I’m quiet.
I’m afraid if I say anything I’ll start crying,
Screaming,
Laughing,
Maybe all three. That would be something to see.

Sometimes I wonder if there is something wrong with me,
Something fundamentally wrong in my brain.
Why don’t I like people touching me?
It’s not like I was abused,
Or *****,
Sexually harassed.
I don’t have an excuse off the top of my head,
I just don’t like it.

I’ve asked before,
Asked for this one boundary.
She uses every part of me.
I am a tool,
Something to show off.
I get it.
I just hoped that maybe,
Just maybe,
Touch could be my one thing.
Just please don’t touch me.

I feel bad for you,
My Mother said as she grabbed my face,
No one will ever love you.
She’s probably right.
How could anyone love what they couldn’t touch?
Still I had to ask,
Just please don’t touch me.

We are in a small, confined booth now.
She wraps her arm around me to take a picture,
Even makes a big show of prefacing it with an apology.
I know you don’t like being touched,
But,
I’m going to touch you for this picture.
This picture I will show off to all my facebook friends,
I’ll show off my happy family,
My successful daughter.
Look how happy we all are.

Her bracelet caught on my sweater.
She leaned close,
I could feel her breath on my neck and I panicked,
She was so close.
I ****** away,
My body slammed into the wall of the booth.

I could see an apology on her lips,
I could see the maternal instinct starting to kick in,
Just to watch it be drowned by the hurt in her eyes.

Being hurt,
Pain,
It can look like many things.
To me it looks like My Mother lashing out,
Verbal knives pinning me against a wall.
This is the look that drowned out any maternal instinct in her eyes.
She excused herself to the bathroom.
I knew I should’ve gone to apologize.
Say that I didn’t mean to,
Blame it on a headache.

But I was scared.
Fear gripped me and held me in that booth seat.
I knew if I got up,
Went to that bathroom,
She would only scream false lies at me.
She wouldn’t mean them.
They’d still hurt.

So later that night,
When my Mother was crying and crying in the hotel room next to mine,
My Dad texted me
Asked me to meet him in the lobby.
I got down there and the look on his face said it all,
I had failed.
I burst into tears.

He dragged me into a conference room,
Looking around to make sure no attendants or workers noticed.
Asked why I had done it,
Informed me of all the pain, and suffering my Mother is now going through,
Because of me.
Because I couldn’t withstand her touching me for more than 15 seconds,
For a stupid God forsaken picture.

When I found a space between my tears and his accusations,
I plead that I had tried.
I tried my best to be okay with it.

I couldn’t explain to him that it was more than just dislike.
It was invasive,
Whatever instinctual fight or flight switch I had,
Touch triggered it.
How could I tell him it made me feel repulsed,
Revolted,
Disgusted,
Nauseated,
It tore my insides to pieces trying to hold myself together for a picture.
How could I tell him any of this?

So I cried and cried and cried.
And when I got back upstairs,
Saw the notifications on my phone,
And checked on facebook to see that happy picture,
Of a happy daughter,
A happy mother,
And a happy family,
I felt ashamed

I felt guilty,
I felt wrong.
They all wanted this,
They wanted this picture to be true,
And I didn’t know how to give it to them.

Sometimes I just don't want to exist.
It doesn't come from a lack of friends,
Or a lack of family.

If my life ended, I know people would care,
I would be missed.
That's my problem.

My circumstances,
The people around me,
They're the cage trapping my soul to this earth.

I could never hurt them,
Or leave them.
But the events
the places,
the people,
The reasons that have me writing this today-
They make me tired,
So tired.
And all I want to do is sleep

It’s the dull thud in my head,
Trying to count the calories I’ve eaten today.
Have I eaten enough?
Who knows,
I don’t care.

It’s the prickling sensation in my shoulders,
The panic that starts to rise,
When I think of someone touching me.
Why don’t I like it,
How can I make myself like it?
I give up.

It’s when I look for comfort,
And have to look to a therapist.
At least she’s unconditional,
Doesn’t expect anything from me.
Anything but $165 per hour.

That is when the realization sets in.

I’m tired of being this person my parents wanted.
This happy,
Healthy,
Optimistic person.
She’s not me.
I cry as I write this,
Because I think she died a long time ago,
And this imposter has been in her place.

This Hollow,
Feeble,
Weary imposter.

I tried to look for ways to bring her back,
A defibrillator,
As a hopeless last resort.

I tried running,
I tried lifting,
I was looking in the wrong place though.
Those were activities that made her into who she was,
That helped her along the wrong journey,
A journey not meant for her,
Chosen by someone else.

I tried reading,
Reading of all kinds.
I tried literature,
But she wasn’t interested in that.
I tried Young Adult Fiction,
That peaked her interest.
But only in the way
That it sparked hope.

She hated that hope,
Despised the hero prevailing,
Getting their lover in the end,
Fighting for their family,
Loving their family,
Being loved by their family.
She hated that hope,
Because it reminded her of what she wanted,
And was denied.

No,
Young Adult Fiction was not the way to go.

I tried Netflix,
Movies,
TV shows.
I wasn’t going to make the mistake of giving her hope though.
I gave her shows with dark themes,
Corruption.
With deceitful,
Untrusting characters.
Characters with scars,
And traumatic pasts.

This helped,
Not in the way I had intended though.
She found solace in those characters
That wore their trauma on their sleeves.
Those who had been to hell and back,
And had to deal with the consequences along the way.

And then I found poetry.
Poetry had always piqued her interest,
But she was unsure of it.
Didn’t know what to write about,
Or how to write.
Then,
One day,
She bought a book.

This book showed her that poetry didn’t have to have a rhyme scheme,
Didn’t have to have a set pattern or flow.
It could be raw,
Open,
Powerful with hidden meaning.

Suddenly that girl had a way to express herself.
All the shame she felt,
At the horrid feelings she hoarded inside,
She had a way to feel them.
A means to explore what she had desperately tried to hide.

Somewhere along the way,
That joyful,
Cheerful,
Shining girl died.
She died when she put the pen to paper,
And was faced with what had been done to her,
The childhood that had been stolen from her.
She died when she realized her hopes,
Hopes for somewhere to call home,
Somewhere that wasn’t trapping,
Confining,
Brimming with painful memories,
She died when she realized those hopes were also dead.

So I’m left,
Mourning at the gravestone.
Mourning who that girl had tried so hard to be,
For her parents,
And for the sake of those who pretended to care.

But with her death,
She granted a freedom.
A freedom to become whoever I want,
Whoever I’m feeling that day.
No restrictions,
Limitless boundaries,
Of what I want to do,
Who I want to be,
And where I want to go.

For now I am empty.
Hollow from all the expectations,
Of who people wanted me to be.
Of who I tried to be.
Of who I couldn’t be.

For now I will be hollow,
I will be empty,
I will be sad.
I will mourn the death of someone I loved.
And then when the time comes,
I will be whomever I want to be next,
Because that hopeful girl gave me that freedom,
And I will not let her death be in vain.

It’s tough to write a happy poem.
The poems about the nasty,
Gritty,
Gut wrenching stuff-
I got it down.
But a happy poem?
That’s gonna be weird.

I think it’s because growing up,
In the home and life I did,
I learned not to hold on to the happy stuff.
To not feel the good feelings for too long.
The happy moments were far and few in between,
And when I had them I was scared to enjoy them,
For fear that enjoyment would be taken advantage of,
Used,
Broadcasted.
When I felt happy moments,
I did my best to hide and push them away.

There were moments though,
Where amidst all the pain and suffering,
There were moments I was brought comfort.
There were moments that made me want to live,
Want to go on,
Search for something better.
These moments were brought by two furry ears,
Eyes with the closest shade to my own,
And a long furry tail.
Yea, I’m talking about my cat.

And now the poem has taken a sharp turn from meaningful,
To just absurd.
Right?
That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?
Dude, this chick wrote a poem about her cat.
Her ******* cat.

These moments aren’t when my cat was being funny,
Or playful.
There are a lot of those memories that I enjoy.

These moments are the ones where I’m sitting on the stairs,
My hand pressed to my mouth,
Suppressed sobs shuddering through my body.

She’s selfish,
She hates us,
She hates me.
She doesn’t deserve any ounce of pity from me,
I meant every word I said.

You know that’s not true,
She is your daughter,
You should care.
You can’t just freeze her out,
She isn’t one of your old college friends,
She needs you.

She doesn’t need me,
She doesn’t want me,
And I don’t want her.

Okay.
You know what,
Fine whatever.

I can only hold on to the hope that she was lying.
But even in those darkest moments,
Listening to my Dad try to defend me,
Just to give up and walk away.
Listening to my Mom,
Throw my name around in the mud,
And stomp all over it in her New Balance Sneakers,
Canni was there.

Animals have a queer way of being there right when you need them,
And Canni is one of the best.
She’d sit there patiently,
While I willowed away into nothing,
The sharp,
Biting feelings of pain,
Echoing in my head.
Those feelings took me down,
To a deep, dark place,
Where there was no feeling.
No feeling happy,
No feeling sad,
No feeling hurt.
There was no feeling at all-
It was safe.
But she brought me back.
She’d rub against me,
Nudge her head under my hand,
Nip at my arm if I didn’t pay attention to her,
Or even just sit there next to me.
She’d listen with me,
Her tail flicking back and forth,
Like she couldn’t believe what was going on either.

Maybe she was trying to distract me,
Maybe she just wanted attention.
Either way,
She made me care when I had nothing left to care for.
She gave me something to hope better for,
Gave me something to work harder for,
Something to get me moving out of the dark,
Hopeless place that had become my heart.
If not for me,
Then for the small animal,
That cared enough to know when I was happy,
And when I was sad.

My cat is the reason that I know love today,
The reason I have feeling today.
And for that,
I can’t thank her enough.

I’m in the back seat of our car.
My parents are angry with me,
They’re upset.

I didn’t do as I was told.
I messed up,
Failed them in some way.
I don’t remember how
I guess it doesn’t matter.

I clamp my mouth shut
It feels good to do so.
A satisfying spread of pain,
It shoots through my teeth and gums.

But then
Suddenly,
My teeth giveaway.
They’re wobbling,
A crack and split of pain
Spreading through my mouth.

A tooth on the bottom row,
My tongue pushes it out,
And now I can see it on the floor.

I try and stop,
But my teeth
Mouth,
Gums
They’re all on a derailing train,
And I don’t know how to stop it.

I try and cry for help,
Let my parents know that something is wrong,
Pop
Rip
Crack
Two more fall to my feet,
A tiny pile of bones starting to gather.

My parents look back at me,
Disdain on their face.
What kind of daughter can’t control her own teeth?

Tears are spilling down my face,
Blood crawling down my chin,
I’m ruined.
Absolutely done.
Who would want a girl with no teeth?

Please let this be a dream.
Please let this be a dream.
Please let this be a dream.

I’m holding my mouth now,
Trying to keep my teeth in.
My tongue searches for full rows of teeth,
And instead finds holes.

This has to be a dream.
This has to be a dream.
If this is a dream,
Why can’t I wake up?

I am trapped in this car,
My teeth trickling out,
One by one,
Out of my mouth and on to the floor,
And finally,
The train runs straight off the cliff.

My jaw slams shut,
It was an accident,
I didn’t mean to,
Bits and pieces of broken teeth fill my mouth,
I can feel blood,
Rushing to fill the space left unfilled by teeth.

I try to cry out,
My parents,
They’ll be angry,
I’ll embarrass them if I don’t have teeth,
I have to fix this,
But my cry is a gargle.
Tooth and blood spill from my mouth when I try to speak,
Sputtering on to the back of the passenger seat in front of me.

This has to be a dream.
I’ve had this dream before,
This has to be a dream.
I can’t wake up,
I’m trapped in this car,
My own mouth betraying me.
Please let this be a dream.
*Please let this be a dream.

3 things
I remember 3 things

I got in the car with him.
He came in me.
He kicked me out at 6 in the morning.

I remember 3 things,
Because I was drunk.

I probably consented,
But I don’t really remember.

It wasn’t **** though.
I took that risk when drinking so much.
I mean, it’s really my fault.

I don’t know if it was consensual
Did I want it?
I don’t remember.
I know sober me did not.
Either way, I was drunk.
So it’s not ****,
It’s regret.

In my mind it’s so easy.
We meet by chance,
Fall in love,
Happy ending.

But reality is a different story,
It is one written by anxiety and pain.

I’m tired of being lonely.
I know there are friends there.
But I crave intimacy,
Affection.

It is hard though,
When every possible candidate is met with fear,
With anxiety over some day having to say no.
With some day having to walk on glass,
Because I have to say I don’t feel the same way.

I want to chase my fears with alcohol,
Get drunk and let the night roll.
But that’s what got me here.

It is not my duty or obligation to meet their demands,
To fulfill their needs,
And I refuse to let alcohol be their tool to use my body.

I don't know who this is for,
Who's address I would put on the envelope.
I have a few people in mind,
But I don't know if sending this to them would be the best idea.

I guess it's an open letter to my younger self.
My 15 year old self who was thrown into chaos,
Who walked into a crowd of scheming, malicious friends.

Friends? You ask.
Yes they were my friends,
And they fought,
And stole,
And clawed their way to the top of a power structure,
Just to have it all tumbling down.

I was there the entire time.
Never clawing,
Or climbing,
Just trying to hold everyone together,
Keep everyone' s peace of mind,
While I lost my own.

What they never realized,
What I barely realized,
Was that as they played the game,
Learned the rules,
Learned to win and lose,

I forgot those rules.
Forgot is too nice,
I ignored them.

I lost my head making sure everyone kept theirs,
And when the dust settled,
When everyone took off their masks and assessed the damage,
I was there.

At the top

Alone.

No one noticed,
They were to busy pointing fingers.
While they were busy throwing metaphorical stones and spears,
I was placing land mines,
And trip wires.

At the end of the day,
When the battle was over,
It was me and me alone at the top.
The victor,
The one who had amassed all the power and influence my friends were desperately trying to hold on to.

I am still here,
Pondering my morality,
Pondering how ******* lonely it is.

Because while they built the pedestal,
Put me on top of it,
And surrendered without even realizing it,

They also isolated themselves from me.
And me from them.
And they have yet to realize the war they have lost.

While they were busy throwing insults,
Calling each other monsters,
They never even looked at me,
Or noticed me.

I sat there,
The most power hungry,
Conniving,
And ambitious one of all.
I sat at the top,
And no one even noticed.

So to my 15 year old self,
Who was thrown into the fire,
And learned to lie,
And cheat,
And steal,
Who learned to not only survive,
But conquer them all-

I notice you.
And I fear the day you get to show your true colors again.

There was a time where I relished his drunk touch.

The feeling on the dance floor,
Of his lips on mine,
His hands on my waist.

I felt power from his touch.
It affirmed what I wanted to feel-

I wanted to feel beautiful,
                            dangerous,
                             fierce.
I believed for a while that his drunk attention proved these things to be true.

Now I know differently.
Now that our drunk love has burned out,
I understand I am the only one who can make these things true.

I will no longer find power in drunk love.
I will find power in myself.

Often times I don’t know how I am.
That one question holds so many possibilities,
And I can’t narrow them down to one.

How are you?
I’m not sure to be honest.

There are days I feel a raging inferno,
Where fire burns my insides,
making me curse the world that’s brought me to this point.

But other times, it’s a tidal wave of sorrow.
In those times I can’t even muster the energy to swim.
I’d rather let the world drown me than care about it for another second.

The worst times though are the happy ones.
They usually follow the wave and flame.
It’s like my emotions decided that they’ve had enough of one extreme,
And that it’s time to swing to the next.

I know these happy feelings won’t last-
As soon as that song ends,
As soon as I return to reality,
I will return to nothing.
Because I know this happiness is not a reflection of how I truly feel,
But a valiant effort to hide the storms inside of me.

So when people ask me,
How are you?
I say I’m fine.
I’ve gotten quite good at hiding anything,
Everything.

I am scared to acknowledge the natural disaster that is my soul,
For I fear that one day it will be my end.

I don’t know if I’m capable of love.

I’ve had too many people use me,
Shy away from me.
I’ve decided if I’m too much,
If I have to sacrifice part of myself to be with someone,
Then I don’t want love, or anything of the kind.

So this isn’t love.
There is nothing romantic about it,
But there is just something about him.

The features of myself I used to hate,
I’ve come to cherish.
There’s a cold, distant expression that warps my face.
What used to be forest, spring green eyes,
Are now eyes laced with a sickly, threatening, green poison.
It wards people off,
Keeps them away.
I always wished for a warm, open face,
But now I embrace the icy sheen that takes over my gaze.

He does not heed my warnings.
I’ve caught him looking my way,
It’s not like I’ve never caught people looking at me before,
They look at me with shy curiosity.
They want to know me better,
I see it in their eyes,
But it’s just for their own personal gain.
They just want me because they think If I accept them,
They’ll finally be complete.
I’m the missing piece.
It’s disgusting.

His eyes though,
They don’t say that.
His eyes are unlike anyone’s I’ve seen before.

There is a blue depth to them.
Not quite like the ocean,
But not quite like the sky either.
I can’t quite put a name to the color,
But they would have to be somewhere between ice blue,
And the blue of the sky on a warm day in the summer,
On a beach,
Far, far away.

His look is a quiet challenge,
Like he knows my ways.
Knows the façade that is the cold, warning look,
That spreads across my face,

And he ignores it.
Presenting a calm, but firm challenge of his own.
When our eyes meet,
He does not look away.

Others will look away out of fear,
Fear that I am judging them,
Fear that I can see right through them,
But he meets my eye,
And challenges me to break our gaze.
I look away every time.

Who is this boy,
With blonde hair,
The color of sand on distant islands.
Who is this boy,
With sunkissed skin,
And a body that’s seen the gym at least a couple times.

Who is this boy,
Who dares to challenge me?
After all I’ve done,
To build my walls,
And keep people out.
Who is this boy,
Who ignores them, and walks right in?

I don’t know.
I don’t even know his name.
But it has been a long time,
Since I’ve felt a stirring of interest,
A curiosity in someone else,
That goes beyond just keeping them away.

I don’t know who he is,
Or what he wants,
But he’s given me hope.
Hope for someone like me,
Someone who’s seen war trenches of their own,
Who still secretly hopes for someone.
Not someone to bring them out,
But to appreciate the scars that have accumulated,
And the battle that will never be forgotten,
In the deep, dark recesses of my mind.

The clock reads 4:30.
My friend is using the bathroom.
That must've been what woke me up.

Although I wish,
I know that is not true.

That frozen feeling in my chest
Resounds with my heartbeat,
Thumping faster and faster as I close my eyes.

My fitbit reads 75 bpm,
I know that can't be true,
It's going faster,
So much faster.

I try to sleep,
But images fill my head.
Dreams, or my own thoughts,
I can no longer tell.

I can't discern them,
All I know is that I am scared,
And right as I touch sleep,
I am jolted awake,
By an erratic heart,
And threatening images.

There is no screaming,
                     thrashing,
I am not awake enough to escape,
But not asleep enough to give in.

It is an all night war with my terror,
I'm not paralyzed,
I can move around,
But it follows.
It always follows.

what silly things are boundaries,
imaginary lines that tell people what they can and can't do.

i can not tell you what my boundaries look like,
for i never had them.

i was a child of use,
every aspect of me was someone else's.

so when my therapist decreed boundaries as my way to light,
as my ticket to mental health salvation,
i did my best.

it was pathetic really.
please don't touch me,
i said in the nicest most placating way i could,
i just don't really like it.

i tried and i failed.
for a child who was so used to achievement,
this failure hit me hard.

it was pathetic.
absolutely pathetic.
what was pathetic?
how easily those who were supposed to listen to me,
support me,
love me,
steamrolled that whimsy little fence i called a boundary.
they annihilated it,
dropped a metaphoric nuke on it with their sneers and greed.

no war is ever won in the first battle though.
so i will keep trying.

No one ever truly prepares you for your first heartbreak.

The crushing, earth shattering impact,
It leaves you breathless,
Barely standing,
Knowing that you should be able to move on, but being unable to.

But then you do,
Move on, that is.
It's growth,
It's wonderful,
A journey of self-discovery and worth.

No.
No one can every truly prepare you for that first punch,
That first blow.

The real kicker though,
the one that knocks you to the ground,
It's the one you weren't expecting.
The one that can hit you at any point in your life.
The one where you were too caught up in your own **** to see it,
To know your heart,
To recognize that the love you always wanted was possible,
It was right there.

Too caught up in yourself to see that he was there,
Waiting.
And you left him there,
Waiting.

You didn't catch up with what he already knew,
And now he's gone.

The inside of you heart feel full of ick and filth,
Like it will never truly be pure,
Or whole,
Or anything close to okay again.

It's a disease,
And you are the virus,
The pathogen.
The source.

The unexpected heartbreak is the one you should be worried about.
I can't prepare you,
But I can try.

Most days I live a normal life.
Normal,
Average,
Unextrordinary life.

It does little to bother me.
In fact,
I revel in it.

For someone who has been at war with the world for so long,
I find that monotony suits me.

But all it takes is a slight tremor,
An unexpected change in plans,
Something that harkens to older days,
Earlier tragedies,
Battles lost and scars faded.

It doesn’t take much to call to the beast inside of me,
The monster that so fiercely protects my broken soul.
And I have yet to learn how to recognize when there is a shadow playing with my mind,
Or an actual threat.

When it finally hits me,
It’s no stunning realization.

Time,
People,
They both seem to ebb and flow around me.
Pushing, shoving, guiding, needing.
I’m in the current of life.

In this river of time and space,
I look for a life raft,
A float,
Anything to bring a spark back to my body,
To make me want to fight again.

But it is in the dead of the night,
In this current that continues to throw me around,
That I realize I am alone,
And no one is coming for me.