To be *****
Is to become so numb
You have to be triggered to feel
Anything at all.
The absence of pain
Is a pain in and of itself.

My mom always tell me that the doctors
Took heroic efforts to save my life,
That they went above and beyond the call of duty,
That if they hadn't thought me too
"Smart" and "beautiful" and "having the whole world going for me,"
I would be dead.
Number one: No one's chance of survival should depend on
Their looks, their opportunities, their cognitive ability.
Number two: None of it should've been necessary.
My text messages in the evening hours of 2/12/19
Are filled with the likes of "I don't feel safe,"
"I hate myself,"
"I am suicidal."
Their responses were simply,
"Do the best you can" and "Talk to the RA."
Yet they were surprised when 1 AM on 2/13/19
Found me in a hospital bed undergoing resuscitation.
Still,
When I woke up 10 days later,
They all wanted to know, "Why didn't you tell anybody?"

I vote we change Content Warning
To Contact Warning.
Please keep your words off my emotions
And your knives out of my heart.

The hardest thing to reconcile
Is that you genuinely believed you love me,
And I truly loved you.
Now, I confuse gentle touch for hostile
Because you were wonderfully gentle
Until you weren't,
Before returning to gentle again.
The hardest part to reconcile is how you could be "so in love,"
Yet in that moment,
You were only concerned for your pleasure.
With a love like that,
I would never need enemies.

in two hours,
i will be 18.
i'm claiming this to be the birthday that i am New.
completely new.
the past was never lived,
i was never that person,
i am not that person.
i am now,
i am love,
i am growth,
i am New,
completely new.

finally 18,
so utterly terrified yet relieved,
finally 18.
i am New,
i am 18.

i've forgotten
how to express myself
other than that
i'm so ******* exhausted
and just once
just for a few seconds
i want to be okay again.

They taught us to scream "fire!"
"Help!" Would elicit no response.
They told us to wedge keys in our fingers,
To never walk alone in the night.
They told us to watch out for strangers,
To avoid masked men in dark alleys.
No one ever told me to beware of the man in my own bed,
To shudder when he told me he loved me.
No one told me that I would freeze,
Limbs powerless to fight him off.
They did not tell me I would know him, trust him, love him
Until the moment I couldn't anymore.
You can keep your **** whistles,
Your fists with car keys and staining sprays.
You can keep your roofie nail polish and SOS phone apps.
None of it would have done me any good
As I lay there, clinging to bed sheets and teddy bear.

I am an abandoned ship floating at sea
Like a message in a bottle, I bob aimlessly
I drift along waiting to find my respective shore
But I find open waters and row my tired oars

I am fawn lost without a guiding mother
Wandering the wilderness and searching for another
My spindly legs fail me and the buckle under my weight
I collapse in the grass and decide all I can do is wait

I am balloon that was let go to sail into the endless blue
Gradually drifting higher and higher with nowhere to go to
I know sometime I’ll pop and that it may be soon
But for now I fly not trying to predict my doom

I am a pair of shoes tied together and thrown around an electric line
I have all the time in the world to dangle as the days wash by
My fabric has worn and lost its color but my shape holds true
Laces suspend me in this purgatory of treetop views

I am an abandoned ship floating at sea
Like all the other things I am, I’m living quite lonely
Feeling lost occupies the majority of my time
So I spend my days whiling away and working my mind
Writing now and then just to remind myself that I’m alive
That my thoughts and words are as tangible as relentless time
Ticking away the clock stays as consistent as my rhyme
Structure and hope are all I have to cope and keep me alright
I wax and wane with my commitment, it’s a shame,
But I think I’m doing pretty fine