No please not again
I worked so hard
Relapse...
Just for all the progress to be washed away in a second
I worked too hard I can't give up
Relapse...
The scissors are getting closer
I'm trying not to fail
Relapse...
My breathing quickens
It feels like there is only one right answer
Relapse...

I feel the urge to cut as I am sitting here in my room
I'm wonder will this ever end
Seconds feel like minutes
I am forcing myself to not get up and grab scissors
I don't want to ask for help because I am embarrassed
I snap my hair tie
1...
2...
3...
Will this feeling ever End?
I want to give in so bad
Still crying on my floor
Wondering where everything went wrong
I physically force myself to stay on the ground
But the urge is getting to strong
And I want to give in....

my wounds
are ocean-deep.
caution advised.
even seasoned souls,
spotless and sure,
could easily drown.

Red.
It’s not pretty on me.
Not lipstick.
Not Valentines hearts.
Not cute red sweaters or “you’re so strong compliments.”

My red is the kind that stains.
That sticks.
That screams when I try to whisper.
Red is the colour of being left.
Not once.
But over and over and over.

My mum?
Yeah, my bio mum.
She left like I was a book she stopped
reading halfway through.
But she still sends postcards.
Like that makes it better.
Like writing, “Love, Mum” at the end
wipes away the years that she wasn’t there
to love me at all.

Do you know what it feels like
to get a message from a ghost
trying to pretend she’s still real?

I don’t read them anymore.
I just stare at the handwriting and
feel nothing.
Or maybe too much.
I can’t tell the difference anymore.

Red is the rage I swallow
because screaming makes people
uncomfortable.
Because no one wants to hear
about the kid sent to boarding school at 11
like an inconvenience.
Shipped off.
Silenced.
Discarded.

Dad didn’t even fight.
Just handed me over
to a woman who never saw me as hers
and made sure I knew it.

Red is the silence between us now.
And it’s loud.
So loud it drowns out the sound of me breaking.

But the worst red?
The darkest?

Wasn’t just what they did.
It was what they took.
Two men.
People I trusted.
People who smiled at me like I mattered
before they ruined me.

I said no.
I said stop.
But they didn’t hear me—
because they weren’t listening.
They were taking.

And one of them carved a word
into my skin.
A word I won’t repeat.
Because it’s still there.
Because when I shower, I still trace it.
Like it might come off this time.
It never does.

Red is that word.
That memory.
That version of me
that I don’t know how to bring back.
Sometimes I look in the mirror
and all I see is what they left behind.

I’m still here.
Yeah.
Breathing.
Just barely.

But I think about giving it all up.
More than I say out loud.
More than anyone would guess
by the way I smile in hallways
and laugh when I’m dying inside.

Red is the part of me that wants to vanish.
That writes poems
because if I don’t put it on the page,
I might not survive the weight.

Red is major depression.  
C-PTSD.
It’s waking me up and wondering why.
Why me.
Why still.
Why now.

It’s wanting someone to hold me and mean it.
Wanting my mum to show up
in something more than postage stamps and pretend love.
Wanting my dad to say,
“I was wrong. I should’ve kept you close.”
But knowing they won’t.
Knowing they didn’t.

Red is the truth no one wants to hear.
The pain they skip over in movies.
The girl in the back of the class
with scars on her heart and skin
who’s just trying to get through the day
without breaking apart in front of everyone.

Red is me.
All of me.
Hurting.
But still breathing.
Still here.

Not because I'm strong.
Not because I want to be.
But because even though everything in me says give up,
some tiny voice
buried under the rubble
still whispers:
Wait.

Imagine yourself
Alone in your head.
You're hanging, dangling
From a silver thread.

Empty, alone
With the monsters within.
Internally screaming,
You just want to give in.

Now imagine that's you
Every day, every hour.
Forever sinking
Like a wilting flower.

You try to tell your dad
And you try to tell your mom,
But they say you're being silly,
You've just got to move on.

Because teens don't know sorrow
Nor the hardships of life.
They're just kids with imaginations
Just looking for attention, right?

You think that there's none
Who knows how you feel.
You're just so alone,
But the feelings- they're real.

Useless,
Neglected,
Forgotten,
Distressed.

Alone,
Afraid,­
But mostly
Depressed.

And you're friends,
They go on
Like nothing has changed.

"They must not care,"
Your thoughts whisper,
The lies in your brain.

You can't escape it,
Trapped in your own skin.
You're ugly,
You're hated,
But you mask it with a grin.

You hate what you feel,
So instead you feel nothing.
Your insides are numb,
Your confidence crumbling.

You look to other things
To stop the pain.
Like cutting
But it gives you no gain.

And the people around you
Shout abuse your way.
"You're hurting yourself, stop it!"
That's all they ever say.

No matter how you plead
That you're broken inside,
They turn the other way,
They run, they hide.

They say you're just foolish,
It's all in your head.
What they don't know is inside
You're already dead.

been wearing the truth
up my sleeve
for ten whole years,
yet people who've known me
for half that time
stumble
when it gets revealed.

inside and out,
time has sealed
those battles fought in vain.
we're like family now—
truth and i.
but when they flinch
at the unconcealed,
i still don’t know
what to say.

my bones miss structure
even if it’s borrowed
a timetable stitched from deadlines
just enough to tie me to something
outside my own spiraling

now, all i have is time
feral and barefoot
spilling into corners
where potential goes to wilt
too much of my life for nobody to hold

no duties to tether me
no rush, no reason
just the sound of myself growing louder

my hands itch for anything but survival

let me bleed for burden and responsibility
instead of rotting in my own brain
let me fall apart for someone else

still, i need to stay alive
to wrap the babies in my warmth
to meet the mothers
between screams and surrender
so they’ll finally feel safe with me

for now, i stare at the scars on my wrist
and think of all the pain i’ll carry differently
when it’s not just my own
but from holding too much of another life
and never letting it slip away

the lives i hope to live long enough to see

so when they breathe for the first time
i’ll know how to do it too

Please, do not gaze
Upon the stories carved in my skin
Each line, a silent echo
Of torment etched within.

Please, do not pry
Into the vault of memories I bear,
For truth, when stripped of mercy,
Is but a dream that vanishes in air.

Please, do not weep
When I smile and claim I'm whole,
As I swallow quiet doses
To still the storms inside my soul.

Please, do not tremble
When my heavy eyes begin to close
Sleep does not cradle me
It only deepens what sorrow sows.

Please, do not attempt
To map the silence I contain,
For the feelings once ablaze in me
Have frozen into pain.

So I beg of you
Do not question this quiet affliction.
I am not broken beyond repair,
Just adrift in a lonely fiction.

When I left my bed and snuck outside, the wind was firm and cold
And paper birds swirled about my face and flew through times untold
Papered wings and papered backs and their papered beaks so quiet
That I wished only to touch them, though I did not dare try it
Then I had wondered quite distinctly whether it might not be
Merely a dream I was dreaming, but a truth that I should see
Though the strangeness was so prevalent, l could not help but feel
This was indeed reality, for the wind was hard as steel
Because in these wondering moments, when my mind had wandered far
The storm had grown to such degree I could scarcely see a star
But the birds still swished so silently around my ghostly face
It seemed they had no place to go except their old paths retrace
Again, again, and again they swooped until they pierced my skin
Yet no blood appeared about me, but rather, deep and sharp within
My anguish seemed frivolous, although the pain suffused each limb
The birds cared not for what I felt, each black eye so bleak and grim
Full of hatred, full of loathing, full of useless, pointless wrath
Their lipless smiles split their faces, they could not help but laugh
Deep within their feathered beings was the goal of my demise
Did I commit some act against them, I could not but surmise
Or had they come to carry out the justice of another?
Only of this thought I was sure, it was my fault and no other
Yet my memory did fail me as my mind was fogged with pain
What had been hopes and loves and loyalties struggled to remain
Is this where I shall end because of some dark and baseless rage?
Or ‘ever I be interred within this dark and feathered cage?
No reason could I fathom, although their purpose seemed quite clear
Was this torture they had wrought nothing more than my baseless fear?
Was this paper nothing but a mere creation of my mind?
As I carefully examined each small fold I could at no point find
Anything much more substantial than a darkly scoffing smoke
A mist that swirled all ‘round my face until I could naught but choke
My throat I grasped with my bloodied hands, each wound so small yet real
Each mark to forever haunt me — such a small though stubborn seal.