Don't tell me I'm better
Because my scars are healing
Or because my ribs no longer break skin
Don't tell me I seem fine
Because I look like a real girl now
You can't see the battle raging within

Don't tell me I'm better
When you see me eating pizza
Or taking morning pills to keep me quiet
Don't tell me I seem fine
Because I can sit and laugh out loud
And I can make jokes until the night

Don't tell me I'm better
I've been polluting my lungs
Until my insides are smoke and tar
Don't tell me I seem fine
I can't get out of bed every day
I cry apathetically to the stars

Don't tell me I'm better
You can't tell just by looking at me
Or believing the smile I paint on each day
Don't tell me I seem fine
How can you know my racing mind
You can never judge illness this way

Don't tell me I'm better
Because I no longer have the energy to cut
Or starve but that isn't alright
Don't tell me I seem fine
If I talk to you about normal things
Being able to pretend is not the same as fine.

Why do we pour ourselves into anyone
Or anything, if not to forget?
And why do we do anything at all,
If not to escape; why, if life
Is so hard, do we fight to live it?
Do we find beauty in its faults,
Or love in its intricacies; is there
Some state of grace we can achieve,
Or are we all merely surviving
Through our allocated existence?
Can there ever be more?
Is happiness real, or only
A dream of humanity; did we
Invent it, to give some meaning to
The years spent crawling on this earth?
If we are so evolved, why are we
Also so entrenched in destruction;
The using up of our resources,
The race towards our own ends?
Are we ever truly alive?

The dawn breeze caresses my skin;
How torturous that I feel it again
Maybe this is why I am afraid,
Scared to sleep at night because I
Will still wake to see the new sun rise;
A new day begins even though I tried

It's slightly less painful to be awake
Then slumber through the daybreak;
I'd rather live in the dark than
Wake to it once again, still waiting
For the light hours in which I can
Live with some degree of truth

Birds awakening fill my tired ears
With songs of the new start ahead,
Each day is fresh but I'd rather wake
Midway through it than anticipate
It's coming, now it seems I am
Eternally in the dark, waiting.

Becoming broken is not a choice;
The slow degeneration
Has no fault or blame
It is when your mind is once more
Rectified; what you do from
There is not the same
When sick and becoming worse
I had no choice, my actions
Were not ever my own
But now sitting in the hospital
Seeing clearly my sad
Condition, I have grown
I can now make a choice
As I teeter on the brink
Of relapse and more madness
I could choose to fight
To walk away and learn not
To be controlled by sadness
It means now the flinging down
Desultory, of what I have craved
And sought for years;
It means closing some doors
Finding out what resides
On the other side of fear
To give up control, weight loss
Strict rules; to give up
On the easy destruction
To learn to breathe, to learn again
To feel and to smile
To fight these inclinations
While sinking I had no choice
While torn, no concept
That this is not what life is
But now in the aftermath
Seeing clear my insanity
I can choose to be more than this;
So I choose to do the opposite
Of what the voices say
I may not deserve food, love
But only according to
The devil resting in my mind
I must turn to the stars above;
To eat, learn to fuel my body
Appreciate its natural
Shape, resilience, form;
To stop harming myself as
Some sick replacement
To emotion; not be a storm
I must learn to settle and sit
With sadness, then hope
I will no longer seek to die;
To face my fears, challenge those
Old rules, and now I pray
I can learn to be alive.

It is only at 2am when you will realise
You might have gone too far
You will get up to brush your hair
Feel your body almost give way
And nearly succumb to blackness
Mounting the window to **** down another cigarette
You will realise you kept nothing down
And haven't even tried to for six hours
You will realise you're awake and always are
When the rest of the world sleeps
Because some manic desire for deprivation
Keeps your bloodshot eyes pinned open
You will chew another stick of gum
Tainted by smoke and diet soda
And almost smile as you notice
You ostentatiously pretended to be trying
You've listened to chords and turned
Page after page and turned off your phone
But you're clinging to insomnia just like
You hang on to starvation as gratification
And some justification of your existence
You will burn your back on the radiator
That you're secretly glad is broken
And stuck on max because you are always
Cold as if you were winter itself
And the marrow of your bones is ice water
You will stare at your sternum and ribcage
And seek your hipbones in the mirror
Only to be frustrated because you
Still can't wrap your fingers round your arms
You will almost smell everything you wish
You could eat and not need to throw up
You feel your bones ache and stiffen
And think maybe you really let yourself go
You will think of what to eat tomorrow
Realise you'd rather drink coffee
And you made plans so as to avoid food
You will have moved it all downstairs
In a desperate urge to avoid the binge
And hate yourself for it because now
You have no release and not even blades left
With which to feel something and so
You stare into empty oscillating space
Extinguish your cigarette on arms
Already scarred and cut to pieces
You think to hell with everything and realise
You've really done it this time.

What to say when I've been tearing up my skin
To match the voices that have torn me within
I'm confused at how to really explain
That staying alive requires a dose of pain
Anxiety rips through me like a storm
And I thank the gods I was forewarned
That the plan was born over a day ago
And though I can't fight I can let them know
And my safety can be removed from my hands
I pray I find someone who understands
As I sit bleeding and shaking and broken down
Why I am unable to turn my life around
All I see these days is a cavernous hole
Gaping and pulling and tormenting my soul
I don't know how to convey my feelings of doubt
Of how I can only see this one way out
How I can't see a future or anything ahead
And my mind races and wants me dead
I can't see myself ever really living
When this cold light is so unforgiving
I don't know what to say so I stay quiet
But don't presume there is calm in my silence
Don't assume I am okay when sitting still
I'm planning and I'm treating with devils
Selling my soul for some kind of relief
The scratches and hunger are no release
Not really or at least not good enough
Why do I feel so undeserving of love
So worthless each and every day
I suppose that's why I can't change my ways
Why I feel as though I'm dying inside
Why I see my only option as suicide.