I want the suffering to end.
I'm sick of the flashbacks,
the cutting,
the pain.
Everything that life brings me,
I'm ******* tired of.

I want the hallucinations to go away.
It scares me to hear someone call my name,
or to see someone stand by my door,
only to realize there's no one there.
It almost makes me sad
that my brain made it up
and none of it was real.

I want to feel free again.
I'm done sleeping on my parents' bedroom floor,
and being consumed by an addiction to self destruction.
I want to be free of thoughts and compulsions to harm myself in any way I can.

I want it all to end.

Warning-This poem contains themes of self harm and suicide.

What will it take for you to finally care?
You never cared to ask how I was doing,
and then when I ended up in the hospital,
you were all over me,
asking questions,
and telling me I was going to be okay.

Will it take my suicide for you to admit you were wrong for what you did to me?
You'll keep lying to our friends
until the day I die.
Then, you'll feel too guilty to keep this lie going,
and you'll cave in.

Will it take me carving deep wounds into my skin for you to say you're sorry?
When you see the cuts
I know you'll ask me if I'm okay because your mom is worried about me.
You know I'm not,
but we're both liars here.

Now I lay here,
in my bed, covered in my own blood,
wondering
what will it take
for you to listen to my problems,
for you to apologize,
for you to care,
for you to realize you were a terrible friend to me.

I know how it feels to be invalidated.
The words, "try harder," and "just stop" replay in my head like a movie.
I would take that advice if it was that easy,
but that's not how my brain works.

I know how it feels to feel like an anomaly.
I grew up different from all the kids, I was weird and I had scars on my arms and legs.
If it were possible, I'd be normal,
but there's no fun in being like everyone else.

I know how it feels to be minimized.
We were both so young that it "doesn't matter."
I wish I could let it go,
but I won't forgive her until I get an apology.

I know how it feels to not be trusted.
I was too unsafe to be by myself.
I slept on my parents' floor in their bedroom, sometimes for several days.
but I don't know when I'll be able to regain that trust.

Warning- This poem contains graphic descriptions of suicide attempts and self harm.

I remember the days with my hands wrapped around my throat.
My wrists were cut up and my eyes were filled with tears.
I was only ten.
I never want to feel that way again.

I remember thinking I was better off dead.
I'd been almost a year since I'd cut myself,
but I sat thinking about suicide in the rain.
I was only eleven.
I never want to feel that way again.

I remember taking a ton of pills before school and sitting by the door with a belt around my neck.
I couldn't stop cutting, but I was feeling happy.
I was only twelve.
I never want to feel that way again.

I remember writing this poem.
I'd finished writing all of my suicide notes, with a plan to **** myself on a random Sunday.
I'd given up cutting and was on three antipsychotics.
I was only thirteen.
I'm ready to never feel this way again.

Grass too green,
sunlight ripped into jagged shards
by the fig tree’s fists of shadow.
Cupcakes bleeding frosting,
iced coffee sweating through paper cups.
We pretended it was a family.
We pretended.

Mum sat besides Dad,
like their bones remembered being joined.
Like his hands weren’t already holding someone else’s.
Like her vows weren’t chained to her job.

I opened my mouth.
The sugar rotted on my tongue.
Everything spoiled.
And I told them.

How I hunted for older hands.
How I thought I needed it.
How I wanted out when I saw the second man,
but the door was already locked.
How they used me.
How one carved into me,
split me open with steel,
left a word to rot inside my skin.

My own scars, I’ve loved.
They are mine,
my handwriting on my body.
But this one,
this one crawls.
It doesn’t heal,
it festers,
a maggot under the flesh,
hissing that I didn’t choose it.
A vandal’s tag on my skin.
An infection of me.

Dad’s face twisted, anger,
then collapse.
Mum’s face, vanished,
then drowned in tears.
The helpers, two statues,
faces carved like gravestones,
motionless as I gutted myself.

I clutched my ribs,
hugged myself,
but the scar pulsed,
thick, swollen,
as if it was laughing.
And no one reached for me.

The picnic died.
Flies feasted on icing,
ants drowned in coffee.
Mum and Dad pulled apart,
the rug split like torn flesh.
And me,
already in pieces,
my body a crime scene.

I dragged myself to the sun,
limped like the scar was a chain.
Collapsed.
Let the world blur.
Even in sleep,
I felt it twitch,
like a parasite feeding.  

When I woke,
a hand on my face.
Gentle. Slow.
Tracing me the way she once did
when I was a baby,
her fingers mapping me
like I was new to her again.

She avoided the carved word.
Her touch lingered on the scars I made myself,
as if she understood those belonged to me.
Her fingertips circled,
again and again,
like she was trying to write over the wound,
to overwrite the trespass,
to give me back the body I lost.

Mum beside me,
breathing clouds.
No words.
Just her arms,
finally closing around me.

And for one fragile moment,
the scar went still.
Not gone.
Never gone.
But almost forgotten.

After the blood stops running
And the relief is over
An almost impossible to describe feeling takes control.
Its anger, regret
Its sadness and pain
Its how could I do such a horrible thing?
Its panicky hiding
Heart rate increasing
Oh my God how do I hide this?
But then after a bit
when bad feelings set in,
The cycle continues again.

Why won’t it cut?
I’ve run the knife so many times
but nothing comes out of my thigh
at least,
my tears have stopped falling

Cleaning up my room.
Open a wardrobe that’s been closed for too long.
As old sketchbooks stack on the floor,
my hand reaches to touch a sharp blade
and a knife makes old memories bloom.
Everything feels red as words leave my throat,
the music on my headphones far away,
my body lost somewhere a few years ago.

A kid stealing a knife from the kitchen,
keeping it hidden and close out of instinct,
like the cat that stops eating when he feels death’s approach.

No scars fill my arms now,
but sometimes their texture reminds me of that time,
where I was a push away from falling into an addiction
that spills blood out of your system like pain went with it
and leaves marks on it that no words can take away.

I recall a time far back,
When my young mind lacked love,
Wishing my body to be clawed like a cat attacking a dove
So I bore youthful arms to my cat,
Clean arms at that,
Wanting her to give me what I deserve,
I gently prodded at her stomach in an attempt to annoy her
I was only a child and she was only a cat,
She rolled over and invited me to pet her,
I gave in and rubbed her downy gray fur
Then I got what I deserved most at that time,
Love, laced in her purr
The only one whom shown it was her
My cat