In the mirror through tears, i notice that i am dressed in the scars of every deep wound I played off like a paper cut, and the phone in my pocket weighs a thousand pounds from your text messages.

I want to skip the ******* thing in a river.

Oil and water but just as much as I know we won’t ever mix, you convince me it’s all part of the recipe.

I have shrank down, cut pieces of myself like a cake and served everyone at every table a slice every time.

Stuffed my baggage in the closet and let you move yours in instead.

Cried like an anxious dog who’s owner wasn’t around.

And we called this pain love, for 20 years.

I slipped into the role, thanks to my parents.

Mentally ill and emotionally unaware,
It’s so easy to choose what’s easy and so hard to notice your love has gone rotten.

I changed my perspective and every smooth word started to sting.

I was kind as you were building up pieces of me to fuel your own fire.

I understood until I couldn’t anymore, but you never would.

Change your perspective with me, climb the mountain and realize the hike’s easier on the way down, i would’ve carried you all the way up if you asked me. But we sat for 20 years and heard everybody on the way back down talk about the view.

I chose to sit with you instead. And when I finally took that first step up, I should’ve known it meant leaving you behind me.

I am my own destiny. I am the bullet in the chamber and the consequences of the trigger pull. I am my own mind, I tended the garden of fear and worry and constant replay of mistakes and regret. I am more than who I think I should be for anyone else.


good luck with all the **** you’ve got going on. disrespectfully yours, your ex “best friend”

Study yourself- measure the intangible thing exactly.
Collect the data, but throw it out - you exaggerated.
Describe your experience, in detail, but know that
it's just a formality, for insurance- you seem fine.
Results of our studies say you're simply not real.
It isn't possible, no way around it. No way around
the system we've created to keep mercy confined
inside the sterile bottle of preapproved problems and solutions.

This has never happened to us, so it cannot happen to you.
This is not something I've seen before- and I am God.
This isn't pain, it's nothing, just a sham, a trend, vanity.
This must be fun, writing sad little pleas for help, cancelling life,
quitting your job all for the sake of playing pretend. Playing sick.
This would all go away if you would just lose a little weight,
grow so thin we could tuck you in an envelope with the bill and
send you back home. Come back when you're dead.

Are you sure you're not just anxious? Insane? Confused?
Are you secretly drinking rat poison, but you forgot?
Are you trying to get out of having to enjoy life?
Are you sure you're not just hysterical, womb wandering angrily
through your psyche, whispering silly things it read on the internet?
Are you simply an interloper here to ruin our day
by insisting that you are not a healthy young woman
who simply needs to get a hobby? Get laid? Get lost?

Have you tried gratitude? Yoga? Mindfulness? God? Satan?
Tums? Shutting up? Ibuprofen? Having a baby?
Have you tried being an entirely different person, the right kind?
Have you considered that you're not medically but
spiritually defective, missing a piece of your soul?
Have you considered that we're simply not willing to try
because the only thing wrong with you is you
and you've become quite a burden to us all?

We're sure you think you are sick- but we're sick of you.
We're sure you're just looking for attention, sympathy,
to challenge us, to get some mysterious satisfaction.
You must love spending all your time here, paying us in blood,
ignoring our script, writing your own. We've got your number-
in just a few rushed moments, forty five minutes late, we've
disassembled you in our heads, lost the screws, determined that
you're simply of subclinical importance. Here's that bill.

They tell me that everything has its time—
Each heartbreak, each joy, every mountain to climb.
But here I sit, drowning in despair,
Wondering why you’re not standing there.

Is it because my body’s wearing thin,
A battle outside reflecting within?
The aches and the weight that drag me down,
A silent war where I feel I might drown.
My balance is gone; the world spins fast,
Each moment a fight just to make it last.
I clutch at walls to steady my pace,
Yet even standing feels like a race.
I’m trapped in a body that won’t obey,
A fragile shell that fades away.

The mirror feels cruel, revealing my fight—
A body in shadow, drained of its light.
I don’t know this face, these heavy eyes,
The weight of sorrow, the endless cries.
It doesn’t see the war inside my mind,
Only the shell that’s been left behind.
I search for the person I used to see,
But all that’s left feels foreign to me.

Maybe the reason we’re not together now
Is hidden in the weight I carry somehow.
My body is failing; my mind feels weak.
The healing I need will take months, not just weeks.
I’m fighting a battle I don’t fully understand,
Too broken to hold another’s hand.

And perhaps you’re healing in your own way,
Facing the wounds you’ve buried each day.
There are pieces of you that still need repair—
A journey to take while I’m not there.
Maybe the universe knows what we don’t,
That we need this time apart to grow.

I wish you were here to steady my fall,
To be my comfort, my strength through it all.
To hold me close, to ease this pain,
To bring some light to the endless rain.
But my sickness is not a burden you should bear,
Not for someone already lost in despair.
You’re fighting your demons, I know that’s true—
It wouldn’t be fair to place this on you.
So maybe it’s better that you’re not near,
For you too have wounds that need to clear.
Perhaps this distance, though hard to endure,
Is part of the reason we’re meant to mature.

And as the year slips closer to its end,
I pray for more time, though I cannot pretend.
With my health declining, I can’t promise tomorrow—
Each day is a balance of hope and sorrow.
Still, everything happens for reasons unseen.
What will be, will be, whatever it means.

Yet, there’s a whisper, soft yet unkind—
A shadow that lingers deep in my mind.
What if the stars won’t guide you back?
What if this love is the one thing I lack?
What if the reasons I cling to are lies,
And love won’t return, no matter my tries?
Am I holding to hope just to numb the fear,
Afraid to accept that you’ll never be near?

Maybe we’re not soulmates; maybe it’s true.
Maybe the stars weren’t meant for me and you.
But I truly believe everything happens for reasons unseen,
Guiding us gently, wherever they mean.

So, if you’re my person, the stars will align.
Through distance and time, your heart will find mine.
If we are meant to be, that truth will arrive.
But first, I must focus on staying alive—
Healing my body, reclaiming my mind,
Seeking the strength I thought I’d never find.
For only when I’m whole can love take its place,
And time will reveal if you share that space.

For now, I wait, with questions unspoken,
Believing some truths are best left broken.
And maybe, just maybe, the path we can’t see
Is still guiding us gently to where we should be.

Sometimes in life when you've just had enough
you gotta laugh 'till your ribs are painful but tough.
If somehow you can't laugh at yourself, the place you end up is tragically rough. Try to see some humor, because life is bizarre and for mental health. How long can you keep holding on? Pride and grudges are poison, move on. Let go. Keep moving on, steady and slow, just let it go. The grudge is a con. Retain the memory for future reference if future judgement calls are needed. But by letting go, you only lose the pain, not the experience heeded.

I finally let my demons win,
They whisper like giants, patience so thin.
In harbored of darkness I conceded my fight,
I'll no longer actively seek for the light.

My soul starts reclusing, hoping to be unborn.
Thieving shadows, my hopes they scorned.
Emotions raw, exposing myself naked bare,
A fatal step in despair's seductive entrapping lair.

A heart once ablaze, killing in one air blow.
With each pulse, I let the sorrow grow.
No armor left to guard my core,
I welcome Satan and whatever he has in store.

In the dim glow of candlelight, I stand,
Clutching the remnants of who I am.
A ritual of despair begins,
Binding me in the demons' hymn.

Chanting words I scarcely know,
I let the darkness freely flow.
An offering of my spirit's core,
A pact sealed in the silence's roar.

A dagger's edge against my skin,
The bloodied ink, my soul's chagrin.
In this ceremony, I find release,
Anointing wounds, composing this piece.

I scream, I cry, in boundless silence,
This battleground abnegating solace.
But in surrender, there's a peace,
A promise that pain shall soon cease.

I now let my demons take their place,
In the hollow of my heart's embrace.
No fight, no struggle, no facade,
Just my demons sharing a drop of my blood.

How would I know I’m not a heavy-weight,
A burden those I love could start to hate?
Each word I speak feels like a sharpened stone,
Thrown into hearts that ache, yet not my own.

How can I be sure their light stays intact,
Unstained by shadows that my soul attracts?
What if my truths are daggers they can’t bear,
And I leave scars in places unaware?

How would I know their kindness doesn’t fade,
Eroded by the cost of love they’ve paid?
What if my pain becomes the thing they fear,
A haunting voice that whispers when I’m near?

How can I trust they’d hold their steady ground,
When I pull them to where I can’t be found?
What if my sorrow seeps into their core,
And they’re not who they were, not anymore?

What if I speak, and silence fills the air,
A proof their patience vanished unaware?
Do they resent the weight my words impose,
Or wish I’d keep my sadness undisclosed?

How would I know they won’t begin to flee,
Escaping from the heaviness of me?
What if their love gives out beneath the strain,
And all I’ve left are echoes of my pain?

I’m torn between the need to reach and hide,
Unsure if they can stand what’s locked inside.
Am I a poison slowly spreading through,
Or just a soul too lost to find the truth?

That’s why I think it’s better left this way,
Alone with all the words I’ll never say.
To die with silence wrapped around my chest,
And free them from the weight of my unrest.

This time of year,
When trees go bare
And snow covers our ground,
I come down
With a seasonal disease...
Weeks prior to Christmas Eve.

The onset is a distant twinkle
Shimmering in the deep;
That gives me such a nuanced twitch...
I itch to hang a wreath.

And when I sneeze,
I'm joyfully pleased
To shop for such and stuff.
I horde it in a secret place,
Then worry I've not enough.

When my muscles get tired and weak,
My back gets bent and sore,
When my body starts to sweat...
I await the seasonal cure.

I'll run a fever, hullucinate,
Take to my bed and wait.
Don't present me meds,
Don't ring me up a nurse,
I'll protest and rave.
This winter ailment,
This gifting curse,
My present proclivity,
Will only break
Come Christmas morn.
Oh Come, Oh Come Nativity.

Please don’t look at me,
now I feel naked
And I would hate it
If I never saw you again

It has taken me
somewhere vacant
and I can’t find
my way home

I feel a shade
jaded
when I’m walking
in the storm

In the cold, dark I sit,
Bereft of your warmth.  
Assailed by cacophonic din
Without your buffer.

I am shattered.

Black secrets descend upon my dreams
And chase sleep from my bed;
As swift as the purple night
And as uncaring as the wine-dark sea.

My mind drifts to you,  
Lying in the half-world of sedation,
Body pierced through
With vines of plastic and wire.

Discordant melodies surround you,
My heart keeping distant time,
While shades strive to
Make whole what is broken.

Through the pain, I keep vigil,
Me in my hell, you in yours,
Until your sweet voice sounds
And we reunite in dreams less dire.