~
pureland flower, always
twisted into someone else's
creation, never of her own
~
volition, breakable eggshell,
quiet and still, lifeless
from pushing boundaries,
~
a color without color, lifted by
the breeze, folded up neatly,
no wonder why nowhere to fly.
~

The thorny rose that no one liked;
It lacked a petal and had a thousand spikes.
The thorns that grew from its roots to leaves
Kept the people from touching it.
But, this thorny rose once had no thorns at all;
It just lacked a single petal, tho,
This was enough for it be alone
And cursed by all, oh, so much woe.
So, she cried a million tears
Which soon grew as thorns and nasty leaves.
Now no one gives it a second glance,
But it doesn't really need anyone's touch.

Reusing old graves

Some of your own blood

Nectar of your soul

To build this nest

This stinging canister

An assembly line of skeletal remains and burning wings

Pushing little armies on the left

Pulling little armies on the right

To march themselves out of existence

Life is a pesticide

Kills the flowers

Kills the connections

Keeps you working overtime

Just to hold on to a place where you can shuffle off this mortal coil

i am
not
a box
where
you
can
confine
the broken
pieces
of my heart
as if
it was still
whole.

i cannot
repair
what
you irrevocably
broke
with
your deceitful
and lustful
eyes.

i am not
a box
where you
can place
your demons
anytime
it is convenient
leaving me
with the burden
of carrying their voices
inside my head.

i am
not your puppet
and you
are not
my master.

⚠️Trigger Warning: The following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm, suicide, and involuntary psychiatric hospitalization⚠️

I don't recall a whole lot
about my first hospital visit.

I know only the
fleeting
keynotes of the experience.

And I'm not just referring to my first...
psychiatric (?) visit.

(I'm not sure if psychiatric is
the right word,
but I find that I often struggle
to find the right words
when I attempt to describe hospitals
and the time I've spent in them.


I'll do my best.)


See,
I had never been to the
Emergency Room for anything before.

(Well,
except for that one time
I tumbled off the changing table as a baby.
But I'm not sure that really counts,
my only knowledge of the event
having come from second-hand stories.)

Surprisingly enough,
being the clumsy child I was,
I had never sustained
any significant injuries
while growing up,
especially in comparison to my sister
who had a daunting repertoire.

When she was a toddler,
she executed a daredevil jump
from the top of the staircase,
breaking her arm as she crash-landed
onto the basement carpet.

While we were waiting
for her to be fitted with a cast,
I remember her doctor told me
to stop misbehaving.

While I can't remember
exactly how I was misbehaving,
I'm sure it had something to do
with the chaos of my temperament,
a chaos that has churned inside me
for as long as I have known.

Over the course
of my high school years,
when I would make several
appearances at the hospital
due to my own brokenness--
the very brokenness that persuaded
the lacerations on my wrists
and my lust for death--
the doctors would,
in their clinical, roundabout ways,
tell me the same thing:

to stop misbehaving.

In the ninth grade--
this here. this is the first visit--
my guidance counsellor and English teacher
had driven me to the Children's Hospital,
which was only up the road from my high school.

Oddly enough,
I had been relatively compliant.

I had gone quietly,
devoid of the defiant uproar
that seethed under my skin.

Perhaps I acted as I did to prove that,
despite, my darkness,
isolating me from the world I knew
would be a grand disservice to me.

Or perhaps I feared
what would happen
if I was to purposely disobey,
that, upon arriving at the hospital,
I would be treated like the rebel I was,
promptly disrobed of my independence.

The remaining details of the visit
have been resolved to vagueness
as time has passed.

I only know my father  
came straight from work to pick me up.
Before we left,
the doctor gave us pamphlets--
crisis hotlines,
accessing resources
within my quadrant of the city,
alternatives to self-harm.

The doctor dwelled on this last subject;

if I felt like cutting myself,
I could still satisfy the urge
without actually drawing blood.

I could press ice to my skin
or write on myself with markers--
markers not pens--
or snap a rubber band against my wrist,
which was the method
he had particularly fixated on.

He explained he wasn't too keen
on me snapping myself
all the time, either,
but that it was a preferable
alternative until I improved.

"Doc,"
I wish I'd said,
"If only you knew
how lovely it is to bleed."

⚠️Trigger Warning: The following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm, suicide, and involuntary psychiatric hospitalization⚠️

Over the duration of high school,
there is one fear that eclipses
the daily rumination of my thoughts.

Behind sepulchred eyelids,
burn the imaginings

of wasp-needled syringes

straitjackets curling around bodies
with noose-like exactness

a padded room
absorbing brain-curdling screams
into its pink insulation.

At the time,
I was petrified that my newly-discovered
flirtation with self-harm
would land me a permanent stay in an asylum.

The rational part of me knew
that they don't call them
asylums anymore.

The rational part of me knew
there would be no syringes
or straitjackets
or pink, padded rooms.

It was the principle

If it was decided that I was
"an immediate risk to myself"--
a decision that would
incorporate the voices
of the people who barely knew me
but deny me my own voice--
I would be admitted
to a psychiatric ward,
and it would be against my will.

It wouldn't matter
if it was at the Children's Hospital or not--
It wouldn't matter if the walls
were coated with those
sickeningly bright colours
or if there was an Xbox
in the common area.

You can dress up a prison cell
as vibrant as you'd like.
But, by principle,
it's still a prison cell.

When they strip you
of your clothes,
and force you into
their bleak hospital gowns,
they also strip you
of your independence.

(You aren't even allowed
to wear your school cardigan,
the one whose soft, green fabric
you nestle against your fingertips
when you need comforting.

What makes you think
you can leave when you want to?)

See,
doc keeps ya locked up
until he's snuffed the
crazy outta you.

They don't like using
the word
crazy
anymore, either.

So,
like the prison cell,
they play dress up
with your "crazy",
draping it in euphemisms like

unstable.

erratic.

incapacitated.

suicidal--

Once this word is used to label you,
you are never quite able to
abandon its connotation of
madness--
a reputation of inferiority.

And everyone believes
that they are only doing what's best for you,
that hospitalization is the only thing
that will save you from yourself,
when, in fact, it's the ultimatums
and the countless visits to the ER
and the way you are treated--
like a poor ***** lying in wait
to be put down--
that destroys you.

The memories still
bleed fresh most nights.

I seethe at
the mistreatment and
the betrayal and
the destruction
like an army of bees
whose hive has been kicked in,
a snow-globe convulsing
between careless hands.

I was kinder
before they stole away
the last moon-slivers of hope
I held between heart and ribs,
between lips and flower petals.

The nectar has been
exorcised from my soul,
leaving only infestation behind.


(and there is no escaping this swarm)

You made a promise to them--
You wouldn't hurt your little girl.

You made a promise to them--
You would never make your little girl cry.

You squeezed her heart with your strong grip,
And told her it would be okay,
As you watched all the blood
Slowly drip away.

You made a promise to them
As her eyes faded away,
Dying with the sunset
And the rest of the day.

You made a promise to them,
Caramelized with lies,
As the thin line of her mouth
Filled with bile.

Mistreatment, abandonment, corruption, exploitation,
Things that have been done, without any explanation.
Blue down the face, red down the brain,
Creating a purple, pleasurable feeling, of cruelty in perverted vain.
Yet the pleasure is reversed, for it was just an excuse,
For the deepest excuse that came from the most purple bruise.

I am a nice guy. why? I guess the trauma I have endured, made me a bit passive? To much destruction and discord. I live at a distance. Yet I'm still observant
especially of individuals and their ideas. Without being directly involved to understand them, their words are still clear. I won't approach you or become close with you, because I have a prejudice and preconceptions, rationalized by my fear. My family and friends seem to be the only ones, I can trust. However those who I love, have had their own selfish aspirations fueled, by their lust. I put others before myself. Their needs seem to be more important than mine. I come secondary in my own life. I wear my heart on my sleeve, so its vulnerable to attacks. I don't trust those who say they have my back.
I will give everything I have, just to get the one who I love to stay, but its my love that makes them stay away. I'm a very forgiving person, and at times a horrible judge of character. My vision becomes narrow, I only see the good in others. I got taken advantage of, and I went through many hardships, because I have a personality that brings people to me inspiring friendship. If I could, I would no longer like to be, the nice guy. They say don't change! remain the nice guy why?