to look at a photograph
of a place
you once knew,
to know you walked there.

You try to recall what it must have looked like,
back then,
try to imagine the caress of the wind, or
what you know it must have smelled like, or
how the ground shifted
beneath your feet.

But you can't.

Memory is funny that way.
We remember without remembering.
These photographs are nothing but
broken portals to the past
leaving only chasms of static
where life should have been.

Does it ever bother you that pictures can be lies,
how a smile can be faked and nobody will ever realize.
The photos of you that I hang on my walls are starting to feel distant,
I hear a pain in your voice, as if you could break in an instant.

And it's a whole lot easier to burn a picture than it is to burn a memory,
And I was kinda hoping that we would never reach this treachery,
And you're falling under quickly and I can't do a ******* thing,
And I'm writing songs to cope but I don't have the guts to sing.

I think you're better off away from me.
I think you're better off alone.

When I saw that pic
Of us, all I wanted to
Do was shred the thing

A lot of photo's
Are taken every day.
But a few are really special.
So many memories,
Shared with my friends.
The world tears us apart.
But we stick.
The problem is,
Will you still remember me,
If these pictures are lost and gone?

< >

Whelp.
Once again, this ******* ****** up.
I tried to help her, but I just made everything a million times worse.

I ended up leaving her sobbing there.
How can I ever come back from that?
She probably hates me.
It's justified.
It'll take some time before I can forgive myself for being a ******* waste of space.

I recently looked at pictures of me.
*******, I'm ******* ugly as ****.
Mirrors don't bother me, it's pictures that do.
All that ******* disgusting acne.

Such a fat, pudgy face.
No discernable cheekbones.
It makes me want to take a knife and sculpt my own face.

I told myself I'd wait until after my birthday.
I don't want Christmas associated with death.
I always tell myself to wait.
Why?

Maybe I hope that by then, I'd forget all this **** inside my head.
It's never worked.
It never will work.
There's nothing, nothing will stop these thoughts.

I write these as a way to cope, but it doesn't work.
I wash my face twice every day to make myself look presentable, but it doesn't work.
My mom is taking immunotherapy for her cancer, but it won't cure her.

Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing­
Nothing.

A mole on my arm has been hurting and getting darker each passing year.
I know what it is.
I know I'll die from it one day.
I can't control that.
It's a gene mutation, after all.
I might be medicated for that in the future, but it won't work.
Nothing will.

I could tell my friends what it is.
But they'd cry.
It's best to have them happy about a different way of death than to cry over a gene mutation.

She thinks she'd be sad if I left.
Lies.
I know she hates me.
I don't know why she talks to me and pretends to be a friend to me.

Maybe it's pity.
Another "friend" already told me that I was a pity friend to them.
So, I'm not surprised if she feels the same.
It makes things easier for me.

I seem troubled here, and she talks to her friend, having fun.
It's nice.
I don't necessarily have a closest friend.

My closest friend and I are becoming distant.
It *****.
I wish I could text her more.
Which I can, but it's something about me.

I'm terrible at maintaining only online friendships.
That's how one of my close friends and I don't talk anymore.
That was my own doing.

I sit and don't do much of anything.
I don't really draw anymore either.
It's not fun anymore.
Every time I draw, I just see the flaws.

Nothing is good enough and it never will be.
I don't know why I try.
I'm not good at anything.
I'm not good for anything.