I have this part of me,
A glaringly large part of me,
That I must hide from the world.
Symptoms, thoughts, feelings, and emotions
that I have to cram into a little lunchbox.
By the end of the day this little box weighs
a hundred pounds,
And I alone unpack it's contents
every night.

It's exhausting.
And I'm tired.

How does it feel?

To be a leech?
To siphon the life out of everyone who has the misfortune of breathing your air?
To paint the room with a stench so thick with wickedness that the walls cave in around you?

How does it feel to loathe the essence of your own animal so loudly-
And yet, so shamefully?
Does it soften the torment?
Or do you just lie in it?
Sink in it?
Drown in it?

Does it really cut you open like the Curse of Aphrodite?
Feast on your rancid, rotted, spirit?
Or is it just Ananke and Phthonus smoldering in your veins?
Fueling your fire together
and igniting that foul and wretched creature inside of you?  

How does it feel to bare witness?
To be consumed by us?
To be plagued by the melody of our magic,
knowing your seething rage forever falls on deaf ears?

Does it bubble up through your chest and spill out of your ***** stained spout?
Does it flood your fragile bones,
and your tormented mind,
and your weak, trembling hands?

And does it soothe your bleeding tongue to swallow the sharpness of my sword?
And does it keep your embers warm to see yourself in her?
Or are you freezing?
In your own inexorable desolation?
Your casket of delusion?
In the frigid blight of a just exile?

Tell me:
How does it feel to sit in your brokenness?
To be so fractured by sickness?
So poisoned with envy?
What is it then,
Is it the purity of my blade you so desperately lust after?
Or just a mouthful of blood?

How does it feel to know,
in the deepest parts of you,
that when you lick your yearning lips at the thought of her,
you are tasting the flesh of your own captor?

How does it feel?
I’m glad I’ll never know.

the bus is coming
and it’s raining outside.
i’m cold,
and my shaking fingers are
shooting missiles toward you from
fifteen miles away.
texting is the worst form of communication.

the bus is coming
and it’s raining outside.
can’t you ever answer the
******* phone when i call you?
do you even love me? do you
care that i’m in pain?
do you care that i’m waiting here,
alone, cold,
while you have your car and
some other ***** snuggled up under your arm?

the bus is coming
and it’s raining outside.
what am i supposed to do,
leave you when you say you don’t care about me?
others have told me that i’m resilient
and i don’t want to make liars out of my friends.
i can take this. i can take this.
i’m not afraid of pain.
keep hurting me. tell me to **** myself
and i’ll kiss your calloused fingers
and worship you like nothing else.
i am on my knees
and the lentils you had me kneel on
are beginning to cut through my skin.
baby? do we still call each other,
baby?

the bus is coming
and it’s raining outside.
do you remember that morning
when you called me a fat ******* *****
because i spilled coffee all over the kitchen floor?
do you? because i do.
and i would crawl through the coffee and the
scattered glass like a dead man does through hell,
trying to get to something better
but knowing they never will.

the bus is coming
and it’s raining outside.
i am not crazy.
well, i am crazy.
but i’m not crazy here.
here, i need you to hear me.
don’t just say you do-
actually do it.
pull my heart out and look how it
pulsates with love.
every beat was made for you
and you just won’t look.
you won’t listen.

the bus is coming
and it’s raining outside.
i have put my hands
through blazing fire to
soothe your enormous ego
and you can’t pick me up
from the ******* bus stop.
****! what’s a girl got to do
to find a man that will
lick her wounds and devour
her fears? am i not worthy of love?
should i just **** myself?

the bus is coming
and it’s raining outside.
i’m a mistake. i am unlovable.
i am a ruined being left alone by God to
suffer in this hell we call life.
everything he says about me is right.
i’m difficult. i cry too much. i’m too depressed.
i’m crazy. i’m crazy. i’m crazy.

the bus is coming
and it’s raining outside.
what was i thinking?
i don’t need a man. i don’t need anyone!
i am more godly than anything up in the sky
or beneath the earth!
i am the vacuum of space
and i’ll suffocate those who think
i’m anything less than perfect.
why won’t he pick up
the ******* phone?

the bus is coming
and it’s raining outside.
i check my phone.
it’s 7:11pm.
the bus isn’t coming.
i don’t think it ever was.

When I stand at the ocean shore
I can look far in the endless horizon
It's the mirror of the emptiness inside

Storms come up and Followed by sunshine
That reflects my mood swings inside
It changes faster than day turns to night

The Ocean shore marks my emotional borderline
If I step over, I could drown
But if I stay, the path will be dark

The waves mark my friendships
Try to hold on to them, but in the end they break
But some are not like waves, they are who will stay

I take a photo of this view in black and white
Do I like the endlessness or the ocean shore
I can't like both, so I have to decide

I build a few lines with Stones
The Wind and time tries to destroy the lines
But they will stay, like my scars

https://youtu.be/q067Au9GA-g?si=VZC-v8SnXGx5xP-X

I'm lucky enough to live in a city with a great poetry scene (and more specifically the Dayton Poetry Slam open mics) which ive recently started attending... last time i went one of the people who runs it asked if he could play the recording of this poem on the radio (which I'm beyond excited about) sometime in September (date still TBD)... bear in mind this was 2 weeks before my first visit to the psych ward and about a month and a half before my first attempt (since I was a kid), although im doing a bit better now. This is what I'd originally written to say beforehand (but got too nervous 😆):

This one isn't really my best or favorite but its definitely my most personal... I've struggled with suicidal thoughts and feelings for almost as long as I can remember, tried to **** myself when I was 9 but wouldn't acknowledge it to myself as a serious attempt til I was in my early to mid 20s cuz I didn't get hurt... then it wasn't until I looked back on it and realized that no, I definitely was trying to (which is part of how I came to realize I have bpd since I shouldn't have reasonably wanted to or tried to at that age like I did)... unfortunately the feelings have never gone away, and although I haven't tried again since then I have gotten pretty **** close. It seemed like things had gotten better for a while, then worse, then better, then worse again... but I've been holding out for things to get better again and I guess what I'm really trying to say is just that so long as you're still holding on, things can get better again. It may not feel like it for a long time and the whole time you might be asking yourself if it ever can but so long as you're still holding on things can get better eventually (in ways we may never expect), but if you give up too soon you'll never see it happen. So just hold on.

Breeze bellows,
leaves echo in
quivering psithurism,
dithering like
unbroken smoke,
this approaching omen goads.

Dozing crows
slumbering in rows,
droves of locusts'
silenced drone,
almost comatose in repose;
nighttime overtones
choir of toads'
raspy croaks
answered by alto
of crickets' orchestral strokes.

Gust encroaches;
robed boughs
cloven open,
bring into
scope and focus
me juxtaposed,
suspended apropos.

Although motionless
and petrified in stone,
provoked by zephyr
coaxing to and fro;
swaying pendulous
and no longer frozen,
locus gently thrown.

Death rattle moan
evoked from throat,
reflex can't say no
to rigor rigidly posed,
final sigh in silence,
awoken vocal,
expelled and disposed.

Smote by
morose emotion,
gun loaded then exploded
by neurosis,
now bloated
necrosis decomposes
into gross ochre.

This trophy
and this ode
both an opus to
my inability to cope;
romanced i proposed,
eloped and betrothed to
my own
inappropriate composure.

Pocket full of posies
plucked when luck bestowed
and tears in a cup, a toast;
crying copiously,
tempest runneth overflowed,
eyes swollen and soaked.

Dipped my toes
in the coast
of this ocean's
amorphous folds,
gripped by undertow
holding control of my soul;
swiftly shipwrecked in
shallow shoal,
an old atoll.

On sandy floor,
water burrows roads;
digging, carving, roams
through unmarrowed
silica and sandstone
eroding into a cove.

A host for
opal geode trove,
enclosing a
technicolor rose,
from the depths
a glowing mosaic shone

Unopened lotus floats
on foam
of lapping waves,
a boat;
prone to no
grandiose notion
or motive,
adrift as wind stokes.

I suppose
this only shows
the total corrosion
into which I dove,
the only foes to oppose
are those of burdens, so
only weightless can I atone-
I must let go.

Internal monologue,
to self, a note:
prose and poetry
I wrote
to what I loathe,
every word I chose
a potent seed of
grief I sowed.

Sturdy oak's
branches, limbs,
and stoic bones
turning into woes of
a weeping willow's roots
overgrown and exposed.

Grain of timber groans,
bends and bows
in billowing wind blown;
a coat of leaves
in ribbons, clothes,
cloaking grove and
hanging rope below;
around my neck,
coiled and closed,
asphyxiating, chokes.

Ungasping,
thrashing throes,
no breath can flow,
slowly losing hope;
devoted to
an unspoken oath,
towing this
floating ghost and
shadow of an ego
dangling alone
on threadbare throne,
only home
I've ever known.

So what, to this world,
do i still owe
and why can't I
just
let
go?

I was floating in honey.
The viscosity of the substance
Made it so that, while I still needed to work
To keep my head afloat,
I had a little extra support.
So I didn't have to do it alone.
And it was good.

But my temperature began to rise.
I became too hot too fast, and,
Because of my actions
I started to destroy the beneficial parts
That the honey needed to remain useful and healthy.
So the honey reacted:
Threw my melting self out of its jar.
I tried to jump back in
But the honey firmly ******* its lid back on,
And my charring fists
Fruitlessly pounded on the boundary
The honey had erected.

Then as my body and brain burned,
The other honey jars disappeared-
Distancing in acts of self-preservation.
I knew how I could get my temperature
Back to baseline.
I just needed a little help
So I could work to get back to my normal self.
But my actions had pushed away what I needed.
So I accepted the fate I had caused,
And allowed my body to fall to ash.