I once knew a boy who questioned why i always shook like my insides were made of jello asked why i felt the need to let my hands be unreliable guns shaking as i tried to pull the trigger. I missed. X marked the spot and he was not the x that i was afraid of. He said i looked as if i was convulsing every time i was near him..he pondered on why there were fault lines etched into my thighs said maybe that's why i could never keep them together. How do you explain that your brain is on overdrive and you cant help but let it take the wheel...and so i shake. Learned which drug would help the shaking go away. Too many hits and ill be a walking catastrophe crossed that one off the list. Once my hand gripped the box that warned me of cancer my insides shook less. I once knew a boy who constantly got on my case about how bad i shook but little did he know the fault lines were reason for the minor tremors in my knees and the tilt a whirl for my hands. I once met a girl whose hands out shook mine told me it was okay that these things happen and it wasn't my fault. Our lips trembled hands quivered knees buckled and the boy questioned why were an abandoned house caving in on itself

The difference between knowing when to let go and when to love harder is it doesn't hurt to say goodbye. Your bones don't creak in agony for the slight touch of her hands or simply waking up without her next to you. Nothing but space and the body of some stranger you spend endless one night stands with to fill the void between your emotions and you . She told you that's why it never lasted because you were that rusted old rollercoaster rickety and barely able to go through the loops because you were relying on the only working wheel she felt unsteady with you because at any moment you would break down. Stuck in the last spot you saw the glistening chance of ever feeling. And she knew you'd never get back up again or at least you wouldn't work as well as you use to. She knew the old saying "you cant teach an old dog new tricks" that's why she's gone.

You will never glance up and see her staring at you with that grin you so....whats the word? Not loved because that would imply feeling but you adored it because it was so care free. To say you saw the world in her eyes would never describe enough to anyone how she mattered to you, but you'll push it away to the side and the instructor will simply say to keep all objects inside during the ride. Because you are after all this indestructible wall you built with nothing but your two hands and a hammer to keep every moment you wanted for safe keeping locked inside.

How am i suppose to say goodbye to someone whose not even here anymore? Youre a phantom at its finest i know your there but i cant truly feel you like i use to.  This world isn't made for handouts but yet i still tried to win you like some claw machine prize and ive come to the conclusion if you dont love me like i do you then you will always be my almost lover that i never had enough time to spend with.

Ill spin tales about the man you were because id never let your name go down in the dirt because even after it all ill always be a fool for you.

Your knees don't quite shake anymore because your last wheel was finally removed to be put on the newer model.

We are too busy searching through eachothers souls like we do in our rooms, to find the secrets we are hiding and let them be known. Little do they know the secrets come out in the actions we do and words we speak. Everywhere i look i see the scars beneath the smiles, the im fine. We spend every minute of our sad lives pretending.
I was pretending when i told you that i wasnt disappointed you crossed the line. Ive lied every minute to you telling you i had the illness under lock and key, i had finally put a leash on him and told him goodbye. The pain we feel inside is not metaphorical, its real. Its not all in our mind. You can see it every time i try to hide my skin. Or every tear i shed. I am a broken record, i say that proudly no fear my audience will get sick of me i am simply a musician playing my heartbroke melody for all to hear. I no longer lurk in shadows hiding my sins they are written in my eyes and among the stars my body lies. I made my choices and i live with the remorse and painful reminder everyday.  They are too busy searching in my room to find my innocence under my bed and the lies carved into the walls to ever notice the me that slipped through their fingers.

My words choke up in singular syllables like a train slamming on its breaks so as not to hit the little boy on the railroad tracks. I am the little boy as well as the train, no sense of impending doom only the rush of adrenaline as i escape death one more day. My mom always warned me not to play with fire but you were just so enticing i could not help but let the flames lick my fingertips leaving rust in its track. Like the old railroad track i am creaky and wise i have seen death as i have also seen the purity in the human race. your lips were like the grass sliding through my fingers wrapping themselves around me enveloping me in an embrace. The rain came out and like all kids i could no longer play, my sadness sat next to me and watched as the rain dripped down. I cant help but notice maybe this is my way of letting go maybe as the train stops it gives me another chance to look with a new perspective and find the beauty in this trial. Or maybe its showing me ive gone too far and can no longer slow down and stop to wait for another passer by to glance at me and see my potential.

It was so hard to hang up the phone with so much emptiness in between our words we could barely say goodbye . it was at that moment at a drop of a hat i couldn't bare to remember it was i that pushed her away. She held me up for so long i forgot what it was like to hit rock bottom until i did. I didn't hit it like i use to i couldn't put the brakes down fast enough that i scraped both my knees hitting it with so much force i forgot how to speak.
I've died a thousand times but there were never enough body bags to fit the pieces i lost, and she....she kept them for remembering me but i guess she forgot about what happens when one dies because she eventually started to smell like rotting flesh with a dash of formaldehyde.
Months later i saw her walking around her skin flaking off every inch of her body. She never got the memo that being fragile is what gets you killed. She spent so much time with the pieces of me that i think she caught the death that emanated from my very pores.
Watching someone die  slowly and painfully is not what everyone says it is. Your bones do not creak one morning when your not lying next to her, waking up from the one night stands that fill the space between my emotions and i. She told me that's why we never lasted.
I wish i had never swallowed every pill, drank every bottle i put onto the wall for others to sing about, because the coroner found the overdose in the bed of her stomach.
99 bottles of beer on the wall take one down pass it around 100 bottles of beer. I guess i finally beat my record.

His lips were the reminder of every love song i could ever relate too....but it was much more than that. His hands flew like ripples in the calm of a lake finding there way to the deeper side of my emotions. I had always thought i was like a kiddy pool shallow and unable to keep anyone interested because my feelings didn't go to deep but then he showed up and i turned into the ocean. Deep enough for him to get lost in every aspect of my being. Let him dive into my brain to see my point of view without even a hint of fear. There's sharks swimming in my heart i whispered but he didn't hear me at least i thought he didn't until he whispered "i can fix that if you let me."

Hands shaking breath quickening shes begining to break, eyes glistening mouth dry her life is in her hands she can either live or die. Flick the lighter stare into the flame blow it out like a candle. Where is your self control? Dig the sharp edge into your palm, argue with yourself. Swallow the lump that has began to grow into the size of a rock. Eyes dart like a scared child lost looking for their parents. This is it, what will you choose? Turning the music up on high she takes the lifeless cold blooded object and begins to carve like a thanksgivig turkey, she knows she wont sleep tonight so she cuts and she cuts digging deeper and deeper. Letting out a sigh of pleasure, of calmness for just a little while. She'll put the tools away and clean up the evidence making sure no one will find out shes getting bad again. Phone rings she picks it up to turn of the alarm that reminds her that reality still hasnt changed that she still needs to face the day with a forced smile and a see through laugh. The moment she steps out the door it calls to her and she just cant escape. Her life was never hers it was always the one thing that controlled her happiness. No one must know, this addiction comes with a price so say goodbye to your clean skin and say hello to a hollow shell of yourself...

Why does it hurt? Why does it hurt so bad, I let you go yesterday like the bird I've never had. I set you free so you could find someone so much better than me. I tried so hard it was like pushing two puzzle pieces that will never fit together so why does it hurt? You will always be the girl I fell head over heels with. I still am so ******* in love with you that my tears are drowning me and I'm gasping for air but I realize I only could breathe when you would kiss me. All our I loves yous are carved into my skin, burned into my memory, HotWired into my brain and god I want to stop loving you so the pain will go away but I can't. I can't unlove the girl I've loved for three years and two months. I'm suppose to be strong but every time I close my eyes I start to dream about you so I started skipping sleep like it was my classes every alarm was the principal calling me in to have a talk. I've never fully been mentally stable but now, now I'm over my head in memories of us I was never good enough, so goodbye or farewell or please come back. No. I can't say that I have to harden my  Heart and dry my eyes. I'll never be able to kiss you goodbye. Its not suppose to hurt this bad I was after all the one parting ways  **but god if only I could wake up with amnesia and forget you were the girl of forever

We left a tray of cookies on the counter a few days ago, to let them cool so our greedy hands could place the delicious chocolatey heaven in our stingy mouths but we forgot about them and one day turned to the next when we finally realized we wanted the cookies that we practically cried over. They were already stale. So when he put me on the counter and told me "i will want you later"  i knew i was backup for when she finally found that forever had ended for you two. But i guess i started growing stale because when you came back you said i just wasn't the same. I didn't taste so sweet and the bitter had set in. So every time another person comes along and says maybe later i don't know if I'm suppose to put a best by sticker on my arm to let you know when i will expire for your tastebuds. The cookies crumble if you hold them too tight just like i have crumbled from the tall tales you spun.

My mom cleaned the fridge out yesterday,the smell of rotting food had finally become too much. She said if she sprayed enough bleach inside to let it soak that he might actually come back. Because it wasn't her that had made him leave but the fact we never had enough of anything to make him content with the smell of decaying food corpses. Not enough bargain tools to show him we were good enough too. My mom finally accepted he was gone for good and i noticed that her best by sticker was on her arm and it was to expire tomorrow.

Her weapon of choice is not what you think, its not some metaphorical blade or a toilet or a sink. A bottle of tequila and whatever else she can think, makes a good girl go bad and her breath start to reek. Shes become an addict before the age of 21 because when her lips touch the bottle and she throws her head back shes not thinking of others when the liquid pours down her throat nearly drowning her. Shes grown fond of the warm feeling it brings that no one else seemed to do, its made her feel alive. And without this magic concoction her insides are like antartica, there is no heartbeat, no simple treatmentto make her come back alive from years of damage and scar tissue. Another night alone shes let her friend convince her that she needs more of this juice of life and shes lying on the floor now, barely able to breathe the liquids filling her lungs like an hour glass slowly losing time, her sense of reality is gone, the sirens are going off now the men cant save her because after all the alcohol percentage in her blood is more than her body can take."Another girl taken by a simple mistake" no one will come to her funeral because no one ever got the chance to love her like he did before he left. The bottle controlled her to the very end

I tell you another story of how i exposed my body to someone who made my body an object of lust. I shy away from the facts of i used this form of beauty as leverage to get people to love me. I had no consideration one day id have to tell the person i love who i use to be, and how my body was shared like a dinner table is shared among family and friends. The feeling of not belonging in my own skin sets in like a long winter i just cant escape from because when you see me is it me you see or the girl naive enough to believe a picture or a show would make them stay. I made myself to be an object to be used and so as i hand myself to you im used worn and not as shiny as i use to be. I hope youll still want me after the stories i spin out from my past and into your hands. Your questioning tone makes me shrivel back into myself afraid to come back out because i never realized how bad it had gotten. Ive gotten aquainted with the feeling of letting my body be used for an empty love, thats why when i make love i try and get as close to you as possible and maybe even after i am someone different. I dont do certain things because im not sure your reaction. My body wasnt my own until you showed me how to claim it back.

Do you know what its like to have your parents stare at you but their gaze pierces right through to where they cant even see you if they tried. Its as if for the past 17 years they have been living with a ghost. Someone to poke and **** and make the comments that made me take that bottle of anti depressants and pray to god I never woke again. "Heartless" how can I be heartless when I feel every jagged edged word spit like I was some abomination to be merely disowned, every "ungrateful child" muttered under your breath. You told me I haven't done anything for you since she died but I promise you I've done a lot more than you can comprehend. When the whole world felt like it was caving in on me I made sure to not let you see how it bent and mishaped me I hid where my tears of empty love and a broken home could not be heard by anyone but the blades that tempted me. And I wonder how long it will be just temptation when sobriety and clean from self harm can no longer be synonyms what does that make me? A walking contradiction. I want to be free of the nagging voice but yet I wanna feel the sting of metal I wanna feel the cold love it has to offer. Stop. The only love that I will ever truly need is when she holds me the only sting I need is from laughing to hard because she knows just how hard it is to breathe.

The past seems to always walk in between the hours of 2a.m.to five. It never stays long enough to see where things go. Its favorite trick is to disappear after making me cling onto a hope i never knew. Memories dug up for the amusement of my past he will smile and play me like an instrument, he's learned very well how to play me. Not too rough but not soft enough to keep the bruises off my body that i hope will cling to the bones rattling inside.

The past always seems to enter whenever he pleases,ties me down and walks away leaving nothing to let me free. He is laced with sadness and not the kind that cripples you everyday but the kind nostalgia cant take away. I thought time would heal my wounds but the past keeps coming back for more and i dont think ill be getting out of this alive because everyday i find a new name for my past. And today his name is regret.

Im in a prison they watch my every move and find the tiniest of things to punish me for. Stuck under the spotlight  my wars are merely pushed aside as if they were nothing. But do they know i wear my scars proudly, for i was the one going through hell while they sat back and enjoyed their lives. They push and they poke as if im an animal stuck in a cage on display for everyones entertainment. Her voice echoes inside my mind ricocheting, reverbarating against the walls of my sanity. This is all an obsession, right? I simply sat in my room for days clenching a razorblade because im obsessed. It didnt have anything to do with im addicted right? It had nothing to do with the fact i played russian roulette with my life   every time i was alone. Far too many times am i simply pushed in the background to become invisible and only my acheivements brought up when the game of "my childs better than yours"begins. No ones proud of who i am as a person, no ones proud that i havent put another scar across this hollowed body. Im t0aken for granted because they know ill be here tomorrow. But what if i change up the cycle and disappear, will they finally see me then. Or will the statement "youre just another bill to pay" ring true

While other girls skirts get shorter my hair does, while other girls ******* seem to get bigger mine continuously get binded down as to not let anyone know not even a speck of feminity shows upon this body. While other girls get loved by boys who say the right thing, I am that boy loving those girls the right way. But sadly trying to find someone who will love this broken body mended together with male pronouns and miscellaneous objects I need to be more masculine. The fear a girl will never love me because I will be female genitilia mixed with a deep voice and bearded face haunts my waking moment. Who will want to love someone with a huge ******* target on their back? Death always a shadow to walk behind every step of mine to show my time is surely ticking. I tried on that coat with you watching, to see if you approve  and you scoffed "its just your style" as if being a man inside a woman's body is simply put "just a style" how can feeling like a stranger in your own body be a style a fad if you will. If I could choose to be happy in this girls body I really would but now I'm stuck arguing if being myself is really such a good idea

You. The image of perfection, can give me the feeling that im finally home. I learned home was not a place but a feeling, ive been living in many houses some real others metaphorical. The ones you cannot see are stacked high with my dreams and hopes that one day ill succeed. You. The feeling of breathlessness and hope. The thoughts that use to tear my body apart begging for me to look at them are gone. You say those three words and every bad thing ive ever had to endure is diminished. Its like you are my prince, the knight in shining tin foil who saves me and gives me a happily ever after. I only say tin foul because shining armiur is so overplayed. So lets be nerds together and sit and watch netflix. Lets spend our days proving to the world who we are. Lets build our home inside of our love and let it bloom into our house to make our future children glad to be there. You, the one thing who can tear me apart, yet is giving me back every piece of my broken reflection.

How can you say you love her, when her body is a trophy for you to conquer, like a piece of meat that once hanging out too long will start to decompose. Shes making excuses for you "oh this is how he shows love" "he says he loves me and thats why *** is always a must for him." She compromises more than she should to make you feel pleasured shes fighting inside her brain this isnt what shes after. Shes just another tally on your board, just another pebble to throw in this pond. Shes based her self worth on how much you ask her for things she does not want to give but does anyway to keep you at bay and the tears from escaping. And shes finally breaking inside.  i deserve a hell of a lot more than youve given me. I put the broken mess of myself together forcing shattered puzzle pieces to fit when they arent meant to be i faked a smile for so long that when i finally smiled for real, it wasnt for you. Ive swallowed my morales. But that day you wouldnt take no for an answer threw any emotion i may have had for you out the door. Im stuck in this cycle that revolves only around you, so when do i get to feel loved? Because today im taking back my body. It will never feel the heartless touch or the loveless i love yous. My body will never bend over backwards for your satisfaction so uhhh honey go run along to some other girls arms.

Ive noticed i always try to get close to an animal. To bond with them so they will never have to feel alone. Sadly i give up just before and i cant tell if that shows who i am as a person or who i use to be. I try so hard to get close to someone to make it finally last a lifetime but always give up when theres nothing left of me to give. id rather be hooked up to a lie detector test to finally realize if i can truly feel more than depression. I would like to know if every i love you  ive ever whispered on unwilling naive ears were ever true or if i simply was telling them what they wanted to hear. I dont want to be that person who tears apart every person i have ever kissed. Im afraid to be alone and im starting to think thats what pushes me into the relationships ive been in rather than falling in love. Love. It always comes back to that whether in the poems we recite with all our hearts or the stories behind the scars. I dont know if ive honestly felt love, true overwhelmingly undying love but i know i have come so close to it. Where i could feel the stars in every embrace and every kiss was like a volcanic eruption. So when i tell you im scared dont brush it off like the time you broke that picture frame and told yourself it didnt matter anyways. I am not some object but im learning to love or maybe pretending to. I will never be ready for committment but i still try everyday

My first lesson on love was when i was still in diapers, my father locked my mom and me out. It was snowing and i was at the age where dresses were always in style. The first time i felt love on my skin was when i was in the third grade, i guess maybe i had done something wrong to make my father so mad that he'd rather lay a hand on me and humiliate me then talk it out. And thats what i had to base the idea of love around Was bruises and being nervous of saying the wrong ******* thing. They say that when a girl finds a guy its because some characteristic reminds them of their father, which i suppose is true because halfway through my first relationship my boyfriend got so ******* that he threw something and  it hit me in the face, i broke up with him the next day. Because after dealing with my father when he actually wanted me around, or shall i say wanted a punching bag for the day i got sick and tired of it. I am no ones punching bag not with words of venom or hands of steel. Yet i fell into the trap of emotional, verbal and mental abuse. As time passed by i had given pieces of me away to men who just wanted someone to be their ******* toy they could hurt and never have a reaction. Each wound that i got each pebble of self hate started weighing me down as i started sewing my mouth shut. I knew if i were to say the wrong thing i could be hurt for it. I found out that being playful is a hard thing to do with someone who has the anger level of hulk who can go from zero to ten in about five seconds. Next thing you know the man whose suppose to protect you and show you what real men are supposed to look like, has you by your throat and you panic. You never thought this could happen. Everyone said he was just being playful. Ha playful my ***. Playful isnt suppose to leave bruises across your body. The same way love is only suppose to heal your wounds and the mess that goes on inside your head. I learned real fast that love is not always as it seems.

Dear depression,
*********

The flashing lights and deafening sirens are blaring inside my body as if ive over stepped some boundary keeping me safe inside this invisible jail. I know this is my bodys way of telling me to stop opening up that its somehow not safe, if i choose to ignore it do i have the right to complain when i get hurt? My words only flow and sound the right way when i write it down on paper or save it as a memo, i am not a normal person for i cant hold up a simple conversation for longer than a minute until i freeze and get ****** back into my mind. And i can draw a happy clown face and cover it with lies that speak that everything is going fine, but eventually the makeup starts to run and im left with the truth thats been waiting for this minute. Ive told myself over and over again to not fall in love because how fair is it to make someone deal with you when your emotions change like the waves of the ocean crashing against the bay. Theres a tsunami going inside your brain, it conjurs lies and false perceptions and i cant even begin to explain. It seems my begining to this road to recovery was also my end.

I remember untangling you from my thoughts like i did when we were in bed. The irony makes me laugh every time. The promises made between the sheets were always empty just like your love. You never seemed to even glance at the road map that showed you just how to treat me, never even read the warning that said "handle with care, still really really fragile"you paved your way and broke my heart and now im stuck and i cant unremember the memories i can only stop remembering how close we were ......and i can only untangle you from me like how you threw my clothes onto your bedroom floor and made me feel empty and wanted, ***** and easy all at once.
They tell you after the first time that you are ***** it gets easier if you talk about it, but you see ive spent hours talking about it choking up at the thought i didnt say no loud enough, that i can no longer string my words together to describe how broken and used i feel. He told me hed never do that to me, and as the word no seemed to seep through my tightly pressed lips its as if like a light switch he turned deaf. My pleas for no had no impact no matter how many times i said it. It eventually lost its meaning. "No i dont want it" wasnt allowed. I began to realize as long as no wasnt directed towards them theyd never become my ******. Ive spent countless nights playing the what if game with a bottle of anti depressants, that i now can finally tell him "its okay you can hold my hand if you want" without me being afraid of him pushing it too far. And every no means no. Ill never have to fight for the right to my own body again.

This is a eulogy to the little girl I use to be. Waiting on the front porch step of the apartments  where that man bled his life out. You were late again today and from past experience I knew I wouldn't see you at all today , because just like clockwork you were always standing me up like a bad date. The funny thing is. Is that you were my biological father the one I kept trying so hard to be the daughter you wanted until I realized its a son you desired. You dropped me like a bad habit that you had no attachments too and the withdrawals never happened

Her body was tangled with mine so abstract not even a painter could fully understand its beauty like we did. Sprawled out upon that bed as if spiders on a web, and I know you don't like spiders so I promise I'll protect you from each and every single one of them until you tell me you no longer wish to see me even then I will be your knight in shining armor and come to the rescue. In that moment everything felt so right, my heart swelled knowing the possibilities our relationship can withstand but  we arent even together yet. Holding you felt like my duty, I will serve and protect your wishes and now I'm on the sidelines and you are running through my thoughts taking over ever inch of my brain and I fear I'll go insane but kissing you...I know I said I could never breathe without kissing her but you, oh god,  its like having all the answers to the world. I'm hoping if I open myself up like operating surgery on myself that you will see this isn't some joke and it won't end within a few months. I wish I had the nerve to tell you every detail every aspect of me falling for you. Once you walked through that door you had me and now I hope we can be each others safety I will open every part of myself possible and let you find refuge among my bones and my heart it will be yours for the taking. How could one poem one verse ever let you know that I'm heading for deep waters and I'm scared to let you know I fear of going to far pushing to fast and so I'll keep my mouth shut until I know everything I possibly can about the beauty you hold and the feelings that grow for you. It was within that moment of holding you I knew I couldnt let you go

TRIGGER WARNING⚠

Hands shaking breath quickening shes begining to break, eyes glistening mouth dry her life is in her hands she can either live or die. Flick the lighter stare into the flame blow it out like a candle. Where is your self control? Dig the sharp edge into your palm, argue with yourself. Swallow the lump that has began to grow into the size of a rock. Eyes dart like a scared child lost looking for their parents. This is it, what will you choose? Turning the music up on high she takes the lifeless cold blooded object and begins to carve like a thanksgivig turkey, she knows she wont sleep tonight so she cuts and she cuts digging deeper and deeper. Letting out a sigh of pleasure, of calmness for just a little while. She'll put the tools away and clean up the evidence making sure no one will find out shes getting bad again. Phone rings she picks it up to turn of the alarm that reminds her that reality still hasnt changed that she still needs to face the day with a forced smile and a see through laugh. The moment she steps out the door it calls to her and she just cant escape. Her life was never hers it was always the one thing that controlled her happiness. No one must know, this addiction comes with a price so say goodbye to your clean skin and say hello to a hollow shell of yourself...

Even the masks we wear to hide who we are can be scarier than the ones sold in stores.

The funny thing about being in love is that you have to have a heart in order to fall for another. The sad thing about me is, is that i dont think i can really feel anymore. Theres a ghost inside my chest where my heart use to be, it sits in its rocking chair waiting for the light to shine through and the once happy freefall of love to come back. But wait something went wrong in the rewiring of my brain my neurons and arteries can no longer accept the emotions i once felt. I look at everyone around me and i see smiles. I see kisses in between laughs and the ache of remembering i use to want that so bad makes whatever i use to know of the processed emotion of love is torn.  Maybe i cant blame the boy who never gave me a choice, or the man who stood tall and proud and shoved me down into the shell i have become..in a single second i feel on fire just like her now darkened hair, her blue eyes beg me to love her and something inside me wakes up and i have to protect her with my life. The need to hold her in my arms and keep her safe is too strong for me to resist. Momma told me not to fall in love with a girl, she said nothin good wouldve come out of it. But my hands are clammy and my heart is racin i fell in love with a girl who sang such sweet tunes to me and now i can never feel the same about another.