cry from our pure terror of things we are too afraid to speak of, too afraid to make real with words, too afraid to even think of for too long.

I've been practicing this breathing exercise. I do it in sets of 3, sometimes sets of 5. It's funny, because usually when I do things in sets, it must be 4 or 14 or 24. Move my fingers from pinky to thumb 14 times on both hands in synch. Things like that. I don't like 3, and 5 is iffy. But the breathing exercises that distract me from wanting to rip my own flesh off must be done in 3s or 5s, apparently.

My mind is not my best friend, but sometimes, it pretends to be. It tries to convince me that mother is right. That I'll outgrow suicidal thoughts spanning as long as I can remember and severe anxiety and depression so intense it eats me alive and makes me want to gnaw my skin off, but it makes me want to float to the bottom of the ocean or fly off a cliff and be free in much quieter ways.

Falling from a cliff wouldn't be quiet. It would be messy and the wind would be in my hair and I'd make a splat as I hit the ground. But I imagine drifting down like a feather, my soul leaving my body before the destruction and my body dissolving like dust, scattered to the wind.

I am thinking of flying and vainly wishing my parents are right, that I will outgrow mental illness and that I'm over-dramatizing it somehow, because my feelings and thoughts are overdramatic and counselors and therapists are liars, since according to father they're wrong when they say they're afraid I'm becoming a danger to myself, because mom and dad say they're wrong, mom and dad say I'm not dangerous to myself I'm just stupid and senseless and an attention ***** who is too scared to die, while other, much more vibrant and amazing people are dying and deserve the air in my lungs and aren't getting it.  

This is turning into a mess, like the one I'd make if I threw myself off a cliff. So I'll stop here and wonder if my heart can stop from the empty hopelessness choking it, as well.

The things you said
Whether true or not
Made me feel terrible
Shutting me out
Trying to talk to you
Heard but not understood
I too
Was not seeing what I saw
Trying to make it work with you
Was as productive
As banging my head on the wall
A combat veteran
Of a war wished not fought
Creating a family with you
Was something not bought
With money
Love
Patience
Or virtue
Our love was untrue