She stabs the black object into the gorge,
of her victims now open body cavity.
She smears the blood as it follows her strokes,
Smearing the victim with shades of color.
Her tears roll down her cheeks
As she tries to control her sobs.
Each memory opens a fresh wound in her heart,
And she releases that pain with another anguishing
Slash,
Another added detail.
She pulls back to see her work,
Looking down at her hands smothered in the blood,
From her weapon.
She smiles
Whipping away the freshly spilt tears,
Smearing colors across her face.
She admires the creation of her heartbreak.
-ALC November 15, 2018

The rain spattered on the broken glass,
My heart leaped out of my caved-in chest,
I called out to my love—and saw him pass.

I was left alone, skin soaking in the grass,
Only the staggered beating of my heart as—
The rain spattered on the broken glass.

The next day I wandered late to class
Anxious eyes and beaten heart searching,
I called out to my love—and saw him pass.

I fell to the ground—there was a mass
Of people who had stopped to stare—still,
The rain spattered on the broken glass.

Even today I think myself a foolish lass,
To dream that he’ll return to me.
I called out to my love—and saw him pass.

He gave me a key fashioned from brass,
To lock my heart away for good,
The rain spattered on the broken glass,
I called out to my love—and saw him pass

I've been hiding being these empty smiles
Imprisoned in my own mind
This anguish
Stop me before I bleed
The echoes of her voice
The memories I cast
Follow me down
There must be serenity
While still descending
To the demons of my own design

I want to do a lot right now and in my head I'm doing them.

I'm smashing every single window I see.

I'm bashing my head repeatedly on the pavement, until my brain is rewired correctly.

I'm throwing the new expensive mug I just bought on the floor.

I'm picking up the shards from said mug and smashed windows and ripping my wrists wide open.

I'm laying on the train tracks, my innards splayed out, a spectacle for everyone to admire.

I realize I am too compassionate;
I feel everything at a 100% rate,
and I loathe it so much.
Why do they come on so strong all the time;
it mentally drains me.

I am destined to die early;
I can't see myself living past my mid-thirties.
I learn how to accept death as it is,
and I am slowly learning how to let go.

I want to cry, I want to scream;
I want to voice out this indecipherable torment inside of me.
But no one will understand,
and no one will know;
this mask of mine can't be taken off.

It is what I desire,
yet I want to scream the truth out to the world;
my alternating flow of thoughts,
my constant battle;
it goes down with me to the grave.

This happiness is an illusion;
There's a second mind that takes over,
and blocks away all of the hopelessness.
It brings forth a temporary elation,
a nonchalance,
a pretentious ease.

Is this better?
Does it make me better?
Or does this delude me to the point
where I become more destructive
and cause more harm than cure?

Why does my mind run so much?
Why does this version of me exist?

Because I am born empathetic.
Because I am human.
Because I hold a great understanding of myself,
and a greater awareness of how I am.

But not behind in the how it came to be.

No one holds the answer, and I am forever left with questioning all these endless why's and how's.

Everything else is left unanswered

perhaps until the day I die.

— Y.H.

the end of the tunnel,
gentle fervor.