I'm 17.

I suffer from daily anxiety attacks. Sometimes up to six of them in one day. Thoughts of ending my life, of ending the constant torment, are what I have to think about to calm me down.

I have to convince myself that I'm going to **** myself almost nightly to save my life.

Tell me again how these are the best years of my life?

i want you to tell me i’m beautiful, every day until i believe it. the truth is i was never beautiful, not until you said it, until you lied about it. i felt something when you said those words, something i’ve never been before. i’m different after you and i don’t know how to go back to being who i was.

I noticed how short your nails were
and that you tried to brush out the cow licks in your hair
and I noticed how you grind your teeth when you dream
and how you would jump at the slightest sound
and I noticed that your favorite colors were blue and black and green.

but you only noticed how pink my lips were
and you only noticed how soft my knees were
and you only noticed how I would give you anything if you didn't ask
and you only noticed what you wanted to know and not what you wanted to wonder

but i wonder if you felt the scars on my thighs as you slid your hand passed them
and i wonder if you heard the nervous chuckles when i came up for air
and i wonder if you remember that my eyes are blue and green and my heart is black and i wanted to be your favorite because parts of me are broken and i wanted you to wonder why.

scientists say that a fingerprint develops when a baby is only 12 to 19 weeks along and that it is impossible for two people to develop the same print and although i believe in science i am still hoping there is a chance that someone in the world might have the same etches on the tip of his fingers as you did because to find the same hair colour and the same eye colour and the same smile is almost too easy but your touch against my skin made even the brightest of fireworks envious and darling something like that is irreplaceable

i write all day like an adult,
i am learned and i use big words
and i know how to accurately craft
a metaphor about pain and harm.

but at the end of the day
i return to childlike phrases,
“it’s not fair,” and i feel more
of a release from that than
a composition notebook
filled from cover to cover
with a million different ways
of saying that i still,
despite everything,
am not happy.

"Everyone's dying, but we're doing it faster."