i can't recall ever feeling so afraid
deaf from silence that won't keep quiet
living in a bed of cold sheets from open windows and spilt coffee
caged in days old clothes
and skin that won't stop sweating.

i am tired.

i am so tired.

i can't recall ever feeling so dead
and i don't know if it’s my shallow breath afraid to stir,
or my tired bones filled with weight, held down by your continual expected self,

but i used to think
in the middle of empty streets
where cars only crept by every hour or so
that my life is just shadows of already told stories, fixed into cracked brick walls
and they don't move, they just stand still

so i stand still too

wondering how far my feet could take me if i let them.


but god, when does it stop hurting?
because my heart doesn't beat as it used to
it just pounds against a crystallized chest
like how your fists used to pound against your own skin
trying to shake yourself out of days old dreams that kept destroying you.

i should have spoken to you
but i was scared what I said might’ve shattered the both of us
but you really should have known that i thought you were wonderful

and important

and maybe i loved you

and maybe i still do

and maybe that's something worth being ruined over.

it was nice knowing you’d break your bones for me
but i’d already broken my own so you wouldn’t have to.

i wish i knew how to stop feeling so afraid
but losing you wasn’t like losing myself
because my skin still knows how to stretch itself around my spine-stuffed back
and it knows the grooves hidden behind each rib, each piercing wrist bone;
and it hasn’t reached its point of defeatedness
like how you reached yours with a knife.

“tell my mother i love her,”
2:34 a.m
the last words you ever spun into my ear,

I wish they sounded like music or something lyrically moving,
but they sounded like thunder, and storms that wouldn't let up.

2:34 a.m
the burning echoed sound of a dial tone branded in places i could never reach -
why didn't you say you loved me back?

"I wish," are the two words spoken under one’s breath. These two words are all it takes to summon me.

Some call me a monster, while some only call me reality. I am the monster living not under your bed, but in your head and in your heart. When my name is called out, no one cowers away, for they all know that in some way, shape, or form, they harbor me inside of themselves.

Out of a mouth etched in pain I hear the soft whisper of two words. "I wish," the voice thick with misery and pain. With those two words,  I find myself behind the hunched shoulder of my summoner, assessing her situation.

She looks just like any other from the outside. A petite , and young female, only a girl.  Her stance makes it obvious that she is, drowning in her own despair, wishing that she wasn't as she is. Wishing she was smaller or taller or cuter.

In the back of my mind, something tells me that she is different from the rest. For some reason, I know that this girl will have a lasting impact on me. For some reason, I forget not to care, and this betrays my evil character.

My head tells me to comfort her. To tell her that her body only gives her more for her soulmate to love. That her height only makes her the perfect height for him to hold. Tell her that she is beautiful no matter her flaws, because they make her unique.

Still no matter my strong will for her to believe, she screams out, howls. "WHY AM I ME? WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS TO ME?" the end of her question coming out wobbling and begging, her genuine question seems to break off a layer of my heart.

As she takes the razor blade across her criss-crossed arm yet again, a river of blood runs down the length of her arm in a bumpy trail. This river being not smooth or clear, but filled with not only the things that make up blood, but also all of her anger, her pain, her defeatedness.

After years of doing this job, this one girl is able to make me empathize with her with just the slight of her wrist. Immediately, I try to help her.

"Stop Caroline," I cry out to her, hoping it will be enough to stop her destruction. As if she doesn't hear me, she continues to carve yet again. This time, her breathing becoming more shallow.

"STOP," I yell loud enough to make my vocal cords hurt. Yet, she doesn't hear me, and that is evident by her slowly closing eyes and her non-existent breathing.

Noting that she's dead, I break down. I'm left thinking only two words. Ones I never thought I'd think. I wish...