I've been telling my therapist about you.
I've been trying to sleep, yet all that fills my head is you and her.
You talking to her. A filthy wreck. I feel sorry for her.
Me working into the early hours of the morning, watching a sunrise on the long drive back, me wanting to get home to you.
You getting involved with her while I'm gone. You inviting her to the bar. Let me make you a drink.
You could be wiping her lipstick away before I return, erasing her taste from your lips. I bet it's disgusting.
I thought you hated dreadlocks.
I've been going over and over in my head if this is what I'm worth. I know I'm not a looker.. My hair is messy, my clothes are ripped, I'm all marked up from the past.
I thought my personality shone through that though.
Sometimes though, I guess that's not enough.
What hole do you need to fill? Please tell me.
Please, oh please tell me why you knocked me down. Why am I not enough.
I've been crying a little each day, then pulling it back together.
I've been trying to still be that stone wall I always am throughout this horrible pain.
I smell like cigarettes, you smell like lies.
I've been telling my therapist about you.

I will conquer the cities in my mind you destroyed. I am rebuilding them and making them shine brighter than before. There are gates around them, and moats and jetting mountains.
Stay out.
I am strong. I don't need you. I don't need anyone.
Wild flowers grow tall in my gardens, with each stem come thousands of thorns. Don't you dare touch me,
For I have changed.
My tongue will spit words I feared to before. Ones that strike a soft spot within you and make you wonder what happened to me as my eyes dig through your exterior.
No longer will I cater to every need, fulfill every desire, and be left a broken mess on the ground. Never again will I love and trust so easily, leaving my heart out in the open for another and giving them all the power to completely destroy it.
I refuse.
I can smell a lie from thousands of miles away now.
Your betrayal has given me power, a fire burning within me.
I'm different. You don't know this girl.

If you were a desert I would be the village you wipe out in a black blizzard. Shattering the windows of my houses, blinding my inhabitants.
If you were an ocean you'd have a monsoon swirling within you. I would be the shoreline you destroy. My sandy beaches soaked in your carelessness. I am no longer a place people want to visit.
If you were lightning I would be the unlucky one struck. I would try to move and you would follow me, go for another blow. After awhile your strikes numb my body and I discover I would rather not have feelings.
If you were a weather report you would be disappointing. I was hoping for sunshine and got a hurricane.
They should name a storm after you.

Sitting here in Tompkins, it all comes rushing back
The empty stares and bloodshot eyes,
Shooting dope and smoking crack.
Tiger is on the corner shouting "it's the first day of spring!"
Everything is gone to me, all my belongings in the pawn shop, sold.
It doesn't matter what season it is, my heart is always cold.
They kick me out of the basement and now I have no place to sleep.
So I rob a man, cop a few backs.
Get high in a public bathroom and weep.
My eyes are brimming with tears as I walk down down the street.
They're silently screaming help me to every person I meet.
But I cannot let the world see me cry, they cannot know my tears. The world is a big bad place and it cannot know my fears.
I'm waking up next to the East River, I'm only 19 years old.
How did I get this way, what happened? I was always a good girl and did as I was told.
Mommy, where are you?
Mommy can I please come back?
My father has left me and you will too
I'm sorry.. I'm sorry. But this is what enfolds when your daughter does smack.
I'm in Denver now still miserable, I am so far away.
I swallow my pride and lie when they ask if I'm okay.
I'm staying in a crack house, my arm is infected, I'm scared.
"Help!" I tell them. "Please take me somewhere safe."
They roll their eyes and laugh, they say there's no such place.
I overdose, my heartbeat stops for two minutes. Then I snap back to life.
"******* it!" I yell "why didn't I just *******  die?"
I try again and fail twice.
My time is running out, I can't take this **** anymore. But when it comes to that needle.. For her I'm a ******* *****.
My arm though.. My ******* arm. It's getting worse. Five times is size, filled with ****, it's so ******* sore.
I take a breath. It's early morning. I grab my things and run for the street. I'm sorry to my friends.. But my promises I can't keep.

A thousand more miles away now, my arm is still throbbing, lying in a hospital bed. Hooked up to a million machines, my doctor saying he's surprised I'm not dead.

This is what I think about, just so you're aware.
This is what I think about, alone in Tompkins Square.

A terrible thing is happening to me
You're breaking and entering, trespassing,
I try to stop you but I am powerless.
As you violate me I take my mind elsewhere.
Far off places, happy thoughts
"Just think happy thoughts"
As you hurt me.
I see myself as a little girl, playing Chinese checkers with my grandmother
She laughs at how I try to cheat
And makes me a grilled cheese with tomatoes, my favorite.
Her memory is gone now though. I hope this memory of you taking my innocence can be deleted from mine.
It hurts so much now and I tell you to stop but you just keep on going. And going. You don't care. Nobody does.
Maybe my grandfather is looking down on me, he'd **** you if he hadn't killed himself first.
I think about taking my own life when this is over.
I open my eyes and there is the highway next to us. I try to slip away into one of the cars, people going home, somewhere warm and safe, please take me with you.
I'm a little girl again in my backyard, playing on the swing set, my mother is cooking inside and nothing bad can ever happen to me. The world is good and I am happy.
I'm screaming and I start to cry.
I'm a tree falling in the woods. No one knows I'm there. No one hears me slamming into the cold ground. No one helps me up.
It's just you and me and you are the definition of evil.
An awful thing happened to me today.

Hey, it’s me.
And I am yelling at you.
I am yelling at you cause you wanted to meet me
But you never did
And I miss you so **** much even though I never met you
And no puns intended, it kills me.
It kills me every day.
I am yelling at you for the memories I never had with you
I am yelling yelling, I am screaming
I see blue and Red lights in my head every day like I was there
When she found you dead on the floor
I can hear my aunt on the phone saying “no it isn’t true”
But it was. You did it. You did that.
Everyone tells me how much I look like you.

I will walk a thousand miles in a warm and lit wood,
Or lie in the dark all day, my chest pounding, sometimes my palms sweating.
I can love you with my entire being, with an open heart and outstretched arms,
I can nearly hate you also. The thought of betrayal, burning flames lapping up inside of me.
I will exhaust myself with tears about things that haven't happened yet. Far off thoughts, ones that are merely dust in the wind.
Then I will tell others not to worry about a thing, while my own mind consumes me and all that I do.
It's a challenge to practice what I preach.
I am trapped underwater, I am flying through the clouds
I am singing out loudly into the bright sunshine, I am silent in the lonesome night.
I am free as a wild stallion running across the grasslands, I am a bird with clipped wings.
I don't know the color grey
I never have.

I'm fine and then I'm a basket case
I am driving down a secluded road and then I am in the middle of a city, there are too many noises and people, I need to get out
I am crashing. I am toppling over a cliff going
Down
Down
Down
Down
Crash.
Windows broken, airbags deployed, engine on fire.
I am the wreckage.
Don't slow down the world to look at me because I don't want to be seen. I am too busy feeling the pain, feeling loss, feeling broken. My gears don't work right. You can't put me in drive anymore, my radio won't play sweet feel good top 40 songs.
Even my gas pedals won't budge, I am stuck and I am feeling everything
All at once.

Sitting out here in the dark, it's 4:47 am
I wonder where you are
My heart is beating
With you in it
You're going through my veins, pumping through my blood, you're filling me up and I don't know if I can handle these emotions
I feel like I'm breaking
I need to be kept together
Please hold me
Let me breathe you in
I'm clingy.
Heart pounding out of my chest
It's on the ground
Along with my cigarette ashes
And that's all I am now
An ember that's burning ever so slightly
Just stomp me out.

I am empty as the parking lot is after a concert or a football game
There's merely trash on the ground, crushed beer cans, char from the barbecues. The good times are over and now it is just empty with memories of happiness littering the floor. The street lights are bright and if I stare around I can see my loneliness spreading out in every direction.
I am empty as the beach is at night. When families and couples have returned home, tucked away and safe. Warm. Whispering sweet nothings. They've forgotten about the beach for now. Yet I am still here with the cold water wrapping itself around my ankles. My feet sinking into the sand as I wish it would simply swallow me whole. I am still here, gazing up at the moon and stars, wondering why.
Lastly I am empty as my glass is at the bar. Here I am not so lonely. Maybe someone will tell me I'm pretty. For a little while maybe someone will make me forget.

I lose track of the days when you’re around
I am with you one night and before I know it you’ve moved in,
And at the time, I’m perfectly fine with it.
I have spilled you all over my carpets,
You’ve put a couple dents in my car,
My mother never really approved of you,
Yet you’ve been the only one to keep me warm
You never left.

It’s been a few months now that I invited you back.
It’s going well.
Some people worry a little
Those are the ones that haven’t given us this new chance.
We’re not spending all our time together anymore.
A little, after I’m back from work.
That’s it, I promise.
We can do this.
We can be normal.

It’s been a few more months
I almost lost my license because of you
But it’s not really your fault
It’ll be fine.
I knew the cop
It’ll be fine
It won’t happen again
I’m thirsty.

You’ve made me late to work too many times the last month
I’m on thin ice with my boss
I’m on thin ice with mostly everyone.
My mother asked if you’ve been around again,
She looked me in my yellow eyes and said she could smell you
I lied for you
I told her
I haven’t been near you in the longest time
Then I left her,
And I came home,
So I could just sit here
And spend my time with you.

I’m unemployed now
My mother hasn’t been calling
My friends haven’t stopped by
I’ve been going to the store numerous times a day for you
I’ve been staying up all night with you
Until I can see the sun starting to crawl into the sky.
I’m tired

When I wake up I never know what day it is
What time it is
My mouth is a desert,
I can’t tell which way up is,
I’m dizzy
The only thing that makes me feel better anymore
Is you
But I have a black eye now
And this time it’s your fault
What I thought was your unconditional love and safety is killing me.

I thought it would only be that one time with you, a “just once more”

Yet you stayed again.
And it was worse than the first time we met.
You’re all over my house that I can’t pay for
You’re in the closet
The garbage
There’s bits of my own ***** in the kitchen sink,
It’s been there for days.

I loved you but I need you to leave.
You’re poisoning me
I’m crippled
I can’t breathe.

I should’ve listened to my mother.

She’s dying from life.
She doesn’t have cancer, she’s not sick, but she is suffering
And she’s dying from her own life.
She’s dying from the nazis taking her childhood away, she’s dying thinking about the first time her husband asked her to dance, and she’s dying because her husband left a note and she found his body.
She is dying because she did so much, and was so strong. She tried so hard and now she is tired. She is still strong, but she is oh so tired.
And she’s still being stubborn but she can’t leave bed. She can’t move, she can barely speak, I feel what she wants to say resting on the tip of my tongue.
She is dying.