I'm telling you:
         There must be a way out of here.
I love you with burnt fingertips, with chewed off nails and worrying frowns asking if maybe maybe maybe you could come and fix me.
Sometimes I wonder if we'll ever make it back home.

There's not much I can give you besides twelve suicide attempts and a scarred body.
Flowers don't grow near me. Flowers don't grow in me.
I've never been good with words, but you are a case unsolved, you are stubble-burn on sunday mornings.

Most days I am certain I could love you to ruins.
Most days my skin is too tight for me to move, most days my lungs don't accept oxygen, most days my eyes don't know how to stay closed and
I keep seeing things I don't want to see.
Most days I wonder when I stopped being a city and became an exit wound.

This is not about him. This is about me. This is about the girl who told, about the girl who watched, and smiled, and called me her best friend and then turned around and just talked. This is about the girl that talked.
This is about burning letters and wearing hoodies and fallen leaves on the floor and New Year’s calls and tears. This is about fire. It’s also about me.
Seven days. Seven days. I told her on the fifth and she told her boyfriend on the sixth.

Don’t tell him. Don’t tell him.

                                                         I won’t.

I am not interested in more lies, in more *******, in more apologies. I am not interested in you. I stopped being interested in you the moment your ******* boyfriend told my not-boyfriend that he and I were a thing. When did that choice become yours? WHEN DID THAT CHOICE BECOME YOURS?

CALL ME A ***** FOR DOING THIS. CALL ME A ***** FOR RUINING BUILDINGS AND BUILDING CITIES AND MAKING THIS ABOUT FIRE. CALL ME A ***** FOR MAKING THIS A BLAZE. YOU DID NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO. YOU DID NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO LIGHT THE MATCH.
STAY AWAY FROM THE CIGARETTES, STAY AWAY FROM THE CIGARETTES. CALL ME A *****, CALL ME A ******* *****. I DON’T CARE. I DON’T CARE. THIS WAS NOT YOUR CALL TO MAKE.
I WOULD HAVE LIT THE MATCH WHEN I WAS READY. I WOULD HAVE LIT THE ******* MATCH WHEN I WAS READY, BECAUSE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY ******* LIFE, DARLING, THIS WAS ABOUT ME.

YOU MADE IT ABOUT HIM. YOU MADE IT ABOUT HIM. I DID NOT CONSENT TO HAVING THREE PEOPLE IN A RELATIONSHIP, SO WHY ARE YOU HERE? ACTUALLY, I DID NOT EVEN CONSENT TO HAVING A RELATIONSHIP.

YOU LIT THE FIRE, YOU LIT THE ******* FIRE AND I AM DONE. PAINT MY NAME IN BLOOD ON THE REMNANTS OF THE CITIES I BURNED. I DON’T CARE.

THIS WAS NOT ABOUT ME. THIS WASN’T EVEN ABOUT HIM. YOU—YOU MADE THIS ABOUT YOU.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS LEAVING—THERE IS ONLY FIRE NOW. CALL ME THE BUILDER OF CITIES THAT DROWN. CALL ME THE FOUNDER OF THE NOTHING. I DON’T CARE. I DON’T CARE.
I STOPPED CARING ABOUT YOUR TREES AND ROOTS AND FLOWERS THE DAY YOU TOLD ME I WOULD NEVER BE MORE THAN HANDS HELD UP IN DEFENSE. THE DAY YOU TOLD ME I WOULD NEVER LOVE ANYTHING MORE THAN I LOVED THE SUN.
LET ME TELL YOU THIS, BABY, I AM NOT DEAD. I AM NOT DEAD. I AM NOT DEAD. I AM NOT DEAD. NO MATTER HOW MANY PEOPLE YOU LIKE TO TRICK INTO THINKING I AM, OR WAS, OR WILL BE. I AM NOT. I AM NOT A PUPPET, EITHER, AND EVEN IF I WAS, DARLING, YOU WOULD NOT BE THE ONE HOLDING ONTO THE STRINGS. NOT ANYMORE. NOT ANYMORE.
I AM DIFFERENT NOW; STRONGER, HANDS LESS LIKELY TO GRAB AND HOLD, KNEES MORE LIKELY TO KEEP ME FROM FALLING. I’VE BEEN TAUGHT HOW TO STEP AWAY FROM BEING A PERSON; I’VE BEEN TAUGHT HOW TO BECOME SOMETHING LESS, SOMETHING MORE.

my hands haven’t
stopped shaking,
since she’s left
she took my soul with her

heartless and numb
cold to the pain
i break my teeth on bottles,
forgetting your name

i want me back,
my peace and my sanity
for all you caused was pain
put a dagger in my chest
and ****** my name

i miss you
i wont lie
my love for you is true
but the pain you left is everlasting
so when i call for you
i find myself, screaming
catastrophe.

I don't know
My stomach is in knots tonight
And I need someone to help untie them.
And kiss my forehead
Or something.
Please love me.
I'm not desperate, I'm drunk.
I'm shivvering and very upset and very cute.
Love me.

Albany Rosaline Smith.
On Mondays Albany went down to the store to get milk.
Her mother always gave her twenty five cents.
Twenty for the milk,
And five for some candy.
All the boys she passed along the way would tell her how she was
Genuinly beautiful.
And she knew it.
Albany was gorgeous.
On her sixteenth birthday she let Bobby Fisher
**** her under the oak tree
Out back in the feild behind the pond.
"You're something special there, Albany,"
He told her.
She knew it was true,
But it was a nice gesture,
So she let him **** her from behind this time.
Albany became Misses Fisher two years later,
Three weeks after graduation.
It was just the thing to do back then.
They had four kids,
And she was a good mom.
Mathilda, Lizabeth, Marcus, and Temprance.
Three of which were Bobby's.
One of which was the town physician's.
Bobby never knew.
He was a mill worker.
He was not very bright.
But Albany was.
Bright and Beautiful.
She died at the age of forty-two.
She was ***** an killed by the doctor.
He was also the mortician,
So no one questioned it.
It was a small town

It's midnight.
Outside, people are singing a birthday song for one of my neighbours.
Inside, I have been taking an ice cold shower for over an hour because it's just as painful as cutting open my skin when I turn the water scalding hot every fifteen minutes, but it doesn't leave any scars.
My phone died. The shrink was trying to talk me out of it and into my own bed, promised he wouldn't leave, wouldn't leave me alone, not him, not this time. He said he would help me through it. I believed him. Still do. I guess I'll find out if that's stupid. Later. When he leaves.
Skin was just talking. She's good at that. She's always been good at that. The way her words wrap around everything bad in my head and suffocate it makes me want to curl up and sleep everything off.
Lumberjack just... just was. I don't know how he knew. He just did. Sometimes I wish I could talk to him.
But there's a reason I pray cold showers will mimic the rain and wash everything away. There's a reason for every faint line on my legs, my arms, my stomach.
I say: Crying is for the weak.
Shrink says: Crying is for those who deal. It's for people who've been strong.
I deal in my own way. It's the only way that seems to work. The only way I can think of. Nothing soothes better than red drops and raindrops.
I should crawl into bed. I should never come out again. I should die here, on the bathroom floor, surrounded by tiles and soap and cold water. I should die somewhere else, somewhere safe, somewhere private. I should seek out an empty spot and slit my wrists. How do you slit your second wrist, anyway? I read that most people pass out before they can make the most damaging cut.
No. I should crawl into bed. There's no reason for thirteen. There's no reason for blood, or death, or my mother crying. There's no reason for flowers or funerals or picking out your best suit.

It's 1AM. I'm still in the shower.

Said boys are usually found in nightclubs, where they’ll grab your waist and whisper in your ear but six months later you’ll find yourself drunk texting them that you miss them and they won’t respond.

2. Said boys walk like fire and look like they’re burning, ashes trailing behind them and you, too, will be nothing but a burnt out shell when they’re done with you, honey.

3. Said boys draw patterns on the small of your back and when they have left, their touches will have sunken into your skin and left scars deep beneath it.

4. Said boys call you sweetheart, look at you like you hung the moon, smile at you like you’re everything, everything, everything—

5. Said boys claw out your heart with blunt fingers, plant seeds of insecurity in between your ribs, call you broken after they have crushed every bone in your body.

6. Said boys hand you drinks and see your acceptance as an open invitation to ruin you.

7. Said boys will always ruin you.  

8. Said boys like short dresses in ruby red, like blood, like blood, like blood.

9. Said boys may act like they’re kissing your body but they’re looking for weak spots with their mouths.

10. Said boys know your mother raised you well, know you will not cry over a man when you’ve been through worse, know you are strong—

11. Said boys know your father gave you a pocket knife, know the ****** 101 he gave you when you turned thirteen.

12. Said boys will not follow you in their cars, will not corner you in an alleyway, will not walk too close behind you on the sidewalk.

13. Said boys will take you on dates and kiss you after the fourth, said boys will take it slow, said boys will text you good morning beautiful’s and call ******* making love.

14. Said boys will not look like their shoulders are too weak, or their voices too quiet.

15. Said boys will make sure no monster can enter your bed but them.

16. Said boys will make you thank them for it.

17. Said boys like it when you smile at them, like an open invitation to let them ruin you.

18. Said boys will always ruin you.

"Before you left you slammed me up against a wall, ripped open my chest and laid a broken record on my heart. Now my insides only play the same **** tune, screaming at me "he never loved you."
-Kahla Mercadante