I.
Put a hand on your stomach.
Diaphragmatic breathing eases anxiety.
So does counting.
I count how many times my stomach rises
until my pulse lowers.

II.
Grounding keeps your feet on Earth,
your mind in the present.
It's called 5-4-3-2-1, but I never get to one.
Five things I see:
starting with all the ashes of things I've burned -
cigarettes to incense to old pictures of us;
posters haphazardly taped to my wall
threatening to fall off at any second;
feathers of my dreamcatcher tangling together;
my ceiling fan rocking from side to side;
an emptiness that fills the room,
painted in the white on the walls.
Four things I can touch:
grasping at words that are working against me;
the oils of my sweating hands,
nervously binding me to my human exterior;
everything else is too far away to touch.
Three things I hear:
the drumming of my anxious fingers
on anything nearby;
the scribble of my pen;
my thoughts demanding to find something
that will get me heard.
Hush, please. Hush.

III.
Your name still carves itself onto my tongue
and settles in my dreams.
You always were good at making yourself
feel at home.

IV.
I am the type of girl whose entire body
becomes whatever color I am dying my hair.
Today, I am red.

V.
I don't feel the words slide off my tongue anymore.
I barely notice them.
I watch them jab at you,
and I feel bad.
I don't mean them.

VI.
"You aren't looking at the whole picture."
The canvas is too big.
I'll take a step back.
My therapist says I take too many steps back.
I'm just trying to see the whole picture.

VII.
The foggy weather proves that I can keep my feet on Earth
and my head in the clouds.
I feel my eyes wide as a deer
as I remember my first love telling me
deer are the most stupid animals,
that they deserve to die,
hours after telling me I remind him of one.

VIII.
That sinking feeling in your stomach
doesn't only occur on roller coasters.

IX.
My head rests in the space behind closed eyes,
the one where shapes and faces appear and disappear
as they please.
I see a door floating in that space,
and I lock my emotions in there
since you hand me the ones I should feel
as necessary.

X.
There are days I see people as people
instead of the feelings they give me -
dread, anger, fear, love.
Their ****** features soften and become more human.
Today is one of those days.

XI.
Today, I see you as human instead of the feelings you give me.
Your ****** features harden,
the look you give me is literally shocking.
I feel more fear than love.

XII.
I fear the sound of slamming doors.
They sound like you.
They are rough,
and I am weak.

XIII.
She showed me a song while singing along.
I wanted to hang onto that feeling,
so I listened to it alone.
It's not the same.

XIV.
I'm talking right now,
but they're unimportant words.
They'll be forgotten in the next five minutes.
Would you believe me,
saying that I once had gardens in my mind?

i can't make myself happy
when i can't get off this chair
too anxious to stop crying
silently hating my stare

my face is so ****** ugly
i'm shaking, i'm trying to stop
nothing could ever console me
this dark and familiar spot

depression that grabs me is all too familiar
i'm crippled and tired, too tired to care

a few pills will save me from cutting my body
again and again i'll make myself sleep
it's always been there, this darkness and crying
but now i know that it's better to sleep

because it escalates to rage and seeing spots
and punching holes in the wall and filling holes from inside with
alcohol and cigarettes and petting my pride

my egotistical mind that thinks that if i look good
at least i have that, and that's one thing i have

so i spend hours in front of the mirror painting my face and doing my hair and ******* hating my face, my ****** stare

if i look long enough i see myself change and no longer am i fragile, i'm filling that space
where i can't hurt i  just harm and push everyone away
it's harder to ache and to look at my face
than it is to get cold and harder to touch and harder to shove

and i can't replace my face with anyone else's
so i better make it perfect
keep on going and try to calm down
keep myself busy and play music loud

so typical.
it's a cycle.
i'm trying.
still breathing.

It was suddenly twenty-eight minutes
                 after three in the morning,
and I found myself in your bedroom.
     Your sheets were cheap and creased,
                     your quilt was older than you,
                   and your pillow cases didn't match.
There were three pillows, and you had all of them.
                                                                ­       I didn't mind.

Your breathing was the steadiest thing in your life right now,
              and your back rose and fell
                          as regularly as your hopes did in the daytime.

                    There was nothing on your back -
           whatever was there
an indefinite number of hours previously
     had joined the convention of disorganized stress on the floor
              that slept a mere seven and a half inches from us.

                      The mattress was as warm as we were,
           and the whole of it held tightly to the scratched hardwood floor
that was probably still owned by those that lived here before you.

                                                           There was an appalling lack
                                            of glow-in-the-dark stars
                              on your dull, cracked ceiling.

Hush little voices
Everyone will hear our thoughts loud and clear
I could feel the eyes staring at me and
the words crawling under my skin
I can listen to my heart thumping too fast to shake the earth underneath me
I fear people might notice my shallow breathes
Hush little voices!!
Hush!!

There is an inherent musicality
To your bare humanity
A soundtrack to what makes you human
There's a rhythm to your movements
There's harmony in your breathing
There are chords in your voice
There's​ a deliberate delicacy to your touch
As if you care deeply about an instrument
There's a tempo to the way you love
And notes in your laugh
And there are so, so many kinds of music
In your solo act.