people romanticize self-harm
as if it's nothing special
and really, no one is alarmed
everyone's stopped being careful

it's not just about the blood
it really eats your heart out
the suffering makes your head flood
and everything seems so loud

you can't just seek pitiful attention
saying "oh, look, i'm depressed"
you really do deserve a lecture
because the real deal would say so much less

cutting ruins your body
it also pierces your soul
you seek a friend or just anybody
but you always end up alone

the cup of coffee in the morning
is the only thing keeping you alive
the rest of the time you're crying
trying to get thoughts out of your mind

you've got a stash of blades
hiding under your bed
today your sister got engaged
and you might end up dead

you try to down twenty pills
with a chug of burning *****
maybe then you'd see flowery hills
but it's just likely to cause you trauma

you stare at your own blank wall
trying to find a slimmer of hope
and nobody's there to watch you fall
as you exit this life with some dope

Enter;
constant anxiety and
an inability to deny
my body what my brain
will swear is relief.
Stop.

You pick up a dandy lion like a small-slit-prayer, and I watch you close your eyes.
It's warm out but you still wear your sleeves long like a subtle rebellion,
Yet all I see is that flower, and the pressed paleness in your finger tips
As you inhale.
It only took you a moment, like the words were already there before you spoke them,
Before you even bothered to look: all you needed was to close your eyes,
And breathe in to find them.
(Words I will never hear:
Delicate ellipses of closed eyes breathing in,
And opening; exhaling prayers out.)
But they ring in your smile.

"Immolate to what cause?"  I ask, and you make that face filled with annoyance,
Because I've done it again.
(Promise, though, it's not intentional.)
"You don't always have to use big words with me,"
But then you smile back and tell me it's not sacrifice: "It's flower petals
For the wind,"
And I hear the glitter in your voice.  
"It's the tip-toes from wishes, I'm letting them drip:
I'm helping them dance."
And I tell you with my eyes that your full of ****,
But you're just watching those tip-toes DISCO.

One day I ask you what it is you always wish for:
You see, by now, flowers reference you in fear,
But you just sigh saying you couldn't tell me.
You start saying something about carving out a blank slate,
But then the idea mumbles over and you're back on talking about your day.

We're out late somewhere, it's a June night, and summer is starting to sink in.
"Does that sweater keep you warm enough?" I say it mockingly a bit,
as I recline into the hill we're sitting on, and look at my bear arms,
And the tank top hardly covering my torso.
We laugh, through the stale humor we've come accustom to,
And you roll your eyes a bit,
But I can see the depth you're trying to cover-
I don't have to wonder much to know how deep it goes.
"What's it like always being that cold?"
And you lie back into the grass too
Not quite looking at much of anything.
"It's like having a field full of dandelions and nothing to wish for, "
You say in an exhale, and wondering eyes ,
"Like your still habitually searching for them."
And I can't see the glitter in you,
But I can still hear it in your voice,
And I understand that you're just trying to keep yourself wrapped up,
Because further down there's more than empty air pushing on dandelions,
But I don't know if you can believe that.
You see I've wanted to tell you how ironic those flowers are to me.
How I used to see you breathing out wishes into them,
And dropping the stems along with all your other small-slit-battles
That went unseen.  
But now I'm glad I kept my mouth shut.
"But if you could, you know, wish on a dandelion, would it be worth it?"
And you smile, with a laughter that's fresh this time,
Because you see that I might get it now,
"I think dandelions are ugly-
But I pick them in habit, there's something comforting about knowing they're there."

I ask you to take your sweater off,
Because, honestly, just looking at it is making me hot,
And you smiled like the request meant nothing but a joke.
So I left it in the air, like those small-slit-prayers,
And I hoped it'd cut through to something else this time.
"There's more to those dandelions than giving them to the wind you know."
And you look out into the field seeing them all.
"One day, there won't be a single one left,"
"Or one day I'll be warm."
I want to find the right way to tell you that your small-slit-prayers
Were landing wishes in ways you did not know,
But you got in an argument last week,
And it was too much of a struggle for you to see that they're still flowers,
So let them dance across your skin,
And wear those petals like power.
There's moments to let in,
So tell me wishes for them to devour.

The first time I couldn't get out of bed, I shook so hard I feared my bones would shatter.
My mum never taught me how to deal with this excruciating emptiness inside me,
she never told me one day I could wake up and feel
like nothing in my life would ever matter.
She never told me there could be days and nights that pass by
in the blink of an eye
days and nights when I lie on my bed
and force myself to breathe --
because even breathing feels like a tedious chore.
She never told me I might wake up some day
and feel so tired, so tired that no amount of sleep
would ever make me un-tired again.
She never told me
I might sit on the bathroom floor some night
and feel the water run over me
feel it seep into my bones
and I might just sit there, for hours on end
until the boiling hot water that could leave my skin blistered
went ice cold and made me shiver --
She never told me that
I might sink nails and blades deep into my flesh
like voracious beasts because
it might take the pain away somehow.
She never  told me that
I might stay awake trying to lull myself
every
single night
while voices in my head
churned and churned and churned
that I was useless, that no one would ever love me, that I was incapable of being loved.
She never told me that my bones
would feel so feeble, fragile, that I would always, always feel
so cold.
She never told me
that I would sprawl myself on the bed, eyes wide open,
stinging
and I would wonder why nothing at all
mattered to me.
She never told me
that I would end up fearing the blinding daylight sneaking in through the curtains
because it means another day
of apathetic existence.
She never told me
that I would feel like a graveyard,
and she never told me that
a day might come when I look in the mirror
and see a ghost.
She never warned me
that the world might turn gray, she never
ever
ever
warned me
that panic would sometimes sweep me off my feet like a tidal wave
and I would lie on the floor/in a hole in the ground/on a bed of nails
and struggle for breath
and force my heart to keep beating --
for what I do not know,
because she never told me
that a day might come when nothing in the world would have a meaning.
She never told me
I would walk past snowdrifts and wish for peace
and crave to lie in one and let the snow cover me
until my lips were blue
and my skin was blue
and my eyes were cold
and I was finally as blue on the outside as on the inside.
That I would want to die
simply because there was nothing to keep me living.
That I would stuff myself with pills
so I could fall asleep at last.
She never told me.
She never warned me.
So when I went to her with my wrists ripped open and ragged
my hands warm and sanguine with my own blood,
she told me
We can get through this like family.
I don't know what family is, mom.
I only know what it's like to shake like a leaf from the chill, down to your very bones, when outside it's summer.
I only know what it's like to paint a porcelain smile on my porcelain face and feign interest
because just like porcelain I will shatter.
I only know what it's like to forcefully drag myself in the shower,
to forcefully wipe my chin from the *****,
to scratch slurs on my arms,
or else, to be ecstatic.
I don't know what family is, mom, because I've always pretended.
I don't know what family is, mom, because I'm made out of plastic.
I don't know what family is, mom. Dead girls don't have families.

Give me a unisex name,
my soul’s a fickle, fortified thing,
my spirit’s blue with happy pink eyes.
I get so ******* in the ugliest knots
so I just shut down and become
gender neutral.
Tell it in a letter:
I hate myself.
And that’s the thing,
I can’t straight myself!
I’m a crooked parasol
that was to shade my eyes
from the blinding sun
and that’s the thing,
I can’t see a **** thing!
past the run-of-the-mill
air-conditioned trap-house
set up for the megalomaniacs
to **** the **** out of my soul,
so I yell! and do some self-harm,
maybe a little suicide
next time. Who knows?
To get me through, dear,
only necessity permits.
I dream of living in isolation
in the woods with trees for company
because whenever I get
the urge to wail,
not a **** soul will care
but the birds.

My art teacher requires me to have an x-acto knife in my possession.
This, my friend, is a bad idea.
You see, she is blissfully unaware of my harmful tendencies.

But I can assure you, that if there's one thing I know,
it's that knife will be used on more than an art project.

School in itself is a trigger.
Knives and razors are the index finger that pulls said trigger,
setting off an explosion of blood along my wrist.

See, dear art teacher, that knife will hit my skin,
whether I want it to or not.
In a moment of weakness,
of stress,
I will turn to that available outlet.

I do not know what is scarier.
Having that knife with me every day,
or knowing that a twisted part of me wants to use it.

(d.d.b)