I despise social media.
It's ugly, to state the obvious
Our lives are posted, re-tweeted, altered, re-blogged, perfected, and photo shopped to exactly how we want to be perceived
We have the freedom to be exactly what they want us to be.

It starts with a few edits doesn't it,
pigmented our skin to seem smooth and sun kissed,
that would seem most acceptable right?
Maybe an extra like for the skinnier waist.
More reassurance for brighter colors.
Some more filters will hid the emptiness you feel with your friends
   Another like
Flashier clothing, phones, shoes, cars, other simple words our eyes have latched on to
     Another like
We urge ourselves to portray the life of leisure and effortless beauty, happiness, success,
       Another like
But what are we enjoying?
         Another like
Views of our changing world through a 3 by 8 view.
           Another like
Events pass by swipe
             Another like
and swipe
               Another like

And when we managed to unlock ourselves from this grasp
We always come back
Like flies to light, more like scratches to a scab
Festering we find ourselves getting sucked back in
To an imaginary world, that if destroyed, would have no physical effects on their fictional beings
For without this world, maybe eyes will open
We will step past the boundaries,
and start to love our beings
unfiltered

you cannot heal in the same place you were broken
and once you leave
you will understand

understand that the broken floorboards glued your feet down
and the floral curtains bound your wrists
and the familiar hallways were just mazes
created to keep you lost

but someday you will leave
and destroy the floorboards
the floral curtains
and the hallways that kept you in

you will find peace somewhere else
maybe within the trees
or the bustle of the city

and then you will heal

I feel your absence like the sound machine in my therapists office. It sounds like static, white noise, I know it’s only there to distract me from what the person inside her room is discussing.
An elderly woman walks out and folds the blanket she has wrapped around her body and places it gently on the ground. She is laughing to herself lightly. I wonder why she sees my therapist.
I clutch the tissues in my hand and look at the floor. I don’t want her to look at me. I smell like patchouli because of this stress relief spray I found sitting in the waiting room that I decided to spray all over my skin. I want to open up the bottle and drink it. At this point, I want relief almost more than I want you.
I hear her typing on her computer and wonder how long it’ll take for her to open the door and tell me to lay on her couch. I haven’t seen her in a few months and I wonder if it’ll be awkward, but my senses are on overdrive so I’m sure I’ll just end up crying.
There’s a circular table with six different teas, coffees, Emergen-C’s and a jar of honey sitting directly in front of me and a box of affirmations to my left. I shake my foot because I can’t sit still. I shake my foot because the sound machine is giving me anxiety. I shake my foot because I’m in a bad spot, again. I don’t know who I am, why I’m here, or who I’ll become. I miss you.
You made me feel grounded and I know you felt the same from me. I loved that feeling, you hated it. I need that feeling, you try your best to push it away.
I don’t feel like I’m panicking, or anxious, I only feel sad. I want your skinny little lips on my neck and I want to feel safe in your bedroom. I imagine what you and her are talking about in those green text messages and my stomach goes into a knot. It’s gotta be something surface level.  Disgustingly surface level, the kind of small talk that makes me puke. Small talk is comfortable to you.
The analog clock ticks loudly and I wonder if she’s doing it on purpose. I want her to open the door fifteen minutes early and allow me to start crying sooner, I feel these tears deep inside my chest and I don’t want to stuff them down. But I’m going to, outside in the real world.
I wonder when we are going to talk again and I have to acknowledge that it isn’t up to me. Most things aren’t. I wish I had more respect for myself so I could hate you for what you’ve done to me but I’ll just call myself overly empathetic and understand your actions instead. That hurts, you know, always trying to find the good in people. It hurts because sometimes there isn’t any good, but I am still here searching. I hope there’s more good because I want to go to the pumpkin patch and make out in the corn field again but you want to do whatever you want, whenever you want it and I’m only an after thought. I wish I was whatever you wanted.
I still have twelve minutes until she opens the door. I want to have a therapy appointment three times a week, I want to have a therapist who tells me what to do. I want the love of my life to not hurt me so bad, I want to be loved gently. Kindly. Carefully.
There’s a difference between want and need and gentleness was never something I put on my to do list. Instead I wrote independent, tough, hard to love, detached. I wrote difficult, stubborn, distant. I wrote down every single bad quality you have and decided to love it more, decided it made you YOU, decided I could walk through the mud as long as I got to lay on the beach the next day.
It’s been a full week since I last slept at your house. We’ve talked everyday but it has felt like the static the noise machine is making. I still have nine minutes until she’ll open the door. I still have days on weeks on months until you’ll consider opening yours up one more time.
You did this, but I’m here hurting. This isn’t what I asked for, I did everything right. I don’t have as many tears left as I thought I did. I’m going to go to the gym and lay in a park and try to push off feeling sorry for myself until I have no other choice. I want to push away all these feelings, maybe it’ll lessen them. Maybe the wound is still open and blistering and I just keep pouring patchouli stress relief spray right inside it. Patchouli is your favorite scent. One time you told me you were only tobacco and patchouli and you bought me a candle with that scent for Christmas. You’re the opposite of stress relief.
I miss you, but I know not speaking to you for a little while is going to help me. I don’t like talking to you when I can’t call you mine. I don’t like the way it feels to kiss your small lips and feel your jaw tighten. You hugged me so tight and I took one more step and leaned in. You said goodbye, and I said that was a mistake, I shouldn’t have done that, and walked hurriedly to my car.

It hides in the spaces between
every adjective I spit out
like milk that’s gone bad,
patiently waiting
to lace its fingers around
the back of my neck
and pull me closer with
its newest allure
cigarette breath,
kiss me to death.

Nestled as a punchline,
after every minor inconvenience
like accidentally running out of gas
or driving past my old place
and knowing
someone else
lives there now.

Showing up
when least expected;
I find leftover bits of it,
stuck to me indefinitely,
like forgotten electrodes
glued to my body
I peel them off
one by one
but somehow
there’s always more.

Realities don't hurt
my individuality --
they once did.

Realities don't hurt me.

Check this out:

No one cares about an addict,
unless they've found god
out in the desert sands.

Problem is,
this Earth, even as green and blue,
is all a giant wasteland, which
has decided I fit right in.

I fit right in.

Would a god try and find me,
in return? I'm pretty sure,
they wouldn't have time for that.
Especially when,

in a giant pen of temporary wills,
I fit right in.

If Gawd's children tip their pens
in front page worthy salvation,
then dip dip dip, because,

I have found that I am just
as artistically fulfilled
while hidden, as I am in light.

Enjoy your safe temp warming lamp
before consumers come to eat you.

I know what it means to give in.
I've already tasted the warm beer,
the sticky counters of a mid day bar on the breath of a tall man.
I've heard of sorrow's dependence and
I see what it turns us into.
Stigmatized and scented of sidewalk's old gum,
Invisible to the naked eye, the seeing eye, the breathing eye.
How the folds of skin come faster-
The voice- crackled like old tinfoil used again and again.
I can picture it all, I can see it in the mirror.
I admit to the fear of it. I admit to the dread I so detest in the faces of privileged youth;
Washed up, Burned out.
In high school a concept I easily accepted as being applied to myself.
But as my cycle of living and dying draws to its middle ground-
I feel it, the horror. The relief in the knowledge that I'm not like that. I'm not like that...
I carry my voice like church bells and feel myself grin at this mantra,
Even as i taste hesitation's sour malingering bite.

How quickly
this |all for fun| addiction
set a course bearing
toward my total dependency.

LSD: I indulge once or twice a year.
A shamanistic, healing dance,
performed in the name of love,
and connectivity to ancient
echoes of my indigenous blood.

MDMA: I dance the whole night,
once or twice a year. Fill my
absorbent emptiness to its rim
with a tinge of feeling somewhat
reminiscent of happiness.

You think: dark. wasteful. reckless.
You think ill? Let me say, then,
as a person, versed in the first person,
weed is the worst. Weed: bad.

Here's the thing. It's easier.
To normalize. A gentle thing,
that doesn't hurt you, but.
I'm demure. Unfocused.
Unaware, again, of musculature.
I smoke to staunch. The aching pain.
But here's the thing: I don't move.

Is it just me? Possibly. Is it only me,
in this world of subdued fever?
Definitely not. That much: impossible.
I gave in. A time ago. To feeling calm.
I'm. I'm on top. High on pot. All the time.

I want. Want to stop. All the time.
It's true: I've become the traitor to our kind.
I like truth. Do you?
I need the truth.

I've fucked up.
But it's not.
Not too late.
Pumping blood.
Love myself,
and hate,
hate myself.

I smoke weed. Every day.
I want to stop.

to think about an addiction
like it’s a sentient being,
but that’s how it feels.

like it’s something living
inside you. something
you can’t get rid of because
killing it means killing you.

i can’t really understand
addictions to drugs or alcohol.
things that control you.

but an eating disorder
is an addiction you control.
wait, is that paradoxical?
i prefer to believe not.

either way, i kick off my shoes,
slide along the tile and into
the kitchen, calming my genie

with promises. twinkies. ice
cream bars. Halloween candy.
screw the trick-or-treaters.

Emptied yourself of emotions
Nothing remains but shadows and rain
Warmth inside diminishing
Numbness spreads throughout each vein

Used to be so alike
Hardly recognize you in this state
I am too fragile to withstand
Damage from the drug I hate

Despise you for letting it win
I see you surrender, can't speak
I get embarrassed loving someone
So selfish, careless, and weak.

I imagine I look pretty stupid
To those who saw the picture from afar
Cut the best parts of my heart out for you
To this day you keep them in a jar

Swallowed by powerful doubts
Choking on tears that pour
Sinking in confusion building
Frozen by longing for what we had before

Staring through hazy promises
Walking in a resentful fog
Alone, hollow, unable to let go
Shards of our relationship spell our epilogue

Litter floor with broken dreams and syringes
They cut, scream at me to turn around
Try and patch our injured hearts
They grow weaker with each pound

Yet we continue attempting
To repair the love we destroyed
I need to accept that you're no longer you
Where your soul once was there is now only a void