He forages on my doubts
Keeps me sleepless with distress
The real me is envious of me
She is all he wants
Can she stand the real me?

I resent the disgraceful me
Can't look at my reflection in the mirror
He threatens my core existence
So I fight to keep him burried

He mocks, taunts and mortifies
Even as she tells me I have beautiful eyes
It is good she cant peep inside through those windows
And see the struggles inside

I keep him padlocked in the depths
Listen to music and tour nice places
But in the quietest of moments
He creeps back to me

Dampens my spirit
Telling me I am way below
Not good enough
That I will ***** up as always

It is worrying what he can do
Destroy a lifetime in a day
Turn love to hate in a moment

But I wont let him hurt her
I'll leave her if I have to

Here's to showing off about football
Here's to thinking cautiously
Here's to candy
Here's to barely knowing the person who sits two seats away
Here's to a sweet tooth that tests limits
Here's to kitties and puppies
Here's to slowing rejecting the seating chart
Here's to a new chart that brings two seats together
Here's to a mutual friend
Here's to black and blonde hair
Here's to math class
Here's to learning
Here's to growing
Here's to October for reducing two seats away to one
Here's to November for closing the gap
Here's to weird animals
Here's to a new group
Here's to the boy who drops out
Here's to getting to receiving his GED
Here's to "I don't want to go homes"
Here's to choir as well
Here's to the weird science teacher who's room is claimed
Here's to awkward conversations that keep life flowing
Here's to boyfriends that lack approval
Here's to moving to a new room
Here's to arguments about Jess and Dean
Here's to Rory and Lorelai
Here's to that phone call at nine pm
Here's to "He wants to take a break"
Here's to "It's mutual" through heavy tears
Here's to friends ready to comfort
Here's to "He's trying to cheat on you"
Here's to "I just broke up with you, that's what happened"
Here's to feeling comfortable again
Here's to pause buttons for God of War
Here's to "He just broke up with me"
Here's to "He's just doesn't feel the same way anymore"
Here's to comfort and to "I hate him"
Here's to wanting to better oneself
Here's to falling short and crawling back
Here's to first fights
Here's to only lasting twenty minutes
Here's to "He blocked me"
Here's to "He's cheating on me"
Here's to not needing him
Here's to the past coming back to haunt you
Here's to being stabbed by someone once called friend
Here's to silence
Here's to "She's so pretty"
Here's to "I love you"
Here's to "No more pining after lame guys"
Here's to seeing that teacher at Goodwill
Here's to days of brokenness
Here's to hope
Here's to the future
Here's to sweet sixteens
Here's to first cars
Here's to reptiles in rainy weather attire
Here's to sassitude
Here's to sasstastic people
Here's to near deaths
Here's to survivals
Here's to first sleepovers
Here's to lunch at that cute Italian bistro nobody knows
Here's to Philly cheesesteaks
Here's to Thai tea
Here's to "When can we do this again"
Here's to nightmares about rejection
Here's to dreams about perspective
Here's to an undying friendship
Here's to an eternity of trust
Here's to many more days
Here's to you
And here's to me,
Cheers,
Your best friend

They say one thing leads to another
but I wish that wasn't so
how does One Stop racing
One thought... then the next
They all used to be good and suddenly without warning  they just
turned around
Did a 360
Like I did on that dirt road at 17 thought we were going to die
Laughed afterwards... Adrenaline Junkies but now it makes me want to cry
wondering why I didn't die
From double lung pneumonia or the
anaphylactic shock when I was really young that penicillin
Hydroplaning off the road,
jumping an 8-foot Stonewall and having the car crushed to my chest
No one could see me in the down there
in the rain even my brother drove by
Couldn't breathe but somehow I made my way out with broken ribs down the road to a phone
that's all I remember about that
Endless stories of trauma I wonder if everybody's life is a city of it
like mine
I can only imagine it is
The terrible thing when your fight-or-flight response is all messed up
Looks like more than a Crossroads
Looks like an endless maze
Covered in a murky Haze
I hope I can find my way back though going to be a while...
I know the brain is a miraculous friend
I'm thinking way too much
They say the more intelligent we are
the more difficult it is to recover
so I wish I was less intelligent now
Or at least I could close this Pandora's Box
The memories that go round and round like the car in the parking lot that I kept spinning till it the engine died
I keep wondering if all that was just a dream
like getting thrown from the horse
There's a whole lot more that I got to shove
into a bottle
every time they're inside my mind
and I chuck them out into the ocean
hoping that they smash and burst on the shore and I will return to who I was
once more....
Keep focusing on the fact that there are more good days and bad
Try to look forward instead of looking back try to keep track of what's important
Right now I guess that's me.

Cherie Nolan © 2016

Rain, rain, go away!
Come again another day.

She sings with them 'til it's gone
Like she loves it 'til the end.
She gives them umbrella
She said she doesn't need.
And at night
before the rain gets stronger
the rain would ask her:
"Why do you keep giving happiness that isn't yours?"
And then she will weep and weep
asking herself the same thing.

What are we?
But the sum of our experiences?
We walk around
The chains on our shoulders
We all have chains
The chains are what’s left of those experiences
We feel our chains but
The chains of others are invisible to us
We forget
That others may have greater chains than ours
That they may suffer daily like us
So we walk
Letting our chains
Slap into others and give them more chains
Without a second thought
For how they might feel
For our only concern is for our chains
So we lash out

A bird set free,
to the unknown world
he became lively and joyous!
only to realize that the world
was his cage, and he was
trapped in his own freedom

"I wish I were a bird" They say-

Only a bird knows
what it's like to lose its wings
while flying to survive

- Kaya