i guess i miss playing with your fingers,
feeling your warm whisper on my neck

but never have i missed
the feelings of your slap on my back.
or the bruises on my arms, for that matter
and while we’re at it, i don’t miss being begged for ***
or photos that would have dissolved my purity
like when the sun slowly merges with the earth, and all that’s left is darkness.

although i miss

-

I was the girl of your dreams, and you finally woke up
When you did, the thought of hurting me didn't even faze you
Your hand against my skin now leaving marks, not a ghost I would soon lay in bed and think about and smile.

-

I hope the shame of what you did to me burns your oesophagus when your next girlfriend asks what happened with me, and I hope you tell the truth. I hope you tell her that you let me go, that you touched me in a way no man should touch his

-

You carved your name into my skull with a nail and a hammer. I know this because whenever I think of you, my head hurts. Whenever I think of you, my throat closes up and my eyes start to burn. Then my vision gets blurry and all I can ask myself is why you did it.

-

I really hope she can tell that when you lie you scratch the left side of your head and put your left hand on your right shoulder. I hope she can tell that the sides of your mouth twitch when you know with all of your heart you aren't telling the truth.

There are clouds in my eyes
There are solar systems in my veins
My head always hurts
My fingers always ache
Everything is so beautiful
I can’t get over it
I’m so alone
I can barely feel my pulse
I want him to hold me
I need him to hold me
Why is he so far away?
Who said high school was fun
I might drop out
Create my own world on canvases and journal pages for a living

my wrists are highways, my veins are the roads. please turn your lips into cars and drive them down my arms and to my bony back, then to the back of my neck, my collar bones and then my lips. let me taste the ecstasy that falls off of your mouth when you kiss.

let me tell you about the nights i've craved you so much it made me cry, how many empty poems i've written for you. empty because i can never write you as perfect as you really are. there are no words to describe how you make me feel. you make me feel everything and nothing then back to everything and then back to nothing, then in between, and i'm not sure there is a word in the english dictionary to own up to that definition.

lay next to me and spill all of your secrets into my ears. tell me about the homesickness and let me see (up close) how your tongue touches your teeth, the roof of your mouth and your lips when you talk. i am so eager to get lost in you even further. i am lost in you now, although you are not here. which means my heart has gushed our of my nose and ears and eyelids.

i don't think i could ever measure my love for you. it is not the space between my eyelids multiplied by trillions, it is not my arms stretched out so far it pulls my already weak muscles, and it is not any poem. i could write poems for decades, non-stop, all for you; and they would never really show you how much i love you. these words are pointless. so come here, rest your head on my bones, let me taste your ecstasy, open your heart to me and let me love you even more than i already do. i love you, i love you, i love you, i do.

In school, they never really teach you what to do when a demon taps on your shoulder, leaving a stain on your favourite shirt that only gets bigger. They don’t teach you that he’ll have sharp teeth and no tongue, his body transparent and his mind a highway in LA during rush hour. They don’t talk about how the stain he left on your shirt will somehow seep in between your skull and your brain. At first, it isn’t that bad. Nobody warns you that he will be able to place parts of himself in between your ribs, twisting and squeezing until you go to wail of pain, but nothing comes out. Nobody warns you that nobody can see the weights he is placing on your shoulders.
Soon, he will be under your pillow, and when you place your head down he whispers everything you hate to hear into your ears and makes it too loud to sleep. Soon, he will be there physically. He is the bags under your eyes; he is the bones sticking out of your back due to weight loss, because he tells you not to eat. Your doctor will give you medication. But it will only put him to sleep. He is always there.
Do not let him win. You are bigger than him. You have life. You can go to concerts and feel how the bass replaces your pulse, you can feel the sun warm the back of your neck, and you have the ability to create life. You can create anything you want to. There is no such thing as bad art. Let your emotions out. Scream at him to leave you alone, to go away; and soon, he will. Your ribs will be ribs and those weights on your shoulders will be gone. The stain he left on your favourite shirt will no longer be there, and you will be alive again.

Depression is not sadness
Depression leaves a hole in your chest
Depression ***** everything out of you
Depression is not having a bad day. A bad day, a bad week, even a bad few months.
Depression lingers for years. There are no good moments. Moments of feeling "better" do not ever exist. Depression does not leave.
Depression will become your best friend
Depression will always be there for you
Depression is the tunnel with no light at the end
(Or at least, the point of view is)
Depression is not hope
Depression is not sadness.

Anxiety is not nervousness.
Anxiety is the sweat that bubbles to the surface of your palms
Anxiety is the clenching of your jaw
Anxiety is the shaking of your hands
Anxiety is not a few butterflies in your stomach
Anxiety removes your stomach
Anxiety makes you feel like it is not there. Food is out of the question.
Anxiety is dark circles under your eyes for months on end.
Anxiety is being over tired. Exhausted. But not being able to sleep.
Anxiety builds an Olympic racetrack around every part of your mind.
Anxiety then holds the next races there. Day races, night races, races that do not stop.
Anxiety is not one panic attack. Or even two.
Anxiety is not nervousness.

I am a rough draft. I am the crossing out of words that are not good enough in red ink, question marks after highlighted theories by your English teacher.

You are eventually going to ask about the dark lines on my right wrist, and I will eventually tell you the truth. I'll tell you the very first time was when I was only seven years old. I sat on my bed and stabbed my hand with a pencil. I have a few scars from that and I hope you will eventually have the courage to take a black pen and connect them to create a constellation and help me make sense of all of it.

When I cry because I get overwhelmed with how much I love you, take it as a compliment. Yes, I cry often. Yes, I love too much. When this happens, unzip your skin and make room for me. Fit me into your chest, because I will try my hardest to fit in between the bones of your back and the spaces in between your ribs. You will see every ounce of my love for you in the ringlets of my hair, every vein you can see in my wrists and every bone that pops out of my back.

After our first real fight, I will call back a half hour later, asking you to stay the night. When you get to my room, you will hear the kettle steeping and the bath running. I will run into your arms, and yes, I will cry again. I will plant kisses on every part of your body I can see, and whisper apologies for being such a mess in between every kiss.

I will make you many mix tapes and write you lots of letters. I will kiss the corners of your smile whenever I see it. I will write you many poems and seal them in envelopes and mail them to you, even if I was going to see you the next day. I will want to cook with your mother and discuss renovation plans with your father. When you roll your eyes when I call them by their first names, I will laugh.

But please know, I am only a rough draft. You will get tired of my love, my poems and fitting your fingers in between the spaces of mine. You will carve your name into my bones and my skull, rearranging every one of my veins to spell your name and seal a picture of every moment we fell in love all over again on the inside of my eyelids. For every time I blink, you will be there. You will be everywhere, and I am not able to leave my mark on any boy who claims he loves me, so know that you will be free. I was only the rough draft.

I never thought it was possible
                                                           to miss you
                as much as                                                                                                                                       I do.

                                        Every flinch
                                                                                                          Every bruise
      Every welt
                                                                                                                                                        Because of your hands

                                          Faded
                                                                                       But my love,
                                                                                                                                never
                                                                                                                                                        will.

He didn't have the ***** to kiss me. His mouth was too busy asking for things I wasn't ready to give.
He didn't have the ***** to kiss me, but begged me to come into his house so he could **** me.
He didn't have the ***** to kiss me, but he had the ***** to ask if he could film it.
He didn't have the ***** to kiss me, but had the courage to grab my arm and try and drag me in.
(The bruises faded)
He didn't have the ***** to kiss me, but he confessed the only position he knew was doggy.
Ironic, because I was never a girlfriend to him. I was a set of *******. A pair of legs. Full lips, a tongue, and all he wanted was between my thighs.
Never a girlfriend, always an object. An animal. A toy.

Sometimes all it takes is one word. One word to completely inspire paragraphs of poems, letters, journal entries. Most times, though, take much more than that. It takes a proper environment. That's one of the reasons why I've changed up my room. There is now a stack of books on my desk, then all of my film cameras. On my window I placed mason jars, a clock, rocks from the beach and tiny candles. I took down my curtains to let in more light. I'm going to push myself to be happier, more positive. Good things are coming and I can feel it. It's autumn and the air is getting more crisp and my sweaters are breaking out again. I just passed one year of being clean from self harm. Now, I'm going to stop skipping meals. I know I can do it. I'm going to stop hating the scar on my forehead from third grade chicken pox. I'm going to love every stretch mark my doctor told me was caused by rapid weight loss, every scar I inflicted on myself, and every bone that pops out of my body (especially my back). The veins that are visible in my wrists and the back of my hands are going to get more love, too. The way they move when I write a poem, inspires me to love myself. Not in an arrogant way, but just to be at peace with my appearance. No more painting my nails black, either. I will dance in my room when I want to, jump on my bed, spin in circles, cry, laugh, scream, when it feels right. I am going to love the 12:08 mood swings and the sudden gush of new vocabulary I need to memorize for my poems. I am going to work hard and put my soul into everything I do. I am going to start making art. I am going to buy more cameras, nicer clothes. Clothes that show who I am. No clothes to hide what I hate on my body. I will love the fact that in the middle of the night, my duvet is my best friend. I will love with all of my heart that maybe it's naive, but I have so much hope for the future. Everything will be okay.

There is poetry in the way I held your hands, keeping them warm on the night before you left

There is poetry in the way electricity flowed through your hands to mine, into my brain and blood

But there is no poetry in the way those same hands left bruises on my arms, red hand marks on my back

And there is no poetry in the way I don't know why you did it

You keep me up (still), wondering the same thing

If you will listen to her when she says no

**NO MEANS NO, *******.

I know I am hard to deal with,
the way I word the way I am feeling.
How I tell you I don't want to eat another thing for the rest of my life,
how I tell you I want to die, or slice lines into my skin until I can see blood coming up.
But the way you ignore me after I tell you,
like you are scared of who I am or the way my head works; hurts me
It makes the empty feeling I tell you about more noticeable,
and you promised me on metal swings,
when I heard birds chirping at us,
when I felt the sun slowly soak into my skin,
that you would never hurt me.

There are demons in my chest
That make me heavy,
That tell me that I am not enough.

There are demons in my mind
That make death feel like a dream,
And if that dream is real, I will sleep forever.

There are demons in my stomach
That communicate with the demons in my mind,
Repeating, "I am too big. I am too big; do not let her eat."

I have told the doctor about these demons
He said if it gets worse
I should come back.
I don't think I explained it right,
Because it can not get any worse.

I can't tell if everyone else around me is normal
Or if I'm stuck in my own mind
Everyone makes a big deal about grades,
                                                 The things people say,
                                                 If you're in an advanced class.
But nobody takes the time to notice the small movements of people
        What makes them happy,
        How their eyes look when they laugh.
People only care about what you can do and what you can be
Everyone else is a brick. A grey, dull brick. Manufactured to think that if you don't do good in school, your life will be miserable.
Your life may only be miserable when you work too hard and don't find time to experience the great things
        Late night runs to a local diner,
        The comfort of a good hug,
        Getting lost in books,
        Or getting caught in rain.
I'm not sure if everything is beautiful or if it's just the way I see it. Either way, I am in love with life.