I pick at my sleeve
until the wool unravels
and think to myself
how much would it take
for me to unravel along with it?

when I was a little girl
my mother always said
"a boy is only mean when he likes you"

after all these years
maybe that is why
I cut and burn and bruise

I am loving myself
the only way I know how
in the way my mother taught

I cried for you
a flash of silver
between my teeth
lips, scarlet and drip-
ing

at seventeen I knew
the weight of you,
each hair on your arms
as you pressed my back
into the stained carpet

the Japanese tattoo
that struck me,
tracing the thick, black lines
with my eyes

a quick glimpse of my
grandfather, mixing bread
with milk and whiskey

flowers that grew, evergreen
in the garden where
he'd chase me

laughter ringing through the air,
cheesecloth blue dresses
and black, buckled shoes

you eat me, heart first
then each sense in turn.

I welcome the loss of
them all.

The touch of your
nails in my thighs. The
taste of blood as your
rotten mouth consumes
my own. The sound
of flesh beating flesh.
The sight of sweat beads
resting on your brow. The
smell of ***** seeping
through skin.

In a moment
I am no longer
a girl

but a woman eating
the words off my clothes,
smarting, sinister ****

a ***** kitchen floor
is waiting. The cool relief
of the tiles on my
burning skin

and a reflection of a woman,
no longer whole, yet still
alive

i inhale the frigid air and let it take place in my heart. i exhale, watching my breath in front of me. i let the warmth escape without a fight because i know with all of my heart that the world needs that warmth much more than i do.
i lay my head in the snow and look up at the sky. the stars twinkle, but somehow,
their perpetual light fails to reflect in my eyes. every breath that i inhale feels like i am swallowing more and more of the earth's darkness. i want it to stop, i don't want to suffer for these people anymore. i close my mouth, i pinch my nose. it would be easier if i ceased to breathe. perhaps there is still time to save my organs from being completely stained by their sin. is this the purpose He intended for me?

I woke up today with the lingering thought that I wanted to **** myself.
It felt old, causing me to wonder if I had felt it in my sleep as well. It took me a short while to realize that I had no interest in doing this myself. I simply did not wish to exist.

The idea was not new to me, nor was it worrisome. I had felt like this for a long while. Rare though, were the days that it descended so immediately, giving me little time to breathe before blanketing me.
It felt unusually heavy. And yet it felt unusually light. Perhaps not light. Maybe... Thin. Wispy. Immaterial. I could not figure out the source of this deep dissatisfaction with life. It didnt seem to be academic issues. It didnt seem to be social issues. It didnt seem to be home issues. Perhaps it was all of them at once. Perhaps I was tired of working my *** off, tired of feeling so forcefully, tired of answering ridiculous questions. Perhaps I was just plain tired. I was a busy person, after all.
But I had slept well. And I had had 9 days off of school. There wasn't much to warrant feeling this way. But I felt it a lot. I was god awful tired of feeling it. And the feeling seemed to magnify itself. Wanting to die only made me want to die even more.
It was frustrating. Knowing that I couldn't help but feel this way. Knowing that most of my friends didn't handle their problems this way. It was hard. I wanted to be more positive. I wanted to be like everyone else.

But then I wouldn't feel this way. And if I didn't feel this way, I wouldn't talk about it, and if you feel this way, its important to talk about it. Because mental health is stigmatized today.
It's okay to feel like you can't get out, it's okay for your legs to struggle to walk, if you can't stop repeating repeating repeating words, can't control the compulsion to skip the step before the landing. I tell myself this. Its important to tell yourself that your "problems" are normal too. And of course maybe you don't skip the step before the landing, because you aren't, you aren't, you aren't me, but your hands might shake and you might jump at the sound of cabinets slamming, and you might not agree with the voices you hear.
And you might wish that you were dead.
But instead of keeping it a secret, talk about it.
Let someone know.
Let people know that mental health is not a curious oddity, or something that ought to be shunned.
It is something that should be treated just like any physical ailment.
Don't keep it a secret.

Talk about it.

Talk about it.

Talk about it.

He had a tattoo
instead of a knife or gun,
that much I knew.

I was naked and edible,
dark cherry lips, parted, legs
spread, open to anyone,
starved, famished.

I moulded into his touch,
fluttering and spluttering.

My ribcage was empty,
I killed my heart when I said,
'I don't want you
like that.'

The ashes are still hot.
When daylight breaks
they are sifted like
stones in search of
diamonds.

There is nothing precious.
Here.
Anymore.

His tattoo, pressed
against my *******,
rising and falling
as his tongue swallowed pieces
of myself I was yet
to taste.

As he plunders, I imagine
all the places I visited as a girl.

I wonder if I ever truly left
the photos where I was once young
and whole. Whole.

in a way I can never be again.

I wonder if they live inside me still,
inside these shattered bones.

Summer days of warm breezes,
writing my name into the sand,
cocooning the letters in hearts and never,
not once, thinking, 'I am alive.'

As I lay naked on this rough
carpet, bleeding and *******
over myself.

As I learn too late
that words said can exist
without meaning.

I think of those summers,
long ago.

I can never go back but, really,
I have never left.

4 letters.
one word.
a lifelong impact.
we’ve heard this poem before,
but for some reason we all have to write it
because it binds us to a person for all of time.
it shows my connection to you
from the moment we met
until death do we part.
because of a 4 letter word.
you came into my life and showed me emotions I had never felt before,
feelings I had never even heard of.
did you know that you were doing that to me?
making me think of you every single day
for the past 3 years?
there isn’t a moment that passes where I don’t think of you and that 4 letter word.
I came to you as a babe,
shiny and new and unused.
but now that you found me,
I’m broken in, softer, a little more pliable.
but I can’t be with anyone without thinking of you.
maybe thats a good thing.
see that 4 letter word messed me up a little bit,
handcuffing me to your wrist.
maybe that’s why I can’t hold someone’s hand without feeling your rough palm against mine.
I was drunk in that 4 letter word,
expecting to sober up the next morning.
but now I’m wasted, smashed, and completely ****** up.
all because of a little 4 letter word that you brought into my vocabulary.
a 4 letter word that’s anything but temporary.
a 4 letter word that left me in solitary.
a 4 letter word that threw me into a world that could only possibly be imaginary.
a 4 letter word that goes down in my lifetime’s obituary.
a 4 letter word that you copy and pasted into my personal dictionary.
a 4 letter word with meaning tied to it that is so intense, its scary.
4 letters.
one word.
a lifelong impact.
****.

She was like your first breath of air after coming up from underwater, and now I'm drowning.