I want to hurt myself or hurt anyone.
I think about chucking a hammer at someone's head
Or slitting someone's throat from behind
I think about jabbing a knife in my neck
Or crushing someone’s skull
I think about burning someone alive
Or poisoning them with bleach

They don't have to do anything to me
They don't have to say anything to me
They could do nice things for me
They could say nice things to me

And I just think about hurting them
Over and over I think about hurting them
and the thoughts get stronger
and it’s so hard to fight them

And I feel like I might go on a killing spree
And in the moment it feels so right
Like it’s what i’m supposed to do
A hunger pain I need to fill

With murder and blood and screaming
Their screams in my mind
Only make me laugh
It feels like my mind is possessed

These thoughts are all disturbed
Then they subside until it’s time
for them to come back again
And I’m always left feeling confused and frightened

It’s a struggle fighting these thoughts everyday
It’s a struggle “pretending” they aren’t there
It’s a struggle “lying” to everyone and myself
It’s a struggle hiding
It’s a struggle stuffing these sick thoughts
Back into my deranged brain
And no one can make it better
No arrangement of words makes a difference

I get tired trying to explain my suffering to the ignorant
But still I want them to know
And I don’t want to sugar coat the dark and ugly
Because my mind only forces me to hate them

I want to spit the gross truth in their faces
I want to smother their minds with demented thoughts
I want them to feel despair
I want them to suffer too

I want them to know, I want them to be scared
I want them to be uncomfortable
I want them to hurt
Then I wouldn't have to explain

Because I don’t need pity
Pity can’t fix me
Pity is useless
I need to write, I need to create, I need to express

I need to be able to speak about my demons
without someone judging me or being afraid of me
Or treating me as if i all I am is my thoughts
Because i’m more afraid then they are

I’m more terrified of my own thoughts
Especially when these thoughts don’t feel like my own
And If my thoughts are not my own, then whose are they?
I want these thoughts to go away

candle headed kids,
melting under pressure.
contorting and dying under the weight of something so bright and important:
a flame.
the burn of a good future just an arms reach away.
the heat of not letting anyone down.
the scorching pain of reaching through the flame,
the one thing destroying them,
just to succeed.
just to not let anyone down.
just to live.
anxious.
forever anxious.

smog headed kids.
they cannot breathe.
their thoughts,
contorting around their lungs,
killing them.
so dark,
so dark in their minds.
the need for pain,
the feeling of undeserving.
no one understands a smog headed kid.
forever choking over their own mind.

(this is to be read to the rhythm of tapping two fingers of one hand against the wrist of the other twice, then repeating the action but using the opposite hand)

i belong on the train at night
track goes by with balls of light
never will i leave or ever arrive
far in the distance, a child cries

(repeat repeat repeat repeat)
(repeat repeat repeat repeat)

(stop when you have calmed down or when the repetition becomes so that you hurt yourself. repeat everytime you can't handle your own existence)

You know, I never actually got away?
I left those 4 walls long ago
But the friends I made while I was alone..?
Still keep me company inside my head

They remind me every day
That Im not capable of  making good choices.
That it's safer to be alone, behind walls.
That crying is not just weak, but dangerous.

Because when people come inside,
They will hate you.
They will hurt you.
And worst of all,
They will never. Even try. To understand you.

You probably aren't worth the time.
Or even the space you inhabit.
You are possibly a vile and useless creature
Born to be wrong, and always sorry.

So don't be late
Don't defend yourself.
Don't cry - and if you do:
Don't ever let them hear you.
Don't say one fucking word,
Of one fucking thought,
Out loud. Ever.

Those are the rules.
And if you ever find yourself struggling
To follow those rules:
Stop breathing until it gets easier.

Its been years now, but...
I never actually left that room....
Those 4 walls came with me,
And I carry them inside every day.

On good days they keep me safe.
And on bad days they close in so tightly,
That it gets dark, and hard to breathe.
But on any given day?
I just feel... So damn heavy...

A birth defect gone un-noticed has unbearable results. I would much rstather be incapable but not knowing there is more than capable but unmotivated.

I just want everything to stop.
Including my heart.

An open letter to those who have dealt or tried or whichever with me during my depression and/or anxiety.

I wish I could stop. I hear that a lot. "Just stop." As if it were a switch I can turn on and off at my own will. If I could, I would've disabled that switch the minute I learned what the on was designed to do. If only I could stop if only I could

"Think positive" I hear that the most. I didn't think of that, nor did the twenty something people before you. As if I haven't dived into the deep end of positive affirmations for the riptide of negativity to pull me 20 times under. For every positive thought, my brain's defense brings up 20 reasons that the positivity isn't real or won't last, or my favorite, why do you even deserve to be positive.

I don't forget all the times you've said "people have it so much worse." I am so ungrateful for the roof over my head and the food I get to eat or the daily drinks I use to muffle the voices inside. I hate the privilege of having my friends and loved ones look at me through foggy lenses and lend me their advice. It comes from the bottom of your heart but it doesn't come from experience.

Oh and how can I forget how I'm acting like this out of attention. I promise if I wanted the attention, I would get it in a manner much more humorous instead of a pitiful pit stop of a parade I feel some of you think I am. I am not trying to guilt you or appeal to your pathos. I much prefer to evoke your happiness with jokes that mask the constant desire to not even exist.

Then it comes down to the people I've bared my mascara streamed, tear soaked, bare souled self to. I'm talking to you. The one who I know won't understand but I at least expect to be there. Because I know that when you only deal with it once a month it isn't a problem, take some asprin and put a tampon in and it's over before you know it. God forbid this curse drowns me for a week or two or three. I'm sorry to put a damper on your life. The one where you chant the positives and get on with it. You have the choice to leave. I don't.

I don't surrender to this illness. "I'm not a vicitm" I repeat constantly. I'm not trying to make up excuses as to why it's okay to act like this. I fight every day for a little breathing space, and sometimes I am consistently losing battles in this civil war for my own mind. I apologize that you bear the burdens of being on the front row sidelines of this imax screening of my life.

You see, when the anxiety is over, and the food I haven't eaten for a week is molded now, depression takes stage. Right on cue. A constant back to back showing for boys and girls, it's fun for the whole family. But even like the longest movies of our life, there are intermissions. I sometimes get to step outside the theatre and am reminded that it's still sunny outside, that there is a fresh breeze. I can hear my own thoughts for a moment and they aren't trying to kill me. I am reminded that I have people I love and who love me, despite every reason I have that they don't. I hold onto that feeling and submerge myself so when the next riptide pulls me under, I can somehow find myself at the surface.

Sometimes I resurface with new or stronger allies, and sometimes I lose them in the battle. Casualties of war. Those hurt the worst. The people I love the most, leaving me to find the surface alone. It's enough reason to start the next showing. Like that, I return to my stage, my battlefield, my diving board until the next intermission.