I bought a bunch of wooden soldiers.
I bought them from the store.
And now a hundred tiny soldiers
guard my bedroom door.

So if you're a scary monster-thing
who wants to go to war,
my bedroom door is open.
I'm not frightened anymore.

go on.

starve yourself.

as if you're not already hungry for something your flesh cannot touch.

go on.

starve yourself.

as if you have not already lost enough.

go on.

starve yourself.

as if your ego is more important than your soul.

Let's return to where I was when my tongue wasn't so hollow. Where the pills weren't nearly as hard to swallow. To think so deeply is both a curse and a blessing, and there's no wound dressing for nostalgia in negative space. But when I scrape my knee again can you lend an ear? I think I feel it coming. I feel the past flowing through my veins like a sharp shot of dope under a dimly-lit causeway. The grass of the lawn that I used to play on is starting to grow on my back and seep into my scarce serotonin, and I really need someone to regularly attend to it. Mow it on an altruistic sunny day with the kids running around you and laughing. Pull the weeds out when I end up staying past midnight working on the file reports for all the others that can't seem to find their authentic reflection either.

I'm back there in the woods. There was something about the fragile, half-broken branches lying on the ground that made me feel understood. I don't know if it was the demeanor or the distance. I couldn't hear the angry screech of an eighteen pack or decipher the blue from the black. It was the furthest thing from my favorite noose or the truth of the love around me cut loose.

It was the days that my brother and I would congruently comply. We'd go into the backyard and have no foreshadowing of tissues scarred. We'd run and we'd laugh and we never looked back. We'd continue into the night because we didn't care that we couldn't see the grass stains anymore. The obscurity of the look on my face could perhaps explain why I have always blended into the background with such effective camouflage. When mom did call us in to shower of the dirt, there wasn't yet blood on her shirt. She smiled, and I remember her smile so well. So little to say and so much to tell.

The funny thing is that he wasn't around back then either. He was trapped in a time long before the doctors detected my first pulse. Somewhere in this streak of gray hair and emotional despair was a feeling so strong that it was drinking itself to death to reveal its true colors and stillborn brothers. But oh God, how I loved Christmas morning. Under the array of strings of lights and the daytime not seeming as lonely as the nights, there was not a hostile bone in the human body. There was simply a long forgotten innocence filled with cinnamon buns, coffee that stayed a little warmer than usual in the Kureg, and the cats rolling around in the piles of wrapping paper like they were the ball-pits at the McDonald's both ways down the street. It was the clack of a controller. My favorite friends beating games in one night and sleeping over. It was wiffleball  games right after the nights where I'd two whole boxes of Mac and Cheese. It was sledding down the tallest hill in town on the days where the ice held your head up high and didn't need any praise, or even a reply. It cared nothing for the size of the nails on my feet, my favorite band on repeat, or the broken wooden bridge between my amygdala and frontal cortex. r

But then I remembered that those days exists only in two places: my memory and my dreams. Was I in a hopeless daze in the middle of the street or did I have my favorite fleece blanket for heat? As the crust in my eyes slowly broke away at the seams, I received my answer. It was a fate that seemed equal to a vicious and malignant cancer.

I was awake for another day. The humidity of my dorm room danced across my skin like a bead of sweat anxiously running down the back of my neck and spine. I remembered the concrete line drawn between this world and the one in my head, turned my body so that the morbid did not seem fully dead, and connected my foot with the frigid ground and didn't make a sound. I had two grocery carts and a porcelain tub full of responsibility, yet I found myself frozen and void of mental mobility.

I didn't know what to say when I started my days anymore. So I brushed my teeth, remained mute, and walked out the door.

No one told me growing up would be like this. I was never warned I'd be stuck in a circle of constant drinking and drugs and smoking. I was not aware my arms would be covered in blood as I choked down more and more pills until the pain was gone. No one told me any of this would happen and it's not fair

I want you to burn with jealousy
just so I can have my summer in winter.

there's seven steps to the making and drinking hot cocoa process.

prepping: grab the mug, make sure you use tap water, grab the hot chocolate and spoon and begin the process down below

step one: pour the tap water into your mug, nearing to the top of the mug and place it in the microwave

STEP ONE: you're scrolling on facebook and you see the most handsome man you've ever seen and you automatically hit the friend button and start messaging him. he responds back, almost as quickly.

step two: press the general two minutes into your microwave and "patiently" wait for your hot chocolate

STEP TWO: you've been talking to her for a good month online now, you both mutually decide to meet up and instantaneously become very close. you start dating him.

step three: take out the flaming hot mug of water and proceed to put it on the counter. grabbing the spoon, put two to four spoonfuls of hot chocolate mix into the mug. begin to stir until there are not any "chocolate dust bunnies" floating around, dissolved.

STEP THREE: a month into the relationship, you're both very much in love. you've had your fourth kiss recently-but who's counting?

step four: immediately go to a comfy spot near you, pull up YouTube and watch people sexually assault women on the street and pass it off as a prank. as you are giggling along, take a sip of your dri-gasp! ouch, that really hurt.

STEP FOUR: three months in. he takes your virginity. it really hurt. you weren't ready but you didn't want to disappoint him.

step five: continue slowly drinking your hot chocolate, it's good to savor it. you notice it starts to get cold. you swish it around in your mouth and let it rest for a minute... it doesn't taste like hot chocolate anymore. it's cold, bitter and the mix from the bottom is floating around giving it the taste of dirt.

STEP FIVE: five months in. he started hitting you two weeks and three days ago. you said you wanted to stop having *** so often because it hurt and you weren't having a good time anymore. he said, "you're asking for it, looking so **** hot all of the time" and proceeds to force himself on you for the first time.

step six: you decide, **** this, im done with my hot chocolate and begin to wash it out in your sink.

STEP SIX: seven months in. you break up with him, he tells you he's sorry and you get back together with him. this has been a reoccurring pattern for a month now. but this time, you're done, for good. and turns out, you are.

step seven: you finish off cleaning the mug and spoon that was used to mix the powder and the weight on your shoulders is free. no more ******, cold hot chocolate for you.

STEP SEVEN: you are free, out of a treacherous relationship. "you were too good for him" your friends tell you, "he's disgusting and wasn't even that attractive". you feel unwanted, until one day you see someone staring at you while you're walking into a coffee shop. you begin to get creeped out after an hour and go to talk to him. you exchange numbers with this older man.

step one on: the process of making and drinking apple cider.

To the thunderstorm I used to love,

you pounded me, beat the windows with your fists,
brought the rain down with your thunderous roar.
rarely, it would hail, and the melting ice would
gleam down the streets, still soiled from the
summer day before you came and took over all daylight.

A severe thunderstorm warning went into effect around
2 a.m. - estimating to begin at 4 and
end at 9.

You came at 5, and it never ended.

While the rain once glistened, it now stings my skin,
crushes my thighs, squeezes my hip, compressing
pressing presser tightening twisting the calf, stabbing
the spine.

I am not in control.

The purple crush of your swirling eyes is
a rush of wind - a cold front in the summer
mist - the shattering of a two-hundred-year-old tree.

I saved butterflies from you only for them to suffocate in their cages. The rags indoors, the frames, they never stopped you - only the rain
prevented your fire.

You are right when you are gone.

The road is a blurry mirror, aging eyesight in the wet darkness.