Every time I said I wanted to die
it wasn't the truth, I wanted to live.
Because I love life, I love people,
I love making people smile,
I love being the reason somebody laughs
or feels loved.

See, I didn't wanna die
but a part of me was dying
because of all the abuse.
I wanted to be free
of all the hurt, free of the reality,
the person I love more than anything.
Never existed,
just an unfortunate ghost.

I didn't wanna die
but a part of me did.

Fighting those demons,
the ones that whispered in my ear,
the ones that tore at my soul,
I held on tight to hope,
to the belief that one day
the pain would go away.

But it didn't.

And so, I wore a mask,
a smile that hid the tears,
laughter that drowned out the screams.
I became the master of pretending,
the expert at deception.

Yet, beneath it all,
beneath the laughter and smiles,
the truth remained,
a silent scream that echoed
through the depths of my being.

I didn't wanna die
but a part of me did.

And now, as I pen these words,
I'm not searching for sympathy,
or a knight in shining armor.
I simply want to be heard,
to let my pain have a voice,
to acknowledge that it existed.

Because within that pain,
that darkness that threatened to consume,
a flicker of hope remained.
A tiny flame that whispered,
"Keep fighting, keep living,
for there is love and joy yet to be found."

So, I won't give in to the darkness,
to the lies that whisper in the night.
I'll fight with every breath,
with every beat of my heart,
to reclaim my life, my happiness,
my freedom from the shadows that haunt.

See, every time I said I wanted to die
it wasn't the truth, I wanted to live.

The other night some man took a trip outside city limits.
He ambled along until he got to a pasture where the ghosts were warm and thoughtful,
missionaries in a newly old land.
They looked as though they were brimming with knowledge on how to live correctly,
but he was just a visitor looking for freedom from thought,
and so asked nothing.
Though he did learn the ghosts weren’t fully translucent.
It seemed there was still blood in them.

[  ] We didn’t date,
[  ] Yet you tell people we did.
[  ] We hardly even talked,
[  ] yet you act like we spent our lives together
[  ] As if i left without a word
[  ] Except there were words
[  ] You just didn’t listen.

[  ] Now you ask them why I left,
[  ] like there was something to leave to begin with.
[  ] Like I held your hand, whispered promises,
[  ] let you in—
[  ] when all I did was exist near you.

[  ] You get your friends to interrogate me,
[  ] like I owe them answers.
[  ] Like I owe you anything at all.
[  ] They ask what happened,
[  ] why I “broke your heart,”
[  ] but I didn’t realize you had given it away to begin with.

[  ] You follow me through halls,
[  ] a shadow I never asked for.
[  ] Standing just close enough to remind me
[  ] that you don’t know how to let go.
[  ] That you can’t take silence as an answer.

[  ] And when I talk to my friends,
[  ] there you are, lingering,
[  ] Like a shadow creeping into spaces where you were never meant to be.
[  ]  A ghost desperate to haunt something that was never yours.

[  ] It’s almost funny,
[  ] how someone I barely knew
[  ] can’t seem to untangle themselves from me.
[  ] How someone I never loved
[  ] Plays the victim in a story that was never finished to begin with.

I walk through the halls
like a forgotten ghost
everyone looks through me
like they can't see me
but to be honest
it's better if they don't see me
because when they do
the things they say
oh, the things they say
hurt like a knife to the chest
the pounding of my heart
spills the blood of anger
and seeping sadness
and splatters on the walls