Punk Rock John introduced himself to me at my first show. He said, “kid.. protect your teeth, do NOT lick the walls, and don’t ******* the crusty’s. If you get cut, let it bleed– you’ll be fine.”
I was 15 years old, thinking about unzipping my veins. And while most 15 year olds would have done drugs or written a ******* poem, I went to ****** bars and basements and gave my best friends black eyes.

For the first time in my life, I knew that when I fell, someone was gonna pick me up. That first mosh pit was not a quiet conversation about suicide, it was Punk Rock John telling me, “Hey *******! Don’t **** yourself! Don’t waste your unscarred knuckles.” My rage bloomed. Why hate myself when I can hate parents, high school, the radio, record stores, magazines, corporations, yuppies, my parents, cops, rain, sunshine, beach days, phone books, and tiny ******* cupcakes? *******, if that first day of punk didn’t sound like Buddy Holly played back, double time, distorted, compressed into four chords.

The first time I saw Punk Rock John, he was halfway through a frontflip stage dive, and he landed directly on me. He picked me up, dusted me off, and threw me back in the pit. Punk Rock John was 6’4, had hands the size a kick drum, and he smelled like a 20-year rain. He was Noah. He was our shepherd. One time, I was getting ready to dropkick some metal kid when John got me in a headlock and said, “quit ******* around, Neil! You don’t know who this kid’s friends are, and I ain’t putting you out if they set you on fire.”

John told us, “the church of punk rock was always open. If you wanna pray, just crank up the stereo until your ears bleed. If you wanna pray, just grab your brothers and sing! Sing out of tune, sing the wrong words- just sing! Loud!”

But then some out-of-town skin dropped a guillotine knifeblade into John’s skull. The blood was pouring from his ears. He was dead before he hit the ground. John brought me into a world where I felt loved, and that world took him away. I buried my leather jacket, patched the holes in my jeans, and tried to pluck the chords like stitches from my chest.. but John still speaks to me. When the world is larger than I am, when my chest is a vice.. I put that needle on the record, I turn it up until I can’t hear ****, and I tell myself: as long as I have hands, I can break something. As long as we can breathe, we can sing. As long as I can remember, I will hear him– he says, “kid, you’ll be fine.”

The first time I saw him, I was just barely 16 years old. The types of boys I went for at just barely 16 years old were soft, and feminine, with bangs in their face they'd flip back to look cute. At just barely 16 years old, he was a man. A 19 year old man with a beard. A man with a beard who smoked cigarettes. A man with a beard who smoked cigarettes, marijuana, and drank alcohol. His shirts had holes in them and his jeans were frayed at the bottom. He was the exact opposite of my type. Truly, I thought he was gross. At just barely 16 years old, a man with a beard who smoked cigarettes, marijuana, and drank alcohol was terrifying, and intimidating, and the exact opposite of my type, and of course I fell madly in love with him. I don't believe in one true love. Disney movies tried to convince me that I should and do, but, something always bothered me about the idea. I don't  believe in one true love, but I believe in soulmates. I don't believe in one true love, but I believe in love, and I believe that one of the biggest tragedies human beings inflict upon themselves is preventing themselves from being with someone they love. So then why? So then why am I doing exactly that? I still see him the way I saw him the first time I saw him. Except... less gross. I see you. I still see you. I see that you're sick, and I see that you're suffering. And I see that I am the reason that you're suffering, and I see that you're making me suffer in return. At least, I see that that's how you see it. So, now I'm suffering without you because I'm choosing to, because I keep getting told that I'm better off without you, even though better is a feeling and I don't… FEEL... better, and I know that you're better off without me.

"And when your fourth love leaves you. You will want to **** yourself, but you won't Because you no longer think of suicide as a house you will build one day" ~ Future Tense by Neil Hilborn.

I keep hoping
That if I keep writing enough about you
About us
What happened and what you did
It'll be written out of the existence of my conscious
That the memories will melt away
As if they were frost coated blades of grass
In a lukewarm spring morning
I care you know
About if you're happy now
Maybe
I keep hoping that if I bleed enough ink
Everything will finally stop
And fall
And reorder itself
That the past five years
Will fade out
Through the tip of this pen
The insecurities will be gone
The trauma will be gone
The memories will be gone
You'll be gone
For good
Never existing
A total and complete stranger
Because who you are now
Isn't who I first met
But that's life right?
People changed
I changed
And it hurt like hell
But after that
Everything melded
Faded together
The sun and moon
Will no longer fight for supremacy behind my closed eyelids
Sadness will finally move out of happiness's home
The unwanted roommate
Never paying their rent
Leaving behind tidbits of loneliness
That would always cover
Your vortex infused days of sun
Cozy winter mornings have reappeared
Snuggled in a blanket
Snow caressing my window sill
A gust turned into
An extinct lovers laugh
Because my days are brighter
My pen is lighter
And the ink that I've bled
Over the past five years
Has finally been staunched
From the incisions
On my ugly blue battered
Gun powder heart.

"The first time I saw her...
Everything in my head went quiet.
All the tics, all the constantly refreshing images just disappeared.
When you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, you don’t really get quiet moments.
Even in bed, I’m thinking:
Did I lock the doors? Yes.
Did I wash my hands? Yes.
Did I lock the doors? Yes.
Did I wash my hands? Yes.
But when I saw her, the only thing I could think about was the hairpin curve of her lips..
Or the eyelash on her cheek—
the eyelash on her cheek—
the eyelash on her cheek.
I knew I had to talk to her.
I asked her out six times in thirty seconds.
She said yes after the third one, but none of them felt right, so I had to keep going.
On our first date, I spent more time organizing my meal by color than I did eating it, or ******* talking to her...
But she loved it.
She loved that I had to kiss her goodbye sixteen times or twenty-four times if it was Wednesday.
She loved that it took me forever to walk home because there are lots of cracks on our sidewalk.
When we moved in together, she said she felt safe, like no one would ever rob us because I definitely locked the door eighteen times.
I’d always watch her mouth when she talked—
when she talked—
when she talked—
when she talked
when she talked;
when she said she loved me, her mouth would curl up at the edges.
At night, she’d lay in bed and watch me turn all the lights off.. And on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off.
She’d close her eyes and imagine that the days and nights were passing in front of her.
Some mornings I’d start kissing her goodbye but she’d just leave cause I was
just making her late for work...
When I stopped in front of a crack in the sidewalk, she just kept walking...
When she said she loved me her mouth was a straight line.
She told me that I was taking up too much of her time.
Last week she started sleeping at her mother’s place.
She told me that she shouldn’t have let me get so attached to her; that this whole thing was a mistake, but...
How can it be a mistake that I don’t have to wash my hands after I touched her?
Love is not a mistake, and it’s killing me that she can run away from this and I just can’t.
I can’t – I can’t go out and find someone new because I always think of her.
Usually, when I obsess over things, I see germs sneaking into my skin.
I see myself crushed by an endless succession of cars...
And she was the first beautiful thing I ever got stuck on.
I want to wake up every morning thinking about the way she holds her steering wheel..
How she turns shower knobs like she's opening a safe.
How she blows out candles—
blows out candles—
blows out candles—
blows out candles—
blows out candles—
blows out…
Now, I just think about who else is kissing her.
I can’t breathe because he only kisses her once — he doesn’t care if it’s perfect!
I want her back so bad...
I leave the door unlocked.
I leave the lights on."
Neil Hilborn

I’m so sick of constantly being rushed, I’m sick of being told I’m doing something wrong, I so ******* done with being threatened to be beaten the **** out of it have my stuff smashed by both ******* parents. Im sick of being told that not wanting to do something is wrong or being made to feel so.
I just don’t get why it’s okay for a parent to tell you that they are going to beat the living **** out of you.
Or “oh you’re cutting yourself because you want attention, but don’t worry if I tell you that everyday you’ll realise that it’s stupid, because Tianna is such a independent, down to earth girl, who really just wants to fit in.”
“Oh yea she was in hospital, she slipped and fell. And had to get stitches, she’s fine now though. I’m totally not lying because I’m disappointed and very embarrassed that my daughter turned out to be a disgusting, lazy, attention seeker.”
“Oh how’s Tianna? She’s great she has her faults more than not but she’s honestly great to have around lie and I used to trust her so so much”
“I’ve thought about kicking you out, again. But, that would look bad on ME. Don’t you know how much I ******* hate you sometimes. Like, I look at you and have no love for you. ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME.
You’re behaviour reflects on ME. And those scars make ME feel sick.”
Oh cause don’t worry mummy you don’t need to worry about me anymore because you can’t worry about someone who doesn’t worry about themselves.
I’m just so done with acting like nothing is wrong.
Or actually being scared when someone says they have a problem, but not the scared scared. Like the scared of how you’re gonna punish yourself this time
Feeling the need to say sorry 100 times and assure them that you care deeply about them 200 times
I’m so sick of feeling like EVERYONE has a problem. When really it’s me who has a ‘problem’
Don’t take this the wrong way but that’s one thing about love. When you are so deeply in love with a person their hurt falls on you too. Their anger angers you. Then arguments. Both of you are ****** up and broken. But you love eachother so much that you just keep on relying on one another to climb up the wall then pull you up too
But that’s the thing both of you are too ******* weak to do that
So it’s a cycle of getting down, climbing up, failing at pulling up the other one, getting down, then switch
Self harm is self harm. Excessively or not it’s still stupid. Temporary pain even the smartest people know won’t help in the long run
But we all repeat and repeat. Oh but it looks so pretty and it’s beauty distracts me from the ugly truth.
But the pain is always gonna ******* linger and linger until one day you realise that sad isn’t the only way. Sad is one way. The wrong way but looks so identical to happiness it’s cousin from across town.
So many people make the mistake of mistaking happy as sad but they all one day find the path to happy.
After walking past so many signs saying no. No this is not the way
They finally realise that the only person who can help them is themselves
In the words of Neil Hilborn; “I don’t think being creative and mentally ill is just related, i believe it’s the same thing.”

I hate my mind.

Neil Hilborn

Routine. Make sure you have it. Whether it be taking a shower and brushing your teeth every morning, or it is smoking a cigarette and drinking a cup of coffee. I need you to have a routine sweetheart, it'll serve you when you're in high school.

2. Don't use violence. Treat others the way you want to be treated. The violence part? I know, easier said than done, but your dad had such a hard time in high school. He was suspended and almost got battery charges for hitting a girl. Also, your dad went to jail for abusing the effing crap out of your grandmother.  So trust me please, when I say violence is not the answer.

3. Read. Write. Create. Repeat. Read John Green, Neil Hilborn, and Savannah Brown. Write as though your soul is on fire and this is the only way to put it out. Write every day, write about pain, guilt, shame, suffering. Write about all the bad things, but also show those glimmers of hope. Create. Make art that shocks and makes people think. Make masterpieces. Make art you don't like. Whatever you do, just make art. Do it because your dad would. Do it for the world. You have so much potential.

4. Don't join Facebook. You will get preconditioned to the fact Facebook is a right of passage and a sense of freedom, but trust me, it isn't. It'll turn you from an artist to one who searches for love in all the wrong places. One who strives off likes, and hearts, and good reactions. It will make you feel worthless on those days you get zero shares from the status you thought was golden. I love you and you can do this.

5. This one is hard for me to say, especially considering I'm one of many whose done it, but don't attempt suicide. You'll regret it the moment it doesn't work and cry the moment you realize what you've done. I will let you know regardless if it works or not, the amount of pain you put others in: will not change. There will always be pain. I love you sweetheart and you can do this.

6. Listen to loads of music. This should be your drug of choice. I'll make you a playlist of all your padre's favorite songs. Music does wonders. Music soothes, helps you create, lets you let it out, and the list goes on and on.

7. Discover yourself; embrace that. Whether you be gay, straight, or bi. Whether you're happy, sad, or content. Whether you're ill or not ill. BE YOURSELF. Be so much yourself, you have the amount of confidence of a great white shark. Those *******, those animals are CONFIDENT. (19 year old me would also like to insert that werk it qween is a totally acceptable phrase)

8. You are made of magic. You have the bones of stars and the eyes of bravery. Anywhere you walk is going to be a place where everyone knows your presence. You walk on red carpets of kindness and love, but also you smile bigger than anyone in the room.

See her? Yeah, she's my daughter. She's my light, life, and reason to function on bad days. She brings me so much joy that the only way to describe it is, become an addict, go into foster care and lose everything you've ever known for ~1.5 years, and then uproot yourself into the adult life, 1 day after graduating. After you've completed those steps and only managed to need to be resuscitated twice, then you get to go onto the pile of adult ******* that entails: paying bills, overdosing on abused drugs, being forced to sign a 'mutual termination' contract with the place you were living because you had a mental health flare up. Are you still alive? Okay cool, well now you're going to move into sober living and fall in love with the wrong person while being there, get into drugs even more than you were before (ironic, eh,) and now... after all that. You move away from hell. And fall in love with the child you never thought you'd have.  

You bring me so much happiness, it's nearly ridiculous.

Its 4 A.M. and I'm listening to another obscure indie band I think you'd like.
The Album in question is appropriately named:
People Who Can Eat People Are The Luckiest People in The World.
Apparently, we all have bad people inside us.
Rapists, Nazis, Politicians, all crowded inside our tiny hearts.
No more room for compassion.
I guess we eat our issues and stuff them there,
Like some sort of factory.
Maybe that's how evil is created.
Stories for another time i guess?
Its 5 A.M. and I still miss you.
The Next Album on my playlist is titled Hospice.
I suppose that's a way to say how i feel.
So close to giving up, just comfortably dying.
He keeps saying that he's sorry.
I'm not sure what for.
I'll send you another Playlist later today.
Maybe you will hear my screams in between the upbeat guitar
and crashing of drums that is my tired body and soul.
Maybe you can tell me what i don't understand.
Do the Impossible.
Fix me.
Its 6 A.M. and the music has shifted to Button Poetry broadcasts
Neil Hilborn and Reagan Meyers clash against Sabrina Benaim
all of them saying the same thing without speaking the same words.
"Broken does not mean useless"
"Depression is not a means to an end"
"You cant fix some things with paper and pens"
They all scream their emotions into an open mic, the feedback cries with resounding applause, hollow but sweet.
It's 7 A.M. and i'm still here.
Still silently screaming.
I pray that my words reach your deaf ears.

The fleeting dream
Is dangerous

Her lips
Curl into a perfect smile
Followed by that quiet laugh,
sweet like honey

In my mind,
We are in the backseat of my 2000 dodge,
Hands on each other and my lips pressed to your exposed neck

Instead, we are sharing stories about how ****** up our lives are
And how complicated situations can really get

She asks if i want a hug,
For her to embrace me slowly,
Her arms wrapped around my sides tenderly
as she tells me all she ever has loved
Using only the softness of her touch

If things were simple,
We would be at your house, in your bed
Reading neil hilborn and
Exchanging actions on these repressed feelings

The fleeting dream
Is curious

I wonder how many opportunities
To kiss you,
Ive missed?

I wonder if you feel the same way?

Are you as guilt ridden as me?

To want something off limits, and know you should never have it,
But like the succulence of the forbidden fruit,

You had to, just once?

You were my one and only sin,
The temptation i was falling into fully aware, and not dragging myself back from that ledge.