As I’m writing this, I look down at the skin on my hands and watch as it vibrates. The blood pulsing, shaking with fear and guilt and all the things that become of me. I watch my fingers as they fling across the lines of a notebook or the gravel of a keyboard. Limbs that took years to operate, apparently, but it feels like nothing. So much so that I don’t feel a soreness from doing it for long durations. And boy, do I write.

When I walk around, I watch my feet skid across the pavement. I imagine my toes wiggling inside of my sneakers as they crunch elderly leaves and kick around loose dirt. Remorselessly squashing bugs. Forgetting about them the minute I step foot into a building.

When I talk to people, I watch their faces as they mirror their insides. Sometimes their voices fade in and out depending on how much I’m able to concentrate, but that’s fine because I don’t need their voices to understand what they are trying to say. They say enough with just an expression, and this is scary because I hope I myself never give someone else the wrong idea when I’m silent.

I’m a sculpture, apparently, but I’m real. Real? Real being tangible? Yet, to me, looking in the mirror does not make me feel real. Watching my hands as I write this does not make me feel real. Following my feet during strolls does not make me feel real. You know what makes me feel real? The thoughts pouring out of my fingertips with every word I write. The aggression that releases with every step I take. The nausea that sits inside of my stomach when I’m burdened with my sorrows. The tingle in my chest when I’m laughing at your jokes. The contentment of an evening when everything is silent and my head is clear.  Thinking about my friends when they’re in pain. Hearing my mother cry from across the hall. The frustration of awaking from a dream once I realize it was only a dream.

My body doesn’t make me feel real. Half of the time I forget it’s there. My reminders consist of: mosquito bites and piercings, ******* and all-you-can-eat buffets. When your friends move they still neighbor you. When your relatives die they’re still here. When a love is lost your heart inflames with their absence.

These are the things that physically mold reality.
These are the things that suggest to me I’m alive.
These are the things that comfort me during episodes of feeling like nothing more than a wandering corpse.

There's a fly dying in the corner of my room,
Caught in the web of a spider,
Trying to escape but never succeeding.
I watch,

I picture myself in a similar situation,
Similar corner.
But instead i am caught in the spiderweb of my thoughts,
Bringing back the thoughts of numb, empty space;
Bringing up the illness of anxiety and sadness.

I type this with my fingers skirting over the keys,
Too weak to lift them properly,
So detached from my body and myself to notice that you are here,
Behind me you watch, from afar, from close by but still
you watch.
And i turn, you watch, I stand away from my body.
Ready to leave, and run; 'free at last' i think,

But that is all lies i have been taught,
even in death you are not free, but still living under someone,
or something's rule and thought.

But you take my floating shoulder of light,
And you push me back into my living body, and make me
become
something, again.

life is such a strange and interesting concept.
you do and say an abundant amount of things in a day,
you meet so many similar yet dissimilar people,
and boom.
they're all gone.
and you're merely left with a memory.

how distressing it can be when you are out there,
smiling, laughing, enjoying every splendor detail of this world
when you realize,
that it doesn't even feel real.
it doesn't feel right.

and you begin to feel like you don't deserve this.
that your body doesn't deserve to feel the radiating sunshine,
that your mind doesn't deserve to feel understood,
that you don't deserve to feel truly blessed.

when you do.

i feel like us humans have this comfort zone,
we spend 99 percent of the time chained
to mental illness and anguished feelings
that once we feel euphoric moments
falling into the palm of our hands,
it doesn't feel real.
it doesn't feel right.

us humans need to learn that
the days are rapidly passing us by,
and the minutes aren't stopping for any of us.
we need to value the moments that are brought to us
and not interrogate them or our existence
because overall,
life is such a strange and interesting concept.  
you do and say an abundant amount of things in a day,
you meet so many similar yet dissimilar people,
and boom.
they're all gone.
and you're merely left with a memory.

You sold me a false dream. You told me that I could make it home after I graduated. High school. College. I’m still ******* here. I told you that I was a failure, I failed at achieving my dream of finally escaping hell. Everyone else got their form of happiness. My turn will never arrive.
You told me that the future would be a happy time, but when I thought of the future ten years ago, I didn't think I would still feel like this.
You told me that people loved me, but they never showed it. No one put in as much effort into the relationship as I did. It was always me who responded first, initiated the conversation, sent reminders that hey, I guess we’re still friends, even though you don't act like it.
You forgot that I did not work well with the routine of muttering in my head, “I’m fine, just relax and breathe.” You told me that I needed to make the most of where I was, which was like forcing a fish to live on land and expecting them to breathe.
You told me that I moved on, and then I didn't, and then I did. Quit playing games.
You told me that it was okay to tell that guy extremely intimate details, but I ended up disappointed.
You told me to assume that someone I loved would be just as willing to love me fiercely in return. You told me that someone special will come along. Where are they?
You told me that I have to make everyone in my family happy, but everyone has different expectations and I’m struggling to fulfill one person’s wishes without upsetting the other.
You told me I need to go out more, accept invitations to attend some concert in Dallas, or hang out at her house for New Year’s Eve. I hate going out.
You told me to pretend that I was in a cliché high school movie at a party and try to flirt with a guy. He didn't like me. He was more interested in my brother.
You told me that no one cared how badly I presented my speech in my last Spanish class, but I felt everyone’s pity cutting into my mouth.
You told me that my soul is the one thing I can’t compromise, but it’s already shattered into irreparable fragments.
You told me that people would admire the way I loved sunsets, the lights on the streets after dark, the small things. No one has told me that they noticed my habits.

I placed myself back into my body and walked away from the mirror.

I want to be
the
Cruel type of
Beautiful--

with my lips dripping
Blood and my dress
Trailing jewels,
My insecurities hidden between each
Fold of silk, saying
"I can **** if I must//"
but I won't

The kind where
after crying  
my eyes are red-
(Not from sadness
But)
from anger and dissociation,
and people fear what I have not said--
With my  
heart stitches torn open, and ink
Seeping through

and I'll never have to
Apologize.

peeking through
slowly, carefully
through the cracks
in my brain
the cracks
of reality

how would it feel
being present in
my mind and my body
feeling real, feeling safe
my brain is vicious,
seeping poison running
through black tinted veins

i am Alice
falling down the hole
again