I've talked to the doctors
I'm taking the pills
Medication, meditation
but it all seems to fail

I'm shackled down
by the weight of my misery
and what other steps
can I take to be free
except to find
the tallest building

and leap.

I keep my old pill bottles.
not because I plan to reuse them,
or fill them with extra beads,
stray sewing needles
random coins,
a travel pack of Q-tips,
or tiny paint tubes that I might use to somehow make my mental illnesses art.
I keep my old pill bottles because they are me.
I keep my old pill bottles because they are one month of me.
they are not me because they have my name,
address,
medicine,
doctor,
pill quantity,
pharmacy,
Rx number printed on them in ******* ink.
they are me because they held the chemicals my body could not dream of creating.
What they hold is not beautiful. it is not deep.
it is a second leg you have to re-stitch every day because your body didn't know how to grow one.
Those bottles hold the pills that make me, me.
I feel because of them,
I sleep because of them,
I live because of them.
Before them, I was not human.
I was a body with partial instructions.
Every Month I have to get another extension of myself from the local CVS.
Every month I put an empty bottle in the box on my nightstand because that bottle held what I was last month.

it's strange looking at a small white pill knowing that someday this month, that pill will be the reason you react to something important the way you did or the one you forget to take causing a break down in your English class.

It's strange how I can be manufactured so easily.

How do I do this?
How do I deal with this?
What to do I take?
How much do I take?

These medications being shoved down my throat.
"Take this! Try This! Have you done this yet?"
I see all these suggestions..
But all I see is time wasted.

I know what I need but I don't know how to get it.
The one who holds the cure is 1000's of miles away.

Have you heard of Alice,
The girl in Wonderland?
I am sure you have.
The problem, you see
lies in the words you didn't read.
The part the writer did not need.
While Alice laid upon a bed,
Her mother watched and stroked her head.
The doctors said it was psychosis
And so they gave her higher doses.
She's over-stressed,
She is a mess,
But every day she takes her meds.
She can't find Wonderland again
And so she uses pad and pen
To write some poems, oh so sad
But they help others feel less bad
And that will help her feel less ******,
The closest thing she feels to happy.

I think I’m addicted to pain.
Not my own, mostly others.
It hurts to hurt them though,
I just cant help myself…
I fall in love too quickly,
Then back out just as fast.
Like they meant nothing,
Like we were nothing.
I’m not myself like this,
If I was it wouldn’t hurt,
Id feel happy hurting,
But I don’t, not at all.
Maybe I should run,
Get out while I still can.
Or maybe I should tell you,
Tell you to leave, to turn and go.
This poem has no rhythm,
But its the most honest I’ve been,
I’m a ******* mess sometimes,
But maybe thats the point,
I suffer, because others suffer
And I guess thats my fault.
I am lying to myself,
And that means I lie to you.
I say what I don’t mean,
But in that moment, its true.
I wish I never thought that.
I cant love if I cant love myself.
Maybe that’s my problem…
I’m sorry if I hurt you,
Deep down, I do love you.
Deep down, I am sorry.

Words swim through my head with so much power and meaning I start to drown. My bubble of happiness shrinks the more I think of how to tell you. I mean nothing now, I am just an empty body of what was and could have been. I’m a constant reminder of the pain I have caused. I am afraid, afraid of the sharks biting at my ankles, and yet I swim so close to them, its beautiful. I’m at peace there, here I feel nothing but hurt. I feel alone without my sharks.

Took omeprazole
alongside oxycodone.
Won't do that again!

words spill from the woman's lips,
but I cannot hear a thing.
my mother sits across the room,
nodding as if pleased with this verdict.
more medication.
more artificial happiness.
less control.
that's all I want. control.
something I know I will never have but need nonetheless.
this woman speaks the names of many, many drugs that she attempts to combine.
an artist of intoxication,
she mixes chemicals as if preparing to paint a picture,
but this picture must cover up the old masterpiece,
something so worn and faded
it must be replaced.
for how could anyone love
the crumbling portrait of a once
beautiful girl.