I have faith in medical science
But little in practice.
Straight spined doctors
Racing stopwatches against
Their appointment books.
Extolling the virtues of thousands of years of medical research
But unable to consider anyone's opinion other than their own.
Kindly, soft-voiced nurses shuffling from
Room to room
Doling out condolences and reassurances
Paired with regimens
Of drugs and IVs.
While Old Time in the ticking clock
Slows
To a dead crawl.
And the noise of heartbeats on machines
And discussions out in the hall
And loved ones distracting and pacifying patients in beds
Layer on top of one another to form a firm blanket of
Crushing. Boredom.
And the antiseptic smell does nothing to ease
The passing of time spent waiting
While the medical machine spins its wheels
To the chime of slot machines.
And the bustling rush outside a curtain
On hard white floors,
Does less than lend a sense a peace
But more of frantic urgency.
Minute long - task oriented visits
Where they know names, numbers, and insurance coverage
And they know how many steps it takes for them
To lend more of their valuable time
In that modern balance of cost and care.
Leaving me wondering,
Where did the connection go?
I wonder where peoples' trust went
And when it was replaced with,
"How much will this cost me?"

Army men
City girls
Turned nurse

Hands held over
Slowly-contaminating
Breaths

Mason jar IVs
Cleansing white
Handkerchiefs

Masks
Yellow on white
Death in the air

Blood in my mouth
Hair
Lungs-everywhere

No new people
In months.
We know what it is.

We have Typhus
And it's not going away
Until it has ****** the breath from all of us

Until we are all dead
6 feet under
The ground

To another day
passing like the parched foliage
dangling from the roofs in
the ***** Bronx

left of the ferry,
right is the skyline
doubled three times,
cloaked in solar panel
glass and shimmering
against the smoggy array of light
that
will
quit—
in due time.

Daddy, sweet
East River father,
where is the little
meatball you had grounded
up for eyes.
For a Roman nose
and Mafian stubble
when your Sicilian tongue
was clipped at age five.

For English-Only stamped on the roof
of your waste factory
of a mouth.

For the neo-tongue that
was bred liked
strong As
and
young ****;
And copious liquor upon
the grounds of your hiking
trips.

Mutation
       of
vile majesty.
Cannibalism of the **—

Buttons budding
for *******.

I saw your phantasm
figure, soiled in
dark tan, curve in
my lens.
Swallow the hazel
like a viscous sauce,
sweet, fresh.
A fuckable baby—
of five. You clipped
my tongue with now
cloying giggles and in the bunk bed,
red and ***,
like a locket, limbs

dangling out the sides, fleeing in
a fountainhead of
DO NOT.
Effaced by an amnesia.

The old man in my skull speaks,
— I was thirty two days ago.

Now the IVs DRIPDRIP,
Chorus with the TICKTICKTICK.
You are the hour,
I am the minute
Hand.
You are slow, I must
go-go-go in compulsive haste.
Run for sixty,
start anew,
encore, solo, imbrued
with the days that twine the middle, framed in
white.
Forget.

The doctor parses the old man like an
obsolete phrase with theatric hands,
-touch-touch-
push,  press.
Then comes the Shakespearean
soliloquy:
—He hasn’t the coverage.

The trigger as a glove of flesh
hits its target, quiets the machine,
puts me to sleep.

What is it that
I must do?
-become the platoon,
an infantry of sun-empired men.
Fight the shrapnel,
the blitzing of
scar tissue.
Become the fireman
with an axe wielded—
Scale the towers like cracks in a mountain.
Die from the smoke or
the spherical flames of the
planes that rode like the hooves
of a horse with bubonic pallor.
Fall like a worker
for stories down until
God, or some sadistic keeper
of this earth, slacks a noose
and reels me in like
a bluefin tuna, prized,

as you
salute. You ‘Nam
prevailer heralding
the lacy harlequins of corporeal
God’s pardon
on
you.

I am in
eternity from
the waist down,
object of the tight, frictiony
satisfaction you
almost indulged in.

To be a daughter, so sonly,
revoked of all features.
Stripped of the places
you liked to touch.

Depression suffocates me
until I am begging
for just one more breath on the floor -
the aftermath of my overdose taking its toll.
Poetry is my oxygen tank.

It is a bit challenging to accept
that after feeling so low,
I felt that getting high was my only choice.
To wake up to hell for 16 hours a day,
only to have nightmares
I have never found myself able to outrun,
no matter how fast the alcohol seeps into my bloodstream -
it's almost scary to realize
that my life has fallen to this.
Long nights in basements
filled with scarlet red cups become synonymous
with dreadful episodes in the bathroom
staining the sink blood red -
We're merely trying to escape.
Depression, however, isn't just a phase -
It's a lifestyle.

Depression isn't feeling sad
when everything goes wrong -
it's not being able to accept
that everything is alright.
It isn't crying over spilled milk,
it's being the delicate glass
that was tipped just too hard,
rolled over and cracked
with a resounding smash
on the ground.
What people don't get
is that no matter how much tape or glue you use,
that glass will never be the same as its original self -
It isn't temporary - it's permanent.

It is hard to admit that I am sick.
The pills won't help,
the drugs won't help,
the people won't help -
the scariest part is that
I have to help myself.
When you've fallen into a hole this deep,
you don't simply climb out -
you claw and fight
until you can finally get a grip
on the beauty that life holds for us
and keep it to you tighter than ever.
Whenever I love something,
I hold onto it like the Earth
keeping the moon in perfect orbit
until the end of time,
in the hopes that it's not
just another wandering asteroid
that accidentally found its way into my atmosphere,
in which case the impact
leaves permanent craters on my psyche,
splashing the debris into the air,
covering up the sun
until I'm done tripping out and finally come to.

On one random Wednesday,
I blacked out.
Hours of my life in my memory
are simply gone.
Over the course of two hours,
I found my way
to the 5th floor of an unknown dorm,
face down and unresponsive in my own *****.
The next two hours consisted of EMTs
trying to force me to keep going;
all I uttered for those 7200 seconds:
**** me.

When they held my body,

Long detached from conscious thought,

I felt like I was being pressed into nothing.
As they held me down
with enough force to subdue my thrashing nervous system,
my world slipped away,
l i t t l e   b i t   b y   b i t .
I felt the dry heaves push out
any remnants of life I had remaining.
When they stuck me with the IVs,
needles pierced every inch of my body
for hours on end.
I saw hell for one night -
scary enough, in my period of unresponsiveness,
I crossed the threshold of life and death once.
I lost my heartbeat for three seconds.
Who knew that one **** hit
would almost give me one last night on Earth?

We all have our ways of coping.
Some cut.
Some rebel.
Some don't care.
I write. I speak. I live.
Poetry is my lifeline.
Somehow, words become much more
than just a collection of letters;
they become my heartbeats
translated into English.
It's almost scary that the only words
besides '**** me' that I remember from my trip are,
'you have to write about this. people have to know.'

Poetry is my oxygen tank.
*Take a deep breath with me.

I’m thinking about the doctor's hands shaking as she
                                               struggles to intubate a cat.  
I’m thinking about the technician's hands squeezing the cat’s rib cage,
pulsing life with a delicate force; she is much more gentle than
                                                      practition­ers are with humans—
hard and quick down with the palms; the ribs snapping,
                                                                ­     the sternum sore.  

Some time ago an 80-year-old woman on my unit was
opened up bedside for a cardiac procedure during a code.  
After a week in ICU, she came back to us on the unit, was up and
walking and talking, and was discharged home within another week.

Meanwhile, the 60-year-old man was dead in the morgue
       after a 45-minute code failed to resuscitate him.  

The flip of the coin.  The thin line.  The blessing or the curse.  
The absolute darkness of a body bag.  The cold chill of absolute zero.  
The fresco painted on the catacomb walls could either depict the
light of the sun or the multicolored lights that the
brain shoots off minutes before death.  
                                                        ­               The eleventh hour,
                                                                ­  isn’t that what it’s called?  

We don’t want to talk about body care, death care.  
We have to, but it won’t register.  
                                                     ­       After a loss, after a trauma,
                                                                ­   we are on autopilot.  
I think of my mother,
                                        six feet beneath frozen soil in
                                      a pink padded casket and think:
                                                                ­                             I don’t want that.
I think of the prearranged plots my grandparents picked out
next to her in an above ground crypt and think:
                                                          ­                                   I don’t want that.
Bacteria still causes decay after the embalming process.  
Putrefied flesh.  Bones visible.  Muscles eaten.  Tissues disintegrated.  
We don’t talk about it.  

We try to think the opposite.  The positive vs the negative.  
(But that’s not always possible or healthy.)

I’m thinking about hands inserting IVs, hands taking
blood pressures, hands documenting the code notes
on a clipboard in the back of the room.  
I couldn’t do these things.
                                                 My hands tend to break what they touch.  
The glass bowl in the pet store.  
                               The clay project in art class.  
                                                        ­    The succulents, the basil, the orchid.
I’m good at things I don’t have to think about:
good at the autopilot, good at the autonomic,
                                                                                    good at trauma.

Another day seems to pass by in the desert as it has for hundreds if not thousand of years,
Except the crunch of gravel and sand as a 2 ton frag 4 tuned up humvee races down another street in Iraq,
no surprise to see this in Iraq since the US led invasion in 2003,
same **** different day, otherwise known to soldiers as SSDD syndrome,
only this day would forever change lives,
the flash was white hot and the melting metal was proof enough of the sheer explosivness of the improvised explosive device,
the blast enough to let Iraqis living miles away look up to see the smoke,
they never heard the screaming though,
but the soldiers did as they raced to what was left of the humvee,
three dead upon impact,
a fourth lay screaming on the ground with what was left of the rest of his legs still in the passenger seat,
medics on  the ground did good and saved the poor soul,
his screams would fill the Iraqi night for for hours,
a short chopper ride to Baghdad Hospital,
they docs put his feet on ice, quite literally,
more than ten hours of surgery and the legs were sewn back on, but this soldiers fight was over,
a flight on the first plane to Ramstein Air Base Germany,
but the doctors cant do anything for this man,
he needs propers medical care,
send him home to Fort Bragg,
Womack Army Hospital,
doctors are optimistic as they tell this hero he will live but his days in the Army are over,
the tears are unexplainable as he pleads with the doctors to **** him
he doesnt want to live,
he may never walk again, he is a freak, his fiancee wants nothing to do with a *******,
over a week the soldier tries everything he can,
pulling out IVs,
injecting his blood stream with air filled needles,
his screams keep the other patients awake during the cold nights,
his crying during the day a constant reminder of the hell that only those who have lived it can ever know,
a week passes by, at least one suicide attempt a day,
then the soldiers fiancee arrives,
the crying becomes unstoppable as he pleads for her to leave him, not to look at his crippled body, that he wishes to die,'
why? she asks,
the question stops his tears,
why? she repeats,
because I am a ******* I may never walk again,
so? she asks, calling in the doctor,
the doctor arrives to find the soldier in tears and the meanest scowl ever seen on a woman,
doctor she asks, so he may never walk correct?
thats correct the doctor replies,
can he still have ***? she asks,
the doctor is stumped by the question and stumbles as he replies, well....yea its only his legs not his *****,
the fiancee looks at her soldier,
well then why the hell are you crying? as long as we can still have *** I am not leaving you!
the soldier sobs uncontrolably as his future wife holds him dearly,
the smiles on the other patients outwardly happy for the both of them,
then dinner arrives, the fiancee freaks out,
throwing the food across the room and storming from the hospital,
the soldier believing she had finally realized he was a *******, sobs once more,
the patients, doctors and nurses stumped,
another suicide attempt made,
thrity minutes pass,
the fiancee arrives, carrying a Dominos pizaa,
she holds him closely as she says he cant eat hospital food anymore,
he needs to eat right so that he can walk again,
and so comes a miracle through pain.

NO **** people this is a true story i witnessed myself in the Womack Army Hosptial roughly early 2006. It was a beautiful sight to see, and any man would consider himself blessed to be with what I can only describe as a miracle and the truest woman alive. That soldier deserved nothing less, oh, and he did walk again.

As tha vinyl goes round and round
Put my vocals on the sound
Make minds astound
Like they blazed a pound
spiritually buried in a ground
Many awaited so many hated debated
But ya only created
A bigger badder mc flawless the rawest
To ever touch a beat leave ya off ya feet
Ya in high heels drink Dom P no spills
Ice chills windmills sittin' on the 22s rims
Tilted brim far for slim lights dim
Smoke sessions prepare for the aggression
When fools hear my sound they'll start a recession
Lyrically insane off my brain
No pain no gain pushin' weight in differ states made estates hold ya pate
Cuz it's bound to get popped off ya soft
As Doughboy check my rhyming ahoy
Gettin' girlies made joy don't act coy
My apparatus the baddest yours the saddest
A **** without Gladys
I'm on the Midnight train to Georgia
Got some led for ya
Caps I peelin' more than onions
Leavin' nigguhs holy like funions
Funk baby born in the eighties
I'm the shadiest of the shady
Hate me now but it's all gravy
Burnin' emcees like Monks thai skunk
Put the funk
In my mind always on the grind
Watch for one time and I'm
Never gonna die from this
Respect ya royal highness
Check my pedigree ya gonna wanna
re-re-re rewind this







****** stop pretendin'
The masquerade is over
I thought David Porter told ya
The massacre just begun
When my guns bust fools begin to run
Into four-corner hustlers street jugglers
And stick up mugglers
Bounce my **** I'm the hardest to hit
Guard ya **** this a blow harder than Tyson
Sweep up the street call me Dyson Slicin'
Competition to pieces for stereo thesis
As my brain increases droppin' feces
That cant eradicate or debate
End up bitin' they own death date
Ivs' pumpin' from the leds dumpin'
Blood clots bumpin' body humpin'
This is a take over I don't pull til the nut is over
Never see me sober refer to me as Jehovah
Positionin' plots when emcees touch the spot
End up mad shot???
Askin' who shot ya? Nobody knows
It's the Htown ****** raw and hyper
160 kills with out the trickle of a sweat
I make more threats than a terrorist
George Bush couldn't even stop it
Mass mayhem slam opponent til they open
Dilate pupils after the loot principle
***** tricks haters can *******
Neck slit now ya can't talk ****
No love I'm in it Cuz im greedy
Don't feed the needy I'm black as Nefertiti
Yall can't see me
Even if yall wanted too
Chumps talkin' like they smoke me
But I'll have stunned more than Haitian Voodoo



This year has been... So hard. It's been so ******* hard. There were times when I didn't know if I would make it. Times when I didn't think I had it in me to keep going and going after what I want and what I need, when they're always such long shots. Such dreams. Such ambitious dreams... I wanted to quit so many times. When **** left, I wanted to quit. I wanted to crawl under the blankets and stop being. I spent 3 days on Angela's couch after that night. I can never sleep in my own bed when I am truly broken down. I lose my home when I am raw inside. Couches, empty rooms, it doesn't matter where I hide but it can't be where I live. I wonder why that is. She couldn't have picked a worse time to tell me she loved me as much as I loved her and that it didn't matter. And then you... you were off in another world, off in another country finding yourself and your footing and everyone but me. You stopped answering my How Are You's. You didn't tell me happy birthday. Neither did ****. That was the first time I realized why holidays are the hardest for people who are sad. If you love someone and you are waiting for them to forgive you for being who you are, birthdays, Christmases, every holiday becomes a ticking clock: She has to say something. Will she say something? Will she really ignore me TODAY? Today, when the person who hated me most in high school said "Happy Birthday!! :D" on my wall on facebook? Today, when even my neighbor who grumbles about us being too loud grumbled a Merry Christmas? It becomes an agony when you realize that the answer is yes long before the day is over. Then you have to watch the hours tick by, trying not to hope, and by the end of it you just want it to be over, you don't even care anymore- you just want her not to have a reason to speak to you again, so that it won't mean QUITE so much that she is silent.
I had a lot of special days like that this year.
I wanted to quit when they told me I was small. When they told me I was quiet and bland, like vanilla icecream. The beast that lives behind my ribcage shook the bars that day and howled. (I spent a lot of time with it this year. We still hate each other, but we have uneasily realized that we are all we have.) That was the day I truly broke. **** was gone. You were gone. And the only thing I had to truly count on was suddenly in question. It was now or never, it was be better than your best, and I was barely hanging on. It was be a hundred and ten percent, when the past few months had whittled me down to a shadow of a person who barely remembered what it was to be fifty. It was push harder than you've ever pushed at the moment you are about to collapse and you thought you were going to be able to rest.
Those days made me. I hate that they made me. I hate that the biggest parts of me come from the days that eviscerated me, but they do.
I wanted to quit when **** came back and saw what I'd become. "You're wearing fake eyelashes?" she said, because she always did notice any weakness. She didn't say she saw my sunken cheeks, and the fire behind my eyes that meant I was afraid to die. "PROMISE ME you'll stay this time." I said, and I grabbed her shoulders. "But only if you mean it."
"I promise." she said.
She didn't mean it.
I knew, though. Somehow I knew that the girl I loved had left her behind, a changeling, a stranger. I tried to believe, but when she left the shock was only surface: I was too tired to be rocked to the core.
Then came the days when I truly didn't have a plan. I spent a few weeks on the couch. Anyone who reads this will not have seen me with ***** hair, in week old clothes, skinny and sleeping all the time. I make sure they never see. But for a few weeks, I had no one to pretend for and no reason to pretend and no reason to live. I only knew I WANTED to. Even then, from the couch, with my show babbling in the background, I thought, "There's gotta be something. A reason will come. I just have to wait." And a reason did come. It wasn't a very good reason, but it didn't have to be: Reasons to live are not really the reasons we live. The truth is that if you want to live, you will FIND a reason, every time. You will create one. My reason didn't mean a thing in the details. All it meant was that I was ready to rejoin the world, and live again.
I spent a lot of the in between months living on the surface of myself, just getting my feet wet. I went to work. They didn't know me there. Didn't ask. I liked that, it was simple. I waited tables, I cleaned up, and if I quietly did what I did, nobody bothered me. The biggest thing I could **** up was somebody's lunch. It was comforting. I chatted with customers as if I wasn't who I was. I was their smiling waitress with her hand on her hip, a hot *** of coffee, and a clever quip. That was a part of learning to live again, too. It was hard to stand there all day and listen to the radio. Memories would hit me and I would be unable to run away from them the way I could elsewhere. I learned to breathe through the pain, and discovered that it became muscle memory to endure it. It was almost easy by the end. The only deep thing I did with this time was to read Girl, Interrupted. As with most life changing books, I hadn't thought much of picking it up. I hadn't expected it to change me. But reading it, I could have wrote it myself. I knew how she felt, every moment, and the things she said stuck with me, stuck to me- the raw wounds that were still healing  inside me scarred around her words.
Then came the reckless stage. I was waking up. I began to listen to music again. I began to drive without knowing where I was going. I began to make choices just to see if they'd jar me enough to snap me back to my old self. They didn't. I didn't find myself again until just before school started.
Poor Giles (my car, the car that saved my life) was the cost of it. A rainy night, a loud song, and too much grief. Things really do slow down when you crash, you know. I thought they just did that in movies to be dramatic, but they don't, it's real. When I went off the road I knew I'd lost control. My mind was way ahead of me. My body wasn't in the place I thought it should be, and I remember distinctly but calmly wondering why it wouldn't listen to me and do what I wanted (it was, in fact, being thrown around by the force of the crash, and the signals from my brain saying "Move your arm!" couldn't compete with whiplash.) I woke up with the car crunched against a tree, on the driver's side, and the frame 6 inches from my face.
I didn't feel anything.
My body cried and shook as they strapped me to a stretcher, but inside I wasn't in control. I was sitting back quizzically. The moment they got me out of the car I knew I was unhurt. They cut off my clothes. My favorite bra was another casualty of that day. Cut right in half- the leopard bra I wore in the first scene I ever did in front of the UConn faculty for midterms last year. While they were wheeling me from test to test, I wondered if that was somehow symbolic. Flash forward to being in bed in a tiny room, a doctor giving me back my bellybutton ring, me asking where the pentagram necklace that **** gave me the night we met was, getting it back, putting it on. The IV in my arm was cold. I hate IVs. My mom cried, and I cried, but I still wasn't scared or sad. I cried because tears came out. It was a surreal experience, crying like that.
I didn't wake up fully from my brokenness until the nurse came in and said, "I'm so sorry, but we need your room. I'm going to have to put you in the hall." I shrugged, and they stuck me in the hall just outside. I watched them wheel a bedraggled looking man in. He was muttering. He reminded me of my uncle, the alcoholic, the one who had died the previous fall. I had a hunch that they probably had a lot in common. Interest piqued, I eavesdropped as they bustled around and talked to him. He had tried to **** himself.
That was when I woke up. I didn't really know it, but that was the moment. It was the first moment in months that I remembered my real reason. I asked my mother for a piece of paper to draw on, and she dug in her purse to find it. Ten minutes later I faked having to go to the bathroom so they'd unhook me from my tubes. I had a feeling my mother would think it improper if I told the truth. Before she could object, I slipped into his room, and handed him the paper. I said, "I made this for you. I hope you feel better." I wish I remembered exactly what I'd written. It was a simple little note and a doodle of a rose, and it said that he mattered, and that I cared about him. I got back in bed, sheepish, and my mom was as nervous about my infringement on someone else's life as I'd guessed she'd be. Five minutes later, though, the nurse came over with a piece of torn paper. He had written back to me. His handwriting was shaky and simple, like a child. I have that note hung up in my bedroom at home. He said, "You have touched my heart. Thank you! I will keep your rose in my heart. This is a life changing moment for me... Thank you!" I wondered if there was a plan, then. I wondered if all of that, the sadness, the crash, everything, had led me to be in that hospital and say something to that man that changed his life. And maybe it didn't change at all, I don't know. But I know that that moment changed me.
Back at school, I had a few blissful moments with you. A few nights of hand holding, a few beautiful kisses. I slowly taught myself not to run from you when I felt the gravity of my love separate me by the molecule. I found that I did have the courage it took to be in your arms, and that is when you lost the courage to hold me. Still, I'd take all of my grief and more for one moment with you, and I'll keep you in my heart till the day I die, whether or not you stick around.
In class, I was the first to break. To cry. Over months, I cracked open and a lot of the tears that fell were very old, and scalding. I hadn't known I was suffering until the cracks in me were widened and focused on. One day after a particularly raw moment, I walked across the street to the tattoo parlor. I didn't stop, I didn't think, and I got a tattoo that very moment. My butterfly, on my shoulder, to remind me that changing hurts, growing hurts. I loved how much it hurt. (Nobody said I was recovered fully.)
Suddenly then there was a choice before me. An opportunity and a challenge. Do something to make them remember why they chose you. Fight. Win. I dug deep. I thought, what can I say that I mutter to myself in the shower when I am not thinking about anything? What words have stuck to me? I dug, and I found Susanna Kaysen again. At 3 in the morning I sat in a chair, in the dark, in the center of the bare rehearsal studio and tore myself open.
I found the girl who, this past summer, in the thick of everything, had called McClean and tried to get a bed. Who for a week had begged to be somebody else's problem. I called a hotline. I wasn't suicidal, but only because I don't have it in me, no matter how bad I feel. I called and got a voicemail. Desperate, I called UMASS Memorial. I remember they told me that if I wasn't a physical danger to myself or others they couldn't help me, and I remember this phrase tumbling out of my mouth before I could filter it, "Should I just go slit my wrists and call you right back, then?"
I had asked for help, and the answer, resoundingly, was no. And so I spent those weeks on the couch, and then I got up and dealt with the fallout. There was no other way.
I found her and I invited her to say something. And what came out was... The biggest ******* to the things that had beaten me down those past months. I kept the lights off. I put on Bleed Like Me and danced without looking where I was going. I held myself to the chair and tried to escape. I screamed into a pillow until no sound came out. And I found Susanna Kaysen. And I freed the part of me that wanted to talk with all those wiser than thou gods who toyed with the thread of my fate, teasing it with blades- I found **** this. **** being hurt. **** being broken. **** being judged. **** anyone who looked at me and thought they knew what was inside, because Susanna was inside, no, someone different, even, than her- someone, something, angry and wild and powerful and dangerous, and she laughed, and I laughed, and we began to plan just how to say "**** this."
I spent a night with you, during that time. You held my hands. You said they were beautiful. You told me about yourself. You kissed me. You wrote, "Galaxies" on my thumb. I didn't write it on my ribs until I was sure that I'd want it there whether or not I was mad at you. I didn't have long to wait- you ran away again, and I tried to love you anyway, and I succeeded. I still try. I still succeed. It's not getting much easier, but if I know one thing it's that if I
Just
Don't
Give
Up
SOMETHING will happen. Something will come to me. If I know one thing it's that I can keep going even when I have no reason to, even when I have no fuel, even when I am utterly empty. If I just take the next step, and the next, one by one, I will end up SOMEWHERE new, and I will find SOMETHING to love. That is what I learned this year. By all accounts.... this year kind of ******. Although I had scattered moments of utter joy, I had long, smudged months of misery. But having gone through it, I am almost nostalgic. Because it proved to me, even more, that I am not fragile. I'm emotional, I'm intense, I'm unstable, but ******, I am NOT fragile. Like iron being smited, I went through the fire, I was hit over and over in my weakest places, but... in the end I have emerged, and I am not gone. And I am not fragile. Welcome, 2015.

I.
Thoughts drip into short coffee mugs
Sweetly filling our cups with caffeinated experiences
We patiently sip
Until the steam transports us back in time
Pure memories replay, different scenes over coffee

II.
We must not weep over spilt milk
For our tears will dilute the contents of our mugs
And no amount of sugar or love
Can restore the substance to its original perfection

III.
Savor new tastes before the lazy hand
Drips synthetic liquids into our untended cups
Like IVs into coma patients
Pumping us full of fake chemicals
To soothe the human condition

I lay in my cold hospital bed, my arms stinging from the fresh IVs nurse Toby placed under my skin.
I lay in my cold hospital bed and wonder...
I wonder if I was given even one more month, how many poems and stories I would write.
How many people I would make laugh and cry.
How many times I would say "I love you."
How many times I would pray.
How many times I would close my eyes and re-accept my inevitable fate.
I lay in my cold hospital bed.

Now I made alot wrong turns before I became this man today,
Drove through alot of towns where my life was just a sway,

Cause I tipped bottles and smoked **** to try to hide the pain,
I thought it was normal cause I saw y'all do the same,

I hated the feeling of seeing my brother in tears,
So in the attempts to make it vanish I cracked open another beer,

But when the beer seized to work I cracked open a bottle,
With my left foot on the pedal shifting gears to full throttle,

I hated feeling the pain of everyone crying,
So I crushed up some pills and used my card for a lining,

And if the pain still proceeds I'll spark up some Ls,
not understanding why my problem still swells,

" I don't have a problem, I only use on the weekends." ,
Little did I know this rode only steepens,

Schools getting boring, so park in the back
" Yo **** first period, let's finish the sack",

"Bro I'm way too high, you mind if I sleep it,
We'll keep this skip day just our little secret,"


The teachers catch on to me skipping all week,
So I drop out of school to run with the street,

The amount of my daily use, I can't seem to keep track,
Mabye this left turn will take me on back,

Now the coolest ****** in town so I guess it's alright,
Who cares if my bed it a park for the night,

Two showers a week so my shoes might have stunk,
But my bottles 100 and the **** smells like skunk,

My visions always blurry and I "might" have a temper,
We had fun last nigh. Right.... That's all I remember,

But hey, you only live once so why not party all night,
As I drive through the dark in a car with broke lights,

My girlfriend can't stand it, " well who needs one girl"
There's a million other "*******" that live in he world,

So many black outs I can't keep count,
My moms ******* crazy for kicking me out,

Money got low so I smoked some fake ****,
Till my my boy tries to **** me so I leave him to bleed,

So while I take out my stitches we'll party till death,
Or till I wake up in the morning with stickies on my chest
And IVs in my arm and a tube around my nose connected to different bags and machines while a female officer waits outside my door


For as I flew down the highway as fast as I can in the attampt to escape the guilt of my life,
I didn't not see the upcoming ice,

And as the car slides, clips the railing, and flips Into a crash,
I did not believe  I would make it out of the ash,



But I did


And with this miracle given to me by a power greater than myself I made it a promise........

I won't abuse it

Cold sunlight fills my
room today. Coffee
from the night before
stains the corners of
my mouth and I
remember to fold the
laundry. I am not
missed when I touch
the same stained
white linen shirt
for an hour. But
someone said they
thought they heard
me crying from the
upstairs window.
Its lunchtime, and all I
have to eat are
complaints about what
someone else did.
I feel as though I
should pass the sugar,
but that may cause alarm.
I only touch what
I am told. I only touch
what I can control. I
think about eating the
dish soap as I show
you the contents
of my stomach
and see the surprise
on your face.
I think its
evening now.
I lose track of
everything now and then.
So forgive me when I say
I don't remember
your name, and which
room of the house
you stay in.
Quit yelling at me
when I'm face down
in the baby's bath
water.
Please quit assaulting
me with IVs
every time we
take unexpected trips
to the ER.
I hate how cold hospitals
feel. They make my
nose runny.
And that doctor needs
to stop telling me
that I should go
away for awhile.
What does he mean anyway?
I'm watched for
several days after.
I think they like
the way I do
the laundry now.
I cleaned out my
drawer and I
fell in love
again with my
station in life.
Its evening again,
and I can't remember
why I was crying
at all.

I woke up this morning,
absent of thought and feeling,
no dreams to reflect upon,
dreary walls closing in,
******* out the moisture from my skin.

I woke up this morning,
to realize that what we had has died,
it slipped from my fingers like sand,
now it's a memory, like the hour glass I hold in my hand.
You left with no possessions behind,
flooding my room with accusations,
and broken shards of glass,
from all the mirrors and windows I smashed,
while I begged you to stay.

Rain kept pouring since the day you left,
for days, and days I couldn't speak,
all the life had been ****** out of me.
So with two hands I built a ship,
that I would float on while I got lost in bottles of ***,
and whiskey.

No sirens called, nor did an octopus come to greet me,
it was silent, and cold
in the end of september,
while I watched the world change around me.

I woke up this morning,
to find that my life has been made of nothing.
I made no accomplishments, no grand feats,
I've kept myself stuck in a time loop,
even though the faces are never the same,
in some way they are, and it exhausts me.

To know that what used to be beautiful is gone,
because the poison started dripping.
It came first in the arguments,
later through the IVs into your blood stream,
I felt nothing and everything at the same time,
to realize I meant nothing, it wasn't such a shock,
I never expected differently.

So on this ship I sail,
while knowing everyone to be shallow.
When the one composed of water ascended to the top,
I'm not quite sure what he thought,
but golden tridents, and poetic verses don't thrill me.

A year ago I lost myself,
I saw the world shift and drop out from underneath me,
plunging my body into oblivion,
where for all this time I've lingered,
trying to make sense of out of nothing,
bleak, emptiness.

Whatever innocence I had in me was destroyed,
I've become the evil queen, drifting on murky waters,
and this ship is still sinking.
Whatever it is they all seem to see,
yeah, well that's escaped me.
I'm vile, cruel, and promiscuous.
But this queen needs no company,
I'm the serpent in the garden,
The murderer in the street,
The shark in the water,
I mean everything to nothing.

So do yourself a favor,
while you still can.
Run.

Some say that
"depression doesn't need a reason."
That sometimes your brain is
"a mess of mixed signals."
I don't want a broken brain,
or one destroyed by repressed memories.
Where one day I'll wake up,
happy and cheerful and my silly self.
And then it comes crashing down,
like a brick to my chest.

I'll have another panic attack,
tears forcing their way to my eyes.
I'll freak out and scream and rant and rave
until I no longer know who I am.
Not like I ******* know who I am anyway.

I feel like a monster;
a creature hiding inside the ugly flesh of a human.
I can't be alone for more than 20 minutes
without my thoughts running wild.
Who would miss me if I was gone?
What are the consequences?
But I'm happy, right?
I'm the happiest girl alive.

I made promises.
I promise to never cut again
I won't smoke ***
I'll quit the cigarettes.
But that slow inhale and exhale frees me.
I exhale the hatred for myself
for a father who won't love me
and for a man who took everything.
Who robbed me of a youth that was promising.
I was smart, I could do it.
But how can you study
when the needle calls your name?
Or when you're hooked up to IVs
pumping life into your veins?

I'm "weak" because I self-medicate,
and being depressed is "sickening".
I don't want this ******* brain anyway.
You can have my thoughts,
or the paralyzing flashbacks.
You can take the agonizing anxiety,
and the self-hatred.
I just want it to end
before I lose it completely.

Your eyes are not portals to your soul
They are not some archaic metaphysical equation
Ancient mathematicians formulated to confound

They are pastures for nymphs
They are branches for fruit
They are laurels for poets

They rend me open like a flaming axe
They tie my stomach like knotted roots
I lose myself in their dusky wilderness

In them, I observe universes
Perpetually exploding and collapsing
Your pupils are black holes
At the center of galaxies
Balancing energy and force
Bending light inward

Like a sickle glistening high over hayfields

In them I hear songs
And sagas narrated by savage tongues
Of catastrophic floods and rebirth
Aryan myths about oneness

In them I see IVs dripping
Candles flickering behind carved pumpkins

I loiter in them like a pauper
With a styrofoam cup

Gazing on them is nearly intolerable
Like glaring at hydrogen bombs blinding

It is like Hebrews
Uttering the name of El- who cannot be named
El- who is above mortal matrices

The eye that never sleeps
The ear that always comprehends
The self that waivers like the sea

Eternity ends when you blink
Infernos extinguish when you sob

I tremble before them
As if they're holy relics
Decaying into perfection

Oh look upon me one last time
My love

Oh glance at me before
I petrify into pillars of salt

Look upon me
Before I transfigure into an amnestic god
Bearing light pure

Peer once more into my binary pulsars, frozen
In a fathomless abyss.

from the perspective of two depressed individuals
when suicide's misdirected its effect is residual
it spreads across the wet tear bed you left
where your pretend weekend friends slept
until they woke up in a cold sweat
blue lips pale skin & visible breath
hell hath frozen over & your hope is dead
while IVs penetrate your veins in a hospital bed
& your mother watches the long-delayed death of her egg

I was
        on the edge

sprouting tubes, IVs
bloated and heavy with fluid,
monitors tracing
the scampering of my heart,
my wheezy breath.

They wanted to strap the torso
of a corpse to my back,
the mouth hung open,
slack-jawed. I was
so terrified, wild,

and afterwards sat
on the patchy front lawn,
watching onion skins
shrivel and crisp.

How sweet the sound of amazing grace that saves filthy sinners like me.
Who are not even close to worthy of accepting the gift of God's love that is
             Relentless;
                       Unwaivering;
                                  No strings attached.
He died a painful death upon the cross to save lives like mine.
Ones that can't even resist the smallest temptations put before us, though we know the extent of the evil one.
Why is it that we cling to the things of this world that are
              Evil;
                    Destructive;
                                Corruptive;
Instead of holding onto the everlasting promises of our Lord Jesus that are
              Hopeful;
                      Redemptive;
                                  Life changing.
He took a lost, broken, depressed drug addict, and chose me to do His mighty work; to build up His kingdom.
Not once has He said you're not good enough and you'll never be.
But he took the
               Lost me;
                        Angry me;
                                 Addiction based me;
And said "I'm going to use your story, for my glory, and I'll make you strong enough to resist those things."
For when I am weak, that's when He is strong.
Stronger than any temptation ivs ever faced.
And just like Nehemiah, "I am doing a great work and I cannot come down."

Today

Today I cried.
I tried,
But I couldn’t die.
Pills, pain,
Over, and over
And over again.
Now I’m stuck
In this white-walled hell.
Needles in my skin,
IVs in my veins,
Pumping liquids
And medicines;
Evil preservation of
The human cadaver.

He watches me.
Dark or light.
He stands, he waits.
Waits for what?
Last night he smiled at me,
I asked him why.
He told me a story of a girl
Who sounded awfully like me.
"One day she will realize why I am here," He said.
And still he watches me.
Dark or light.
He stands, he waits.
Three years ago I had asked him why,
If I ask again now he won't respond.
"Who are you?" I ask,
"Some one important," He says.
And still he watches me.
Dark or light.
He stands, he waits.
Twelve years I had asked him who he was.
I grow weaker.
My days on earth are numbered.
I am hooked to IVs and still he stands.
And waits.
When I close my eyes for the last time, I realize who he is.

I mourn for you
these tears that pool within my eyes
spill below its brim for you.
I cry for you
I scream till my throat's tissue  's raw
and this meek voice cracks for yearning you.

You lie there still
so still you sleep under covers of silk
while IVs feed nutrients to you.
Each eye closed lets slip a saline tear
that wets the pillow beneath you.

Each hour we are thrown down to eternity,
each minute we wait in unknowing fear
for each second that passes I clutch desperately to you
not wanting you to abandon me too.

----and yet----

Your life slips below my fingertips
pools and wets my swollen feet.
your death bed stinks of suffering
and my heart---my heart breaks
it BREAKS from loving thee.

Twist and turning disquieting
I'm going to BURST
this hurting is building
its unbearable
intolerable
I  feel  my  world   is   losing   grip
my sweetness died when you left me.

I mourned for you
So many tears have slipped below their brim for you
I screamed for you
my tissues raw from calling you
you never looked back as I ran for you
Fallen on knees I pounded the ground in defiance of you
I hate you, I hate you, I NEVER could have loved YOU!

---But then,

Your anguish was felt so strongly
its locks my bones
from head to toe
I fall---they break
is all this feeling from your pain?

---and then,

You healed me through
your memory kept my life among the living
your lingering smell
your fading laugh
kept the knife from meeting flesh

you!

Through your death, you saved my life
for that I will always love you.

her voice
told me we were friends
she'll make me better
happier

she said
she is the only one who cares
she loves me

i have to listen to her
she'll make me perfect

fat pig she says
useless she says
but she loves me
so i'll listen

start out small
cut back
no more than 1000 calories

it'll get harder
she says this isn't enough

500 calories
400 calories
300
200

calories control me
as much as her voice does

1 pound
2 pounds
3 pounds
lost

more she says
stop completely
walk away
become beautiful

people say an apple a day keeps the doctor away
i have to live by that

weeks
months
they pass

thin
bones
beautiful

but i can't see
she told me it'll be okay
but i can't see

passing out
fainting
falling
death

feeding tubes
IVs
medication

she says this is what she planned for
i'll be perfect once i'm dead

because at death
i will be my thinnest

so i smile
as she tells me my pulse
is fading

Every night I wake from the same nightmare
Screaming ****** ******, flames echoing across the room.
Blink and I’m an infant, a 6 month-old cavity
In a crib crying rivulets of blood,
Drowning; sweat gushing in from all sides, boxed in like the pile of
ashes I still hallucinate about sometimes
(Would you rather burn or drown?)
Dean always chose to drown.
And in that twisted way he was his own man,
Always sky blue over jet black, but me; I
deserve to burn.
I guess it runs in the family.
Charred black: that’s my destiny. Hooked on IVs of
Liquid coal, onyx adorning my veins. In this (under)world
I
am
King.
My throne is carved out of fallen stars that
Couldn’t put themselves back together again. I sit on
Lipstick-stained skulls
(They have names, names that ring in the hollow of my
Heart, names that whisper;
Counting down the hands I’ve let loose, let go)
Its a tightrope of insanity that I’m tiptoeing on; teetering on the frayed
Edges between darkness and
Light
I cannot tell where I begin, where I end,
(is this all but a figment of my imagination?)
For Mom, Jess, Dean.
Dean
They are the cobwebs that still linger between my muddled mind,
Tethering me to a world of lies;
A world that has no place for a boy with a blinding smile and nightshade lips,
A boy who once dreamt of a love so good so pure
–but that was before–
Before I dug out the demons I’d thought I’d buried six feet under
the fireworks of that night on the 4th of July,
do you remember?
But that was the rose of my previous life,
Now all that are left
Are the thorns.

Dear baby- I’ve heard you’ve already got fingernails, and I want to hold your hands already and say goodbye to you the right way. Dear baby- I’ve heard you’ve got a sister, and I’ve named both of your heartbeats under my skin and prayed for you in another lifetime. On Friday I trace your lives in ****** hospital gowns and loose IVs until I’m sleeping. On Friday I ask God to forgive me and he doesn’t answer. Dear baby- I will remember you every day until I am one hundred, until I can wipe the blood from my lifelines and tell you I am sorry.

I had a dream in France
that you were dying.

and so I came home
after two restless
days of flying

And now you lie,
your health in slow decline

dressed in white sheets,
alabaster cheeks
your IVs all entwined

I can't say I love you
quite enough

And
in front of you
I know
I must be tough

but I never knew that
loss would come before

the angels come
to lead you through
their door

You always believed
that
dreams held something true

I wish that
when I dreamed of death
I hadn't dreamt of you.

Coughing until there is no air left in my lungs,
So terrible, it stung.
My nose is clogged,
My vision is fogged.
The smell of hospital lingers,
I feeling pins and needles in my fingers.
Close to death,
I am doomed to rest in bed.
The IVs are inserted through my skin,
Quite a situation I got myself in.
It's cold,
When did I get so old?
Nurses are running about,
My voice is so weak, I can't even shout.
Who am I?
Where am I?
I cough again,
Feeling blood run down my chin.
It's so empty here,
Can't anybody hear?
The light is so bright,
My vision sees only white.
Why do I cling so desperately to life?
How is death easier than life?
My body is trembling,
I can hear my ears ringing.
I close my eyes,
And wait as the remaining parts of me slowly die.
It's failing now, the system is crashing,
Listen to my heart in it's desperate thrashing.
Memories are whirling around in my skull,
I breathe my last breath, listening to death's call.

Even though your body is breaking
Even though my heart won't stop aching
Even though my fingers are shaking
I love you
Even though it's really unfair
Even though it's hard not to care
Even though everything I can't share
I love you
Even though you're in so much pain
Always sick, again and again
Even though my tears fall like rain
I love you
And be warned you might see cry
Even though you're not going to die
And I won't be able to lie
I love you
And when you're hooked up to all those IVs
And when those lips can't kiss these
Even when you cannot see me
I love you
Even though your body is breaking
Even though my heart won't stop aching
Even though my fingers are shaking
I love you

Dear you,
Its been 5 years.
5 long yearsand it still feels like yesterday.
Like yesterday was my 12th test and the word "****", rolled off my tongue.
Like yesterday was the day I called him, told him, and he asked if it was his.
I can still feek the lump in my throat, as i choked down dinner, hiding a secret from everyone.
The lump in my throat that was a reminder, i had messed up my plans.
 I remeber laying in bed, praying god would take you from me.
I remember decidinf i would keep you.
I can still see the blood on my hands.
The blood that was, in my mind, now you.
Hearing the nurse say "there was nothing we could do"
Those words echo in my mind, always, haunting me.
I can still feel the pain from ripping the ivs out.
The pain, in my heart, that i didnt take care of us.
I remind myself i wasnt ready, almost always.
You would've been miserable.
Im not good with babies, ive never even changed a diaper.
None of this was my decision.
I shouldve cared more.
I shouldve taken better care of us.
You should know, im sorry.