The savior
The perfect partner
The dominant
The free spirit
The fiancé
The parental substitute
The anarchist
The sweetheart
The nice guy
All of these aspects of myself
Yet none of them are fully me
These are the roles I've fallen into
In order to match my various partners
And though all of these may be
Different components of me
None of them feels quite whole
I do not feel whole

All of these personalities
Exist on a spectrum of time and space
None interacting with any others
Each signifies a distinct point in life
Each has its own home
It's own experiences
Attitudes and viewpoints
Behaviors and habits

Yet what do I do when
Two of my contextualized selves
Decide to overlap?
When my ex who knew the fiancé
Moves back to town where I live
As does my person
Who's heard stories of the others
But who only knows the nice guy

How do I begin to heal when
I do not understand what is real
And what existed solely for others?
How do I continue to grow
When the fiancé is fighting restraints
And the nice guy is exhausted
The sweetheart does not exist
And the anarchist screams for revolution?

They seem to be fighting each other
Just to have a chance to breathe
A chance to take the wheel
A chance to control "me"
Yet who even am I?
Are all of these selves fabricated
Or are they hyperbolized aspects of me
Connectable like puzzle pieces
Into one beautiful picture?

The problem is
The picture I see is not beautiful
I'm trying to be nice to myself
But all I see and feel is darkness
I am an abomination
An evil person who cannot be trusted
A dark soul inhabiting an empty body
A person who is not a person
A human with a lack of self
It's almost like I'm not even alive
But even death would be a relief
So I can finally end the confusion
And stop hurting people along the way

STAY AWAY!
              
             Or else I'll fall for your smile
                          
                          Or else I'll get used to the way the corners of your eyes
                          crinkle when you laugh at the lamest joke I could tell you
                                    
                        ­             Or else I'll find out that you hate tomatoes but spaghetti
                                      is one of your favorite foods
                                                
                                                 Or else it'll be embedded in my brain forever
                                                 that for some reason you hate the color yellow
                                                 and I'll never know why

STAY AWAY!
              
              Or else my friends will start asking me where you've been after I
              invited you over to hang out for the first time
                          
                           Or else we'll find "our spot" that I'll drive by every other day
                           and always remember how good that summer was

                                      Or else I'll show you one of my favorite songs that'll
                                      turn into one of your favorite songs and you'll thank
                                      me for it

                                                    Or else I'll hang up the pictures of us in my
                                                    room and every time I see them I'll smile and
                                                    be thankful I have you around

STAY AWAY!

              Or else I'll love you

                         Or else I'll give so many pieces of myself to
                         help you
                                    
                                      Or else I'll think you feel the same way

                                                   Or else I'll think that you care

                                  
                            ­     S    T     A    Y           A    W    A     Y 
                                
                               Or else you'll have a chance to leave me

I'm burying my own words as best I can,
but as soon as I have set the ban,
down in a hole beneath filthy tongues
twisted from lies and sour-breathed pulling,
you make my blood boil.

You whisper about me, I can hear it,
behind the book shelf,
between the narrow isles of stories.

This place could offer me sanctuary,
but you came along,
and you are every noise, breath, sight and smell.
I cannot read, you are always over my shoulder.

I might collapse here and hope someone does not see me.
Am I overwhelmed or bitchy?
Am I lonely or needy?
Truly, I must ask, are things in me or are they part of this library?

Maybe I’ve read to many books,
Or maybe I was born unable to turn a blind eye.
But looking out at these issues I can’t fix,
most I can’t even name,
ingrained in my way of living,

…. how can I help? How can i pick up your pieces and set them back in place?

I can’t, all I can do is look on with haunted visions and
cherry picked blossoms.

People use ‘I can’ as if suddenly everything will change once you utter those two words.
That’s not how it works I’m afraid,
I tell empowerment groups and kids alike.

Maybe I’m horrifically pessimistic, calling myself a realist,
And there could be a reason, with what I’ve seen,
All the news we consume,
I couldn’t always ignore
the stories of deeds and people
highlighted in cheery cherry picked blossom lipstick.

Let’s not begin on the manipulation,
I wouldn’t want to bore you
with a million different and consistent stories.

Money donations make me feel important,
does that mean I’m only egotistical if I donate more?
What if I help out, build a park or walk down those crime scene lanes
with a hundred different people, demanding a constitutional right?

When I read, ‘equal protection of the laws’, and turn on my tv,
News station’s bias and political affiliation is not what I asked for.
And then they show me another crime to beget those simple words,
As if they are so complicated to understand by our nation’s leaders in court.

I can’t turn my eyes away, I don’t want too
Not from our history or our future, much less the present.
So, without speaking of these issues, after all, we hardly do that,
And when we do, it is bargained for and silenced, then…
Shall I present an idea?

I’ve not got a masters degree, nor a specialty in this or that, but love isn’t going to save us. Determination’s halfway there. But the humanity of it all always seems to fall away as time goes on.

This is all too much for today,
maybe I'll just...
read a book or write a poem.

Being ME by Warissara

I live in an environment
where I have had to keep up my self awareness everyday and every night
And because of this I have stopped getting drunk
And Because of this I have stopped getting high
Because I know this sounds sad in this day and age
But I always fear for my life

I’ve been called pretty much everything under the sun and moon,
but I’d rather be out there than stay in my room,
because I’m living and following my dreams,
Hoping that peace and love still means what it means,
and for some reason, I still have to keep on fighting
just
To
Be
Me

I think I'm just bloated but today I feel fat
my period is probably just going to start soon
maybe that's why when I spotted those dreaded stretch marks between my legs while shaving it totally ruined my day
it's a bad combination of insecurities
flaws I pick and pick at until it drives me insane
my thighs are too thick one day
and the next I feel like showing off my legs
my tummy is too round this week so big shirts it is
I know if I don't eat much for a couple of days I'll be happy when my abdomen sinks back in
but then I'll feel bad that I did that just to feel good about myself again

The hurt will never go away,
At least that's what it feels like.
Not until she actually thinks she looks presentable.
She doesn't know what's wrong,
She just wants people to look at her and call her pretty for once.
But that just makes it worse.
She just wants to leave and not come back.
Gone like the pills down her throat,
Being swallowed and digested into nothingness,
Putting her into a deep sleep.

I thought I saw a double chin.
Well I do have one, but I also saw a butt chin.
You know what I'm talking about, those ugly kind of chins.
Lose the weight quickly,
Lose until I can feel all of my bones.
Until I'm fucking satisfied.

You said that word to me again,
Told me that my face was fat.
Fat. Words that came out cold.
I used that bronzer,
To bring out my cheekbones,
It failed.
My cheeks stayed still,
Like ice, it's frozen.