I was just 13 years old when Vincent Van Gogh took me out to a wheat field and shot me in the chest. He said I'll let you in on the easy way out because eating yellow paint just doesn't help but god, doesn't it sound poetic? He said he craved ***** things in a letter to his brother but when the paint didn't make his art any better he used bullets and blood instead.

I was just 16 when Sylvia Plath opened up the oven for me. My snow boots turned to puddles and the smell of cookies muddled with the gas filling up my head. She said putting words to paper just doesn't hash it and a poets mind is nothing but ashes so better to let the thoughts burn.

I was only 18 when Virginia Woolf tied stones to my hips and led me adrift into open waters. Gasping while my hands struggled to stay above the waves she told me that this was the only way and that stories were just stories. She could write a million of them but never escape the loneliness of being unable to evaporate inside the pages.

I was 21 years old when Ms Monroe told me it was as easy as falling asleep and swallowing some seeds that would feed and feed until they felt like yellow paint. Easy down the throat like the men that she'd known who now tear at my curls. She said wanting to be loved comes at a price that money just can't buy and pills will always be cheaper.

I am 25 years old and have carried their woes down my arms and legs like Marley's chains. All the gun shots and flame rots and drowning spells and yellow pills have beckoned me with promises of a happy ending. They convince me that all artist's lives end the same but I know that they don't have to. So—here I still stand, clutching their art in my hands, braving a world that they were too good for.

Dear seedling, one day you will grow
but for now you're tucked into a blanket of snow
seedling, don't lose hope
because one day you'll be a grand oak
and you'll be able to touch the sky
you just need patience, seedling
you're far from passive
it takes a lot of power to sprout through the dirt

I know myself like the back of my hand.
I know my strengths, weaknesses, body curves and scars accompanied.
I know I am beautiful.

Like stained glass,
I dance happily as colors when the lights hit just right,
An entourage of beauty and serenity that I am
Unequivocally representing as the day breaks,
As yellows, oranges, greens, blues.
Everything was beautiful about me,
From the top of my head to the soles of my feet.
I am all of the colors.
I am a rainbow after a stormy day,
A beautiful gown form-fitted onto that of a powerful women,
I am a Queen dancing the ballet before throngs of people.
I dance to dance
And I dance to laugh
And I am beautiful to me
And that is all I can ever ask for.

When I met you,
I saw you as another version of me:
Stained glass, too,
Just cracked,
Needing a friend to glue back in the shattered pieces,
Help you be whole again, shine those colors the same way again.
And I loved you for that.

Glass can be seen straight through, though. Color or not.
You knew that.
You saw that.
You took advantage of that.
That,
Being my beauty, my confidence, my spirit,
My power, my naivety.

I didn’t know.
I didn’t know you weren’t here to appreciate the art
But to tear it down and try to repaint it as your own.
I trusted you to accept the me that I knew--
The yellow of the sun,
The green of nature’s embracing twines,
Even the blues of the leftover tears from the purple bruises of my bad memories.
I guess you accepted me, in a way,
But not how I wanted you to.
Not as me.
You manipulated me.
Told me that different wasn’t pretty.
I wasn’t pretty.
I feel like I am nothing,
puzzle pieces being rearranged to try and create a design
I wasn’t designed for.
You told me things that changed me.
I started seeing myself
As dried paint in the reflection of my mirrors.
I no longer danced.
I lacked potential.
I wasn’t going to turn into something beautiful.

And then I remembered,
After months of being clay shaped into your project,
That I am not a project.
I am not an object.
I am not subjecting myself to any more neglect.
I am in this body forever.
I look in the mirror and finally, after months,
I stare back at me:
I am a cracked stained glass portrait.
I vow to make something new with my broken pieces.
I tell myself,
I am beautiful,
Whether you can see that or not.
Every day, all day,
Months on end,
And eventually,
I start dancing again,
Leaping again,
Bouncing in front of mirrors and laughing and smiling again
and I stop making monsters into men
That I believe will love me for me.
I love me for me.
And all I need is me.
And that is all I can ever ask for.

They throw hatred at me like daggers.
Leaving me breathless and gasping for salvation.
Even though I'm wounded -a hole in my heart-
my courage shines through because

I am a warrior of misery.

With every loathing stare, every derogatory slur, my injuries grow more. But the healing scars are stronger than stars. I will not forget,
no.
I will carry these nightmares.
Together until death do us part.

Memories are stronger than moments.

When I lie in bed at night they are what I dream of,
they are the lullabies that drag me to sleep.
I am a warrior.
They can continue to throw knives of pain my way
and I will carry on.

But the memories are what **** me.