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Erin Ross Jul 2017
Ana
She's got me again.
Pushed up against the doorway.
And its so warm inside.

My breath, you can see,
Shaking against the winter
That seeps into her eyes and settles in her bones.

Her fingers line my shoulders
And fidget their way to my ribs
Where flowers do grow but never stay for dinner.

And I dont stop her
Because she holds me above water sometimes.
And I dont really want to drown.
Meg Jul 2017
I'm not me.
I may be you.
Or her.
Or him.
Or them.
But I'm not me.
My chest aches with the feeling of wanting to be belonged.
My heart aches with the feeling of wanting to be loved the way that I love.
My head aches because I want to scream.
While my bones turn to jelly, and my thoughts turn to suicide.
Everynight is long.
Everyday is tiring.
I wish you'd understand that my brain aches for something I don't believe I have.
You may think, that I am insane. Or considering I'm technically you, I may think I am insane.
These personalities swarm me, and I've never known myself.
Someone may love your laugh because it's unique. The way your nose cringed because of a smell. The way your eyes sparkle when you see something exciting.
Those are traits that make you .. you.
I'm swarmed. You have something to call you're own.
I'm not me. You have something to grow off of.
I may be you. You have something that people will love.
Or her. You have something people will come back for.
Or him. You have something that won't run.
Or them. You have something that makes you unique.
But I'm not me. You have something that I want.
Meg Jul 2017
When you fail at loving others, you won't think of suicide.
Because suicide is the imaginary house you built with her.
Suicide is the family and life you built with her in the late night time.
When you fail, you will hide all the knives in your house.
If you get your hands on them, you'll carve her name into every surface you can reach. This includes yourself.
Her smile is almost equivalent to kittens, I say almost because kittens couldn't light your heart on fire like her smile does.
The few times you've touched her hair, will be the few times you remember so late at night when your demons are suffocating you.
You always got mad when she spoke bad about herself.
If she loved someone as imperfect as you, how did she hate herself?
Its all silly thoughts.
She never loved herself, but loved every inch of you.
But, you are the same. You loved absolutely every inch of her. But never loved yourself.
She was the cream and sweet touch to every scar upon your thighs and arms.
She melted you down and made you feel good.
That one day you lost her. And guilt spreads in your chest like a cage trying to contain a garden of thorns.
Your stomach rumbles of hunger, but you're not hungry.
You resist eating, and your stomach is ripping from the inside.
Her hair, her smile, rips you apart more than your stomach.
More than the guilt that is spreading in your chest.
When she doesn't answer your messages, you can see yourself on the 32nd floor of a building.
You watch as your own heart jumps out of your chest and commits suicide on the pavement.  
You are sorry for being a failure to such a beautiful ray of sun.
Her eyes will wonder to others, while yours will continue to stay on her.
Even though she took your mind off your tics, and disorders.
Even though she made you feel safe, almost as though you stopped suffocating.
You have to smile, because she smiles.
And God, you love that smile.
Tyler Matthew Jul 2017
With your parting,
the sun was pushed aside
by grey clouds and silver moon,
dropped down below the horizon
and didn't rise again for some time.
Summer ended and autumn began
too soon, with leaves coating the
rooftops and sidewalks and
everyone talked about the doom
riding wind, swift,through the town.
        Down and down, everything fell,
but the light did not touch a thing.
Darkness was the language,
darkness was the doctrine.
In the plazas and asylums,
I saw this shift in reason,
wisdom falling from the brain
like flesh from the bone,
driven hard down into dirt and
left alone. The madness swelling
outside like cold air in a lung.
Then came the snow with an angry
wind, hung in the halls and bedrooms, hospitals and cathedrals,
me asking, "why did you go?"
The radio crackled with static fear,
and everyone who hadn't gone mad
went mad and disappeared into
crumbling homes with ***** windows, their fates forever sealed,
like pointless letters into envelopes.
       I wrote you from the madhouse,
hand shaking with indecision,
words risen out of dread,
words you read but never reached you, telling you that,
with your parting, the whole world
has gone to hell.
R M Jul 2017
I try not to worry
her
So much that sometimes
I answer
I’m fine
before
Hello
when she calls
because I know to her
I’m still more bone than
skin
I’m an empty bottle of
pills
One breath away from non
existence
A blood stain she scrubbed
with her tears
I’ve already worried years
off of her life
while trying to end
my own
So when she phones to
to check on me
I’ll always be fine
no matter what is
going on in my life
and sometimes before
Hello
lia Jul 2017
i.
As I looked up,
I see
A cunning adult;
Constantly taking over my life.

ii.
As I looked down,
I see
A pitch-black shadow;
Engulfing me in the dark.

iii.
As I looked ahead,
I see
A mere child;
Laughing at my failures.

iv.
As I looked back,
I see
A grim nightmare;
Smiling from ear to ear.
They said angels can fly,
But I've been living with four angels
And none of them can fly;

Although I wish they could,
So that they can make their way
Out of my head.
Amanda Stoddard Jun 2017
Who am I
but a tracer at the forefront?
a direct result of pain,
so these images
are always distorted-
disfigured and misconstrued
malignancy swallowing me whole.

who am I
but my disorder
scraping away at my vision
so all I do in return
is feel everything
and witness nothing.

I am floating above these memories
with my hands reaching out
to touch, fight or throw away
whatever it is that's holding me back-
when will my sight return?

who am I but
a chaser of these wishes.
a runner after dreams
that stay that way
because my feet can't move.

how do I answer the question
when someone asks,
"what happened to you?"

who am I
but a body?
one they stole
away from me
so when I look into the mirror
I only see what they did to me.

who am I
but a mind
too in competition
with my former self
nose-diving into
self-destruction
one thought at a time.

who am I
but a girl
in a dark corner
replaying her past
until it deafens her
and she doesn't
remember the sound of her own voice.
All she hears is the silence
of what she should've spoken up for.

Who am I
but a name on a list,
a placeholder-
a speaker to other poets?

who am I
but a lost destination
no one remembers the name of.
too run-down
and has-been
just a point on a map.

Who am I
but these things I feel?
Who am I
without these things I feel?

Who am I but this trauma
caked inside of my mouth, on my teeth
and hiding underneath my tongue.
When will I be clean?

Who am I
but a survivor
telling stories
of the past
like PTSD is my calling card?

Who am I,
who am I
who am I?
but the things they have done to me?

Who am I
but a survivor?
paint the word in red across
the lines I have drawn over these years.

Hang it banner style in the offices
of the therapists who know more
about me than my father.

Tell it to the people
who broke me in half.

say it again
to the boy who shattered my insides.

scream it at the face
of doubt and insecurity
and remembrance.

Survivor.
It is not always black and white.
sometimes it is void of color-
emotionless and distinctive

But it is who I am-
speaking with this
chestful of trauma
learning how to breathe
around it as I go.
retinoblastoma is childhood eye cancer.
blushing prince Jun 2017
Wash your hands before leaving.
Every afternoon the television would have a woman in tears
Spanish dialogue, pastel colored sets
Tongue in cheek, modern romance sipping iced tea by the pool
The antagonist wearing a suit and three rings on each finger
Pause.
Soap bars are made of fat, the grease found in
Breakfast diners and sweat off a teenagers face
The lipids turning gelatinous and all I can think of is
Jell-o; the strange colored dessert that doesn’t taste like anything real
My hands begin to itch and I stand up
Wash your hands before leaving.
My hands have become open desert, dry animosity
The skin around the knuckles is delicate, one clench of a fist
I am sure that it will tear, like the skirt of a girl I once knew
But there are creatures lurking everywhere
In the handle of the bathroom door, in the shake of another hand
In the touch of a frame, in the grip of a key
Wash your hands before leaving.
The scattered murmurs on the screen remind me its 5p.m
The women are arguing with their manicured hands
Their eyes all having the same spidery lashes, spiders
I feel insects crawling under my bones
Termites clipping at my heels as I sit in this couch of horrors
I didn’t know the last time it had been washed
It smelled of the 1970’s and I want to go home
The babysitter is on the other chair reclined
Snoring, letting out bacteria through her mouth
At 8 years old I should be on the floor with a coloring book
My lips are dry, the screen is too bright, I can feel the filth everywhere I turn
So I stay
I hear the door knock and it’s my mother picking me up after work
My lungs sigh of relief
Time to go
But first
let me wash my hands before I leave
my experience with ocd as a child
All the things we do,
For illness,
To make ourselves worse;
It fuels the pain,
But we know we're just going back again.

What's the use?
Why not lose when there's
Nothing left
To win?
We give in,
Just so that this nothingness can win.

It's fine,
You're going to survive,
But do you completely want to?
Maybe you can't decide,
So instead you hide it inside.

You're told to get better,
But what does that mean?
It means you stop acting,
You get over it eventually.
Really?
Maybe if you're careful;
Find a way to fix yourself;
Make sure you don't break again.

Now move forward,
It's been a few years,
That's what everyone thinks.
You're all good now,
Even you believe,
At last you can do anything
-except what you were doing,
That is.
Avoid it like the plague,
To try to stay safe,
Although really you try creeping back,
Just to catch a glimpse of something
You know you shouldn't be looking at.

Then you wonder
About sending yourself back:
To the days in Hell,
The fight for escape,
Waiting for it to be over,
To be left alone.
**** the actions first,
Then learn how to cope
Without what you were destroying yourself with.

You're fine for now,
At least you guess you are,
Only you're surrounded by sorrow,
The misery with bouts of
Alright, just great.
But darkness lurks around the corner,
So will you follow,
Or do what you're supposed to be continuing with?

You want control,
Part of you wants to feel something,
Other than these emotions,
To stop hearing these thoughts,
And press stop on the memories,
Because with the present it hurts you,
Damaging - like what doesn't exist.

One time, go on:
Repeat like you used to,
What's the reason not to
When you just feel like you're lacking
Some of what you need?
And what is that?
The truth, surrender,
A cease to all this,
Someone else to leave?

You know it will push you somewhere,
Into a harsh reality
But one you hope that might be different,
From the one that pains you,
Even if you'll be guilty.
You'll have the satisfaction
Of finally
Doing something.
Again. You said never again,
But that wasn't true,
Did you even mean that?
You wonder as you retake
Your past baleful steps.

It doesn't own the same reasons
This time.
You just want to prove your
Destructive existence to yourself,
Even though you miss your
Dissociation from reality.
Maybe because if you do it,
It means you're not one hundred percent,
Just don't let anyone know,
Why should it harm anyone,
Except you because that's the whole issue?

It's okay though,
You've figured it out,
Like you always knew,
You were only kidding yourself,
You know you'd have to live
With the unhelpful effects,
It doesn't need to be any harder,
Than it already is.
Marye Minstrel Jun 2017
I spent my days crying, praying
That you would stop kneeling to the toilet
Sacrificing for a thinner body
You would sell your soul to see your ribs
And I would sell mine, to see you yourself again

What happened to the days when your favorite food was mac 'n' cheese
When you asked for seconds and didn't weigh your kale, adding every gram to your imaginary rolls?
What happened to your smile, the childish laughter in your eyes
I'm waiting for you to come running around the corner
Giggling

Please, forget for a moment your scales
Your toilet worship, your laxatives and long walks
Let's play like we used to
Let's be three years old and play in the garden
I want to see you one more time
Before it's too late.
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