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447 · May 2017
Bent not Broken
Rylie Hawley May 2017
Bent not Broken
it still hurts to hear,
that I'm not "that girl"
you had been looking for;
I'm not the girl with the body,
that never disappoints;
and a smile pasted on her face.
I'm not that girl,
because I cry at
4:00 in the afternoon,
because no one
seems to be listening.
and maybe it's because
you don't like that I'm
the type of person to
laugh too loudly at jokes
that weren't even that funny.
it still hurts to know that I won't
be that girl.
I'm not that girl
because I don't have the sharpest mind,
and my eyes don't glimmer
like the girls' in the movies...

but if you let me, oh god if you really let me, I would love you with my whole heart.
I would love you
until
it would absolutely
tear me apart.
I would fight for you.
everyday I'd fight.
and I maybe then I'd start to believe I was good enough for you;
that the love I'd fill you up with
would be satisfactory.
but at this point it seems like,
not.
because I'm not that girl
you had been searching for.
the hardest part it, is the fact,
that when I look at you
all I see is love.
and when you look at me,
all you see is a girl that is helplessly
in love with you.
and when you'd kiss me,
I feel the world stop moving-
like we were statues in an art museum.
and when you kiss me,
all you felt was my lips
against yours.

and it is still hard. it's still hard even when I say
"it is what it is".
it still hurts even when
I drown out my thoughts and feelings.
it will always hurt.
and I look in the mirror,
and wonder where I may have went wrong
where I wasn't that perfect dream
girl.
and still I believe,
that I would love you until the
end of time.

r.h.
-you're still my muse
Continue reading...
302 · Aug 2017
My Friend (some friend)
Rylie Hawley Aug 2017
My Friend (some friend)
I have given up on the days that fade together, with a hazy blur of smoke in my lungs. But maybe that is what you enjoy about me-
that I am not like most girls.
But I want you to care for me
I want you to ache for me.
I want to know I am the only person on your mind at three AM,
while the blinds are closed and you are wrapped in blankets to protect you;
I want to protect you from Her, and the memories that come flooding back when ever you kiss me. I want to protect you from the voices that tell you to end it all,
Because if one girl didn't love you like someone should- then no one will.
But you don't see that I care, and I miss you when I am in your arms and I miss you when we are apart.
But you don't see me as myself- you see me as Her.
You get scared when we hold hands because the nicks and cranny's around my finger tips are just like Her's.

I want to move on from the days, while we sit in the school parking lot with the  "Burn Outs", and we smoke until we can't think straight.
I want to move on from the days where we both feel like nicotine is the only way to feel slightly alive.

I want to move on to the days that are filled with laying in white sheets with you beside me.
I want to move onto the days where we sit on the dock and fish (even though we know we wont catch a single fish)
I want to move onto the days where it is just you and me.

But until then I will destroy my lungs with smoke until I feel the buzz of my mind fading and my vision blurring-
Because that hazy feeling is the only thing I know.
Continue reading...
287 · May 2017
The Years of Blood Stained Sheets
Rylie Hawley May 2017
The Years of Blood Stained Sheets
It’s February, 2015.
I’m sitting in my bedroom,
Looking at my arms and thighs.
Looking at the red lines I come to realize I feel no pain,
But yet I’m crying.
Crying at the fact that four months ago
I promised it would be the last time.
Crying at the fact that the demons were back and this time
I wasn’t strong enough to fight them off.
Crying at the fact the blood flowing from me is
Staining my purple polka-dot sheets.

Fast forward, it’s October, 2015.
I’m lying in a hospital bed,
Being questioned by a Psych doctor.
He asks,
“Is this the first time you’ve ever tried to end your life?”
“Have you ever wanted to harm those around you?”
“Is there anyone else in your family that also suffers from mental illness?”
But I can’t form a response,
I’m too focused on the blood streaming from my wrists
Staining the white hospital bed sheets.  

Fast forward four hours.
A hospital aid is pushing me in a wheelchair.
My body is shaking due to the cold and anxiety rushing through me.
Thirty minutes later I’m sitting in a dark room,
My roommate going on about how she’s been here for the
Past three months.
I wake up sweating and shaking.
I could feel his weight on me still,
Feel his hot and heavy breath,
His words running through my mind
“No one will ever find out”.
I feel my throat start to choke on the words and I whisper
Under my breath, for him to get off of me.
I feel the tears start to stream down my cheeks-
I hadn’t had the nightmare since the past December.
I walk into the bathroom,
Lock the door behind me and reach to turn the faucet on,
Wash the mascara from under my puffy red eyes.
I get back into bed and find the sheets are rough on
My skin,
I turn to the wall and start to pick off the green peeling paint.

Six hours later I’m sitting on a bench
pushing egg whites around on my plate.  
Trying to make it look like I am enjoying the breakfast the
Nurse ordered for me.
I see the other patients eating except for one-
His gaze follows me as I sit at the table.
I later find out his name is Jared-
Little did I know he’d be my rock for the next two weeks while we
were in the psych ward.

Fast forward, it’s November,
My first day back at school.
I’m greeted with half hearted hellos,
And strange looks that ask the question
Of where I have been?
As time goes on, the days blend together,
Joining in an endless blur of depression and tears.
I was put into an Intensive Outpatient Program
Where I spent the next seven months learning how to
Rebuild myself and my family.

Here I am today
Contemplating the question on who I am
Based off of my life, and what I have been through.
And I’m here today to tell you that I am
The girl who lives with chronic depression,
As well as the girl who has learned how to smile back at herself
When she looks in the mirror.
I am the girl with anxiety so bad that my shaking hands
Make it hard to take a drink of water.
And I am also the girl who tells those who are struggling around her,
That shaking hands doesn’t mean that you’re weak,
But instead that you are still alive and fighting.  
I am the girl with ADHD,
And I also am the girl who sees a future for herself again.
I am the girl with a personality disorder, and I am also the girl
Who has walked through hell and back.


I am the girl who is mending
The damaged parts of herself back together.
I am the girl who stands up for those and what
She believes in.
I am the girl who has been missing from herself the
Past six years due to a mental disorder.
I am a writer.
I am a violinist.
I am a fighter.
But most importantly when I am asked who I am as a person
Based off of my experiences,
I can proudly say:
I am Rylie Rose

r.h. (September 15, 2016)
Continue reading...
254 · Jun 2017
dandelion
Rylie Hawley Jun 2017
dandelion
the words you write in my head are forever engraved there. your voice is coming home, after years away. you live and you love and i'm so lucky to be living and loving with you- because without your whole hearted
'i love you(s)'; i think i would be lost. because i love how you say my name at three a.m. as it floats off your lips into the oblivion- it's simple. and i won't love anyone other than you. with going to coffee shops on sunday afternoons but we end up ordering hot chocolate because it's comforting. i won't love anyone other than you, and i will forever cherish our walks together where you hold my hand and kiss my forehead (like the boyfriends and girlfriends do in the movies). i won't love anyone other than you because of our simple talks that make me feel so in love. because i grew up knowing simple is meaningful. and you my love are not simple. you are handsome and courageous and beautiful and i love everything you express to the world- your motives, expressions, i love your silly voices that are the only true things to calm me down while i cry to the sky.

but you are dandelions being wished upon by children who hope to find a man like you when they are grown up; but they won't be able to find someone like you. you are one of a kind- you are all mine.

r.h. (9:25 on a monday)
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250 · May 2018
shaking in the shower
Rylie Hawley May 2018
shaking in the shower
I wish I could tell you exactly how I felt in that exact moment
The sinking feeling
The idea I wasn’t enough.
I’m so sorry I couldn’t be enough for you in that moment
But I’m here
I’m craving you
Your voice
Your smile
Your mind.
It’s not fair that I’m so far from you.
I wish I was closer and maybe
Things would be different

Maybe I’m overthinking everything
Maybe I’m too broken for you,
But you are the only
One who seems to understand
To understand my thoughts
My emotions
My stance on this world.
I miss the time you would pick up
The phone on the second ring
Now it feels like an eternity
Listening to your voicemail
I do wish I was stronger
More confident
I wish I had gone to see you
I’m sorry I wasn’t enough in that moment
Please try to understand that I need you
To be patient with me.
I’m broken
Beaten
Alone. But you don’t make me feel alone.
You made me feel loved
Except for the night I sat on my bathroom floor shaking
While I listened to
Your voice when my
Call went straight to voicemail.

r.h. (Patient)
Continue reading...
246 · Sep 2017
Two Years since I told You, I loved You
Rylie Hawley Sep 2017
Two Years since I told You, I loved You
It has been two years,
Two years since we held hands,
Two years since we sat in our doorways passing notes,
Two years without you,
Sometimes it feels like you never were real,
Maybe you were a figment of my imagination.
Two years since the hospital,

But without you, I never have been so lost in my life,
I am constantly torn by the fact that,
I am not the same girl as I was in the hospital.
I changed.
I dyed my hair purple,
I pierced my nose,
I started to smoke.
Maybe someone wouldn't recognize me
I want to be someone that is mysterious.
I want someone to be so extremely fascinated by me
I want you to be fascinated with me
I still wonder if I am all,
you
think about;
I want to corrupt you
and your thoughts
just like you did to me,
I want to be in love-
with you,
I want you to be unable to imagine being without me.
I want to be your kryptonite.  
I want to be your girl.
I miss you
it has been two years and I still think about you
even though you are gone-
you left me and you went to the place we talked about;
we talked about being unable to come back to this life-
with these people.
I still think about it.
I think about you,
even though- It has been two years.
Continue reading...
241 · Sep 2017
Joey
Rylie Hawley Sep 2017
Joey
I think everything starts of strong,
too strong. I think it began with the epiphanic violin solo, that breathed you aren't alone; even though, I feel so alone.
while we walked through the museums and I stood in front of Van Gogh's Irises and you said that I looked like I belonged there, I belonged everywhere. I think my love for you began to blossom on the nights in late May, in your car listening to Morrissey while you were smoking your favorite cigarette. I laid in the seat being ****** into eternal darkness. I constantly thought of Madisen Kuhn's words, while they lingered in my mind: “everything you’ve ever loved has been loved before, and everything you are has already been,”

She said that my love for you isn't organic, my love isn't unique- but I promise you it is, My love for you could never be expressed fully through words. So I will tell you this, I love you,
for who you are. I love your favorite cigarette, I love the irises we spent hours looking at, I love who I am with you- I feel real, I feel alive. You make me feel alive.
Continue reading...
215 · May 2017
Eli (this is for you)
Rylie Hawley May 2017
Eli (this is for you)
Last night was the first time we
Had spoken in months, it was a real
Conversation filled with laughter and
Old memories that once had been;
We talked of times going to the city
When you said that you didn't want to go to
The art museum because you
Already had a masterpiece-
You told me how you loved it when my
Nose would scrunch up whenever I laughed,
We talked about the forgotten Sunday afternoons in
December where we would lay on the
Ground and you'd have me read you
My poetry, but you didn't like that in the
old poems other boys names were talked of
You didn't like not being the center of
Attention, but I couldn't tell you how I felt because I was just a girl reading her poems
To a boy who would soon forget the sound of
my voice saying his name. But
Maybe if we didn't spend our weekends taking the train  to the city just so we could
Sit in a coffee shop and burn our tongues,
Maybe if we didn't spend so much time reading my old poetry, maybe
Just maybe would have stayed , because now
I'm giving you all the attention, because
This poem is about you. Maybe if you
We're still here you wouldn't have walked
Away without saying goodbye.

r.h.
Continue reading...
214 · May 2017
Eli
Rylie Hawley May 2017
Eli
i could look at you 
for the rest of my 
life and 
never understand 
how beautiful someone 
can possibly be, 
i could listen to you
talk until you breathe your last 
breath
and never come 
to a conclusion 
on how someone’s voice could
be so calming 
i could hold you 
in my arms until the 
stars in the sky burn out 
and even then 
i would never let you go
so if you let me, 
i want to love you 
until the end of time; 
let me sing you to sleep
hold you when you cry
be your rock
love you when you don’t love 
yourself 
let me be your forever, 
because you are 
already mine.
r.h.
(it was a saturday)
Continue reading...
212 · May 2017
The Poem; A Letter to You
Rylie Hawley May 2017
The Poem; A Letter to You
I remember that it hurt
Looking at him hurt-
His grin
His smile twisting up and curling
At the corners  
As his hands traced my body;
Me begging
Pleading,
Pleading
For him to stop
To stop touching me
To have some kindness left in him
To possibly stop himself from
Committing the crime he already had-
I remember feeling all of his
Weight pressed onto me
Suffocating me
That was only the first time
I remember that it hurt
Looking at her hurt-
Her face in the moonlight on the top bed
in our little cabin of eleven
I remember it hurt the night
She said she was in love with me-
Then punching me in the stomach and
Walking away,
Lillian
The girl I was irrevocably in love with,
Walking away because she said that
΅She has a new girl in Indiana΅
That was the last time I ever saw Lillian.
I remember that it hurt,
Looking at them hurt
The red lines
Lacing up my arms
Looking like a red ribbon on a christmas
Present
Look at my arms
Look at my face my
Tear stained face
Even though I felt
Nothing
Arms
Face
Arms
Lacing up my arms
Face
Ribbons on my arms
Face
Arms
Cuts
    And then it stopped hurting
It stopped hurting when I met him
The boy who makes my head spin
The boy who makes me think
I’m important to someone
Again
The boy who puts me first after
Everyone else puts me in
Their past-
It stopped hurting when he
Said it’s going to be okay
Now
It stopped hurting when he
Told me that those people
Could only hurt me if
I let them hurt me
It stopped hurting when he said
That soon I will be
A part of his family
Because he knows that
I feel like an alien in my own
It stopped hurting
when he came into my life
After everyone else had gone out;
After the boy who took away my innocence
Stopped noticing my existence-
After Lillian, the girl who
Ripped my heart out went back to
Chicago and was with
“Her new girl”-
After the last razor blade
Had been disposed of
And the pills had gone
Back into their bottles
After the last person to
Say that they were my friend
Or that they didn’t hate me-
and yet started rumors and
Harassed me in the hallways…
After I had been clean and had been out of the hospital and IOP
For more months than
I can remember
After the hell I had been through-
He made it better
And easier
And he makes life more
enjoyable -

So thank you to all of those who have made my life a living hell,
Thank you for breaking me down into dust
So I could be brought back up
Thank you for making me dark and twisty,
Thank you for putting a cloud of darkness around me,
So I could finally find my beam of sunshine that
He
Reflects into my life,
Thank you for making me the person I am today,
Thank you for showing me I’m not everything you told me.
Thank you for proving to me that I am a much stronger
And better person
Than you will ever be.

r.h. (April 5, 2017)
Continue reading...
193 · Jan 2018
Please Don’t Take My Sunshine Away.
Rylie Hawley Jan 2018
Please Don’t Take My Sunshine Away.
If you care about someone, don’t hurt them. If someone is in a relationship don’t ruin it. If someone is hurting comfort them. If someone trusts you, don’t break that trust. If someone is in love, don’t make them feel less that worthy to be loved back. If you love your best friend tell them. If someone needs a hand to hold then hold it as tight as you can- because at any moment they can start slipping away from you and it won’t be their fault. It isn’t their fault they felt less than worthy. It isn’t their fault they cry sometimes. It’s not their fault that they need to be comforted. What isn’t okay is when the someone puts all their trust and love into someone else and they go and break it. It isn’t okay to watch your best friend cry because you took away their sunshine. It isn’t ******* okay to take away someone’s reason for getting up in the mornings. It’s not okay to make someone feel like this.
Continue reading...
182 · Jul 2018
July 9
Rylie Hawley Jul 2018
July 9
You told me how love is only a feeling and how you can’t express that for me, and thats why I winced at the kissing scenes in movies because you know how to make me feel very small.
I am forgotten Sunday’s in the middle of winter.
I am old shoe strings beaten and falling apart.
But I’m not the girl boys take home to meet their mothers, I am hidden away on train rides to the city.
I am not the girl that you would have a picture of folded up in your wallet
But i am a song that is stuck in your head at 4am,
but it will remind you of somebody else.
Continue reading...
177 · May 2017
a feeling
Rylie Hawley May 2017
a feeling
I hope one day you will learn to feel love, and not the type of love that they have in the movies, the type of love that is simple and happy, that can make your cheeks go warm
I hope you find the love that doesn’t mean crying and aching at 3:16am because you’re worried she won’t love you again in the morning, love isn’t the thought that she won’t hold your heart in her hands like a fragile vase 
I want you to find the love that brings patience and selflessness
I hope you find the love that won’t make you go crazy because if you were sane you wouldn’t know how to deal with the pain that love can bring, but one day I hope you find love that will make you feel happy again because you deserve to find love with someone who won’t make you lose your mind.
r.h.(December 23, 2015)
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172 · May 2017
6:07 on a Friday Night
Rylie Hawley May 2017
6:07 on a Friday Night
Maybe that’s what happens, People just drift away. Maybe there is no love for one another. Maybe there is just I’m not sure.. people get too attached- I get too attached to people. I care too much. I think that these people love me; and maybe I thought love was my vision going blurry while he had his hands around my neck that one night in my basement. Maybe I thought that love was the different colored bruises and all along my chest when I took her up to my lake house that one summer. Maybe I thought that love was when your parent makes jokes of your past depression and self harm. Maybe that’s normal with other families. Maybe I thought love was the boy telling me he only wanted to get into my pants, because his brother was annoying him the night before. Maybe I thought love was when you told someone how their happiness is more important than yours; shouldn’t it be though? Shouldn’t you be more than willing to throw yourself on the line just to protect the person you love?
I guess I don’t know much about love. Because all of my past is filled with someone hitting you, or being held down in your house, or feeling tears stream down your cheek while he moans in your ear but you feel nothing but the weight of him on top of you.
I know how to love, I can love fully and purely.. maybe it was just the tears in my eyes that blurred the image of true love.

r.h. (May 19, 2017)
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164 · May 2018
find me
Rylie Hawley May 2018
find me
Tuesday 4:24 pm
I woke up in a hospital bed, my wrists are in restraints.
I was told I had taken three and a half Xanax and I attempted to swallowed a bottle of Trazodone.
IVs were in my arms.
an overweight woman taking my blood pressure (it was low).
I remember looking over at my mom shaking her head whispering something to my dad. I wish I knew what they were talking about. I wish the pills had done their job.

rewind

Monday 9:09 pm
I feel the weight, the burning of his skin rubbing against my raw legs
I feel him contort my body into positions I didn't know were possible.
He pushed my face into his bed sheets,
suffocating me, I tried to moan for him to get off of me.
I woke up to a police officer shaking me- asking where
my clothes were. I wish I could have formed a sentence in that moment,
But all I could mutter from my lips was
"where am I?"
"what happened to me?'

I was brought out into the brisk March night, to see my father with his face in his palms shaking. Why was he crying?
What was so wrong.

Fast forward
Tuesday 6:02 am

I woke up the next morning in my bed- my ******* alarm blaring.
I had never been in so much pain mentally,
physically. I could still feel him inside me.
I threw on an old shirt and a pair of sweatpants laying on the floor.
Making my way to the bathroom I saw where he left his mark on me
my neck bruised from his teeth.
traces of his fingertips digging into my skin still lingered on my *******.

I remember walking out of school that Tuesday,
puking in the garbage can and sitting in my dads car as he drove me home.

Fast forward 4:26 pm
My doctor informed my parents my system was clean, that I could go home.

M, you asked me to have dinner with you and your grandparents.
It was supposed to be a harmless night- but that wasn't your intention with me, no you wanted to strip me from my dignity,
show me off to the world without my consent,
but that wasn't the only situation I didn't consent to with you.

r.h. (March 21, 2018)
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— The End —