They teach you a lot in school
How to add, multiply, divide,
& subtract.
But they don't teach you how to say
you're sorry for wanting to **** yourself
when everyday, people who want to live
die.
They don't teach you how to deal with
the aching sadness,
the crippling darkness,
& the desire to subtract yourself
from this life.
I know how to factor,
but I don't know how to hold myself together.
They can teach you a lot in school.
But they couldn't teach me
to love myself.

you are paper,
let yourself be crumpled,
and then tell me stories
about your creases, your scars;
memories living in jars

tell me how it hurt
to be molded impetuously
because you still feel pain
when your wrinkles look like veins,
fragile streaks of vulnerability
flowing within you,
all over you,
and i will tell you
that i could not care less
if you are a mess of crooked roads;
if you are no longer like the others
devoid of folds
because these folds define you,
and the others do not crumple
in the same way as you do

you are paper,
skinned from nature
let yourself be written,
and then tell me stories
about yourself, your tales
without ever having to use a pen

Before you jump into a life that doesn't fit you,
Get to know yourself the same way
You would get to know someone else.
Observe what you do, not what you say.
You may find that your actions
Clash with your fashionable self-portrait.

O me! O life!… of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

I had a tough therapy session, can you listen?
She said, "Talia, you can't live in the psych ward."
But what am i supposed to do when every time i drive my car i have to pull over because i can't see anything but car accidents?
I'd never cried in front of my psychologist until she said that suicidal thoughts might be something i have to live with.
She said, this is bpd.
I said thank you.
She said that if i continue to purge at the rate i am going my heart will stop before i turn 18.
I couldn't help but think that i hope it does.

If I stop eating
will by body grow thin enough
that I could unravel?
That I could pick
at all these snagged imperfections
puckering my skin
until one comes loose
and I can pull it until I am entirely undone?
Until I tumble to the ground and blow away?

If i stop eating
will this rumbling
fill up my whole body?
Will this hunger,
that gnaws at my stomach,
grow larger than I have ever been?
Grow large enough to swallow me up?
To eat me whole
and dissolve me into nothing?

And then wander on....
a howling desolation
where a human used to be
that grows more grotesque
each moment.
Who's appetite grows continually
more appalling,
until it has consumed everything that surrounds it,
until it stands alone in a wasteland howling,
screeching,
disfiguring itself
until it dies from starvation, or auto-cannabalism
or until it is put down
like a rabid animal.

Time expands and collapses and crumbles in my hands
I’m caught in a hurricane of thoughts refusing to escape my being
Insults created especially for me echo through the shell that i have become
I feel my legs bouncing like they’re convincing themselves to leave me
My stomach churns like the spin cycle on a washing machine
I’m tired of feeling empty yet so full and heavy that each step i take is a battle in and of itself because my legs alone are 10,000 insufferable pounds
I watch my chest rise and fall but it feels like an overweight white man is sitting directly on my lungs
I am consumed by the urge to cry out for help but my mouth has been sewn shut by your assumptions that each move i make is for attention.