Climb this mountain,
Don't tell her what her voice is

Climbing, I don't say,
When she calls out, she's joking,
She's not talking to me,
But if I imagine she is,
Watch me sprint up.

This euphoria,
I've only felt it once before,
When I was called little brother,
And these two words embraced me
So small, yet holding so much,
She might have been joking,
But what I heard was
I hear you,
And I almost cried

Now, climbing,
I don't say
I don't tell her what her voice means
I doubt she remembers
What I whispered in urgent tones that day
Because I know she isn't talking to me,
When she calls to the boy,
I know she's talking to
the real boy,
But when I heard her,
I soared up the cliff,
Exhaustion from the hours before
Suddenly gone
And I could run, like
Any boy could have,
Now I find myself dreaming
That she might mean it one day,
I find myself dreaming
That the boy she was talking to,
Really talking to,
Might mean it one day...

I look at myself
and once again
I have that feeling.

That stone in your heart,
that heartless stone
that is me.

Raw feelings go here
unscheduled
no words to describe them,
just feeling.

I could say that I'm down
In this English language of yours
But no, that's not it.

You may argue it's depression,
and yeah, my psychiatrist would agree,
but that's not it either.

Maybe it's dysphoria kicking in once more,
certaintly I feel its awful hand greeping me again,
but that's not it.

What may it be,
this ugly feeling I puke to the poem.
I don't know.

But I want it to stop

you say you're fine
you say your good
you stare into their eyes
"I'm fine"
"I'm good"
You probably smile through your lies
fake happiness and safety
I know your pain
I see it in the mirror
I see it when you tell jokes
I know

you need to talk about it
you try to talk about it
you can't hold it in
it's not good for you
its what I did
think of me now
how I hate myself
bottling it all down

don't push it down
don't pretend
I know how hard it is
pretending your okay
keeping a blank or happy face
avoiding eyes
faking smiles

sometimes I still pretend
that I'm still who everyone thinks I am
that i am like everyone else
a whole girl
unbroken
unscarred

then I think how scared you were
when you told me
how you tried to pretend it was fine
like I did then
I can't pretend to be 'normal'
when your words came out broken and shaky
one step from breaking

I remember the day I told you
that I was 'different'
how my heart raced
how my hands tremored
my words barely slipping through my lips
you barely reacted

that's how you were
shaking and almost crying and almost backing out
and you told me that sometimes you feel like it isn't real
like you are lying to yourself
I still do that sometimes

a lot

My whole world
Crashing
Down around my ears,
And all you can do is
*******
Laugh.
"It’s schadenfreude, *****.
Nothing I can do.
You gotta help yourself."
Help myself?
Ok.
I get up in the mornings
When I feel like leaving my bed
Might **** me.
Sometimes I even get dressed
Even though the seams of jeans
Scraping against my thighs
Is like a subtle, silent torture.
Reminding me
Of the scars they sit against.
Even though the necessity
Of removing my shirt
Makes me want to peel off
My skin along with it.
Because it doesn’t fit
Has never fitted
Feels so wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
I help myself
Every time I take a bite of food,
Ignoring the voice in my head
That tells me I’m fat.
Every time I step out the front door
Fighting through a wall
Built in my head
But very, very solid,
Constructed of all the fears
My subconscious can imagine.
And it can imagine a lot,
Trust me,
I’m a writer and an artist,
My imagination knows no bounds.
Mix it with self loathing,
And a good measure of crazy
And it makes a witch’s brew
Labelled
“nice try, *******.”
Don’t tell me to help myself,
When you have no idea
What it is like to live
While arguing with yourself,
Being shouted at inside your head,
Everything a battle.
Don’t. *******. Tell me
That you understand.
No,
You don’t.
How can you,
Unless you’ve spent days,
Hiding in your room,
Because downstairs there are knives
And everything
Everything
In you wants to feel them
Sliding through your flesh.
How can you,
If you haven’t looked in a mirror
And seriously contemplated
Just hacking bits off.
Because the pain of doing that
Would surely be less
Than the pain of seeing
Those alien body parts
Hanging from your frame
Every day.
How can you know?
How can you tell me
To just smile.
Just think positive.
Just go for a walk.
Drink green tea.
Eat some chocolate.
Do yoga.
Meditate.
Practice
Mind
Full
Ness.

Don’t tell me I’m ok.
I’m not.
And that’s ok.
I don’t have to be a perfect,
Functioning member of your society.
They’re your rules,
Not mine.
I don’t have to be happy in myself
All the time.
I don’t have to smile
Until my face aches,
While holding my tears inside.
I help myself.
Every day.
Just by continuing to exist.
By continuing to look ahead
And try.

there are nights
in which my body plays cage
the space we take up feels too much
everything numbs
and that feeling returns
the one i can only describe as burning
and we are merged
and we are divided
we are overly aware of our limbs
yet we cannot feel them at all
my body does not love me
she returns
making herself home in my belly and *******
there is something familiar about it
something comfortable
like sinking and floating at the same time
the cold and the dark and the deep
carrying me off to places unspeakable
embracing me
sealing me up as if i were a letter
and it an envelope
i am sent with no return address
and my heart sighs the song of my wonder
if this body will ever be mine

As I sit, slouched over,
Lady in the black dress tells me,
Sit up
Breathe in slow, now
Into the cup full of water,
The fog in plastic
Like the fog in my head,
Remember what they keep saying,
Someone thinks they're hated
And you don't have the words to correct them
So let that poor boy
Walk away, rejection
Like poison in his heart
Remember my nickname was "poison"
Left arm is limp and dead,
It hurts to pick up anything
Rise and lean on the table,
No,
Don't touch anything
Leeches on your chest,
And everyone keeps noticing,
"My girl"
And the words echo in
A hollow plastic mind
Filled with fog as the water is drained
Hair pulled back or hanging over the eyes
Well either way will stop your breathing
People keep asking, "are you okay"
And lies are just so easy,
Too easy,
Mumble in as many words,
Fine, it's fine,
Pray to hell they don't tell her
She can't know, can't know
Brings you to tears just
Thinking about forcing as many lies again
I'll look in the mirror but won't say,
I don't say "smudged drawing" or "failed graphics",
I see dead weight,
I beg them,
Don't make me take this off,
Don't force me to look at all,
Please