you have so much light
radiating off you
and
if i got close,
you would destroy me
without even a second thought
~you remind me of the stars,
in more ways than one~

i want to stand in torrential storms and scream
until my lungs become ash and the rain has eroded the world around me
~who wants to join?

the way the atoms in the atmosphere sink into our chest,
and despite the crisp air, make us feel heavy and drained inside;
but simultaneously, the air invigorates us and ignites our bones, teaching the beauty of stars as they crash over us.
~for some reason our body becomes tied to the rain

every time i imagine your name
or your face,
or any daydreamt aspect of you
interacting with me,
instead of your name,
i will think,
"for what?"
and i think,
it's better this way,
~for both our sakes

you've never truly cried until
it becomes difficult for you to breathe,
and crying becomes so
normal,
it's now part of your daily routine
that is, if you can drag yourself out of the prison that is your bed,
to even form a "normal routine"
your body is empty and never seems to be filled
you are emptiness, a neverending pit,
and you wish that
it could just be
*******
different

i called you the spider, and maybe you were,
but maybe i lied when i said
you spun the web;
for you only started it,
but of my own, unintentional
volition, i ended up taking the thread.
suddenly, i was the spider,
and i spun
and spun
and i just kept
on ******* spinning
and i guess
~maybe i was more of a
spider than you ever were~

after i was told about the dangers of cadmium,
i never really used oil paints,
or acrylic;
i'm more of a watercolor girl myself.
~but if i'm honest, i’m not really much of a painter in the first place

my painting teacher once told the class
"you'll never miss it if you don't know about it"
he said some paints weren't good for us
& even though they looked better, with richer, more brilliant colors,
they weren't safe for us.
too much exposure to them could poison us;
for they included a toxic component.
we never used these paints,
and so we never missed them.
i wish i could say the same about you.
~a poem about cadmium colors

the stinging settles and my heart becomes heavier,
with new lines on my soul that were probably ******* inevitable.
~when did i develop an affinity for odd numbers

the hazy atmosphere reflects how sometimes your eyes just-
defocus.
.
as tendrils drip off branches,
they become the worries that manifest in the back of your head,
dancing around the stem of your mind.
.
frigid air mimics the chills you get as you sit on your bed,
staring blankly at a blue-lit screen.
the wind howls with thoughts racing through your mind;
a rain droplet, suspended on the surface are words at the tip of your fingers, frozen,
waiting for release;
permission to plummet to their true place in the world.
.
the mist and raindrops on the window are weight on your shoulders
and periodic piercing stabs in your chest.
.
~wind chill is the waves of sadness
traveling in whatever random intervals~
clouds rolling in and out bring both unease and angst, and silence and solace.
.
but, same as torrential storms, with time, the sadness passes. where your body experiences incredible pangs of hurt, eventually, you’ll feel peace pour over you the way rain covers the world in a crystalline curtain-
.
if i’m honest, i think rainy days embody aspects of
dissociation and/or depression
really well

there was
one version
of you
who wanted
a version of me;
it was only ever
in moments
like the one where
you let me invade your
dreams,
the same way you wriggled your way deep into
my subconscious thoughts. there was
one version of you
who wanted a version of me
~but not the way that i wanted you to~

you're right there,
just waiting for me
i know you are,
you put it so plainly,
and i can clearly see
you're so sweet
and
i'm so tempted
as i stand here screaming out your name,
i know i can't have you
why must you do this to me, torture me so?
i love you, but you don't love me back
yes, you give me more,
but not what i want,
won't you cut me some slack? is this always going to be this way?
"no, it won't, one day things will be different,"
i hope to hear you say.

on a night where we're not quite in
our right minds
we say all sorts of different things,
and who knows how much of it
either of us really means?
but regardless of genuinity,
we said what we wanted to
and in the end, it was for the benefit of who?
then when it came to me, you didn't even say
you had to go.
you were up & done;
~freshly satisfied and ghosting like a pro

imagine the day you
find someone and,
enthralled with them,
you cater to their every wish.
slowly, they demand you change the core
of your very own heart
and soul.
and after you have
transformed
so radically,
that your reflection is
unjustifiably unrecognizable,
they get up and they just
*******
leave,
and
you are left
in a foreign expanse
of a space that you once knew
like the back of your hand.
~imagine that day, and promise yourself it will never come~

as the trees go through their annual metamorphosis,
I form another internal skin,
purging my existence of every trace of you that i can
and just like the skin of the trees,
i will make sure he
leaves.

in the beginning you gloated, for i was but a puppet on your string;
but little did you know the pain that it caused me
i broke loose from your grasp, and because controlling me
was your everything, once i was gone,
you were left with absolutely nothing

each time i gaze into the windows of your soul,
i see the empty void you are,
and while you never wanted me,
i became enthralled, and
stayed
because i wished to be the one thing your soul consumed

(6/21 at 10:36 AM)
this is where it started, you went full blast, with
[ssfydbso]
(6/24 at 8:12 PM)
cute words and flattery that made me laugh;
[mfsivv]
(7/3 at 1:11 PM)
the nicknames, if you could call them that, in the very least
[vks/sks]
(7/3 at 1:29 PM)
the way we matched
[sks/vks]
(7/6 at 10:13)
the unapologetic delivery
[v#1s/fc]
(8/19 at 12:52 AM)
although before i'd been skeptical, i soon fell into a habit of you, and when i confronted you, oops, little did i learn, how you felt, yet i still extrapolated
[ysaah]
(9/6 at 10:57? PM)
as you shared your music, you showed me new songs and i think i saved them all.
[DBL you said @1am but if i'm honest, i think you were projecting how you felt onto someone else, but maybe i know a thing or two about that]
(10/23 at 6:49 PM)
then things got out of hand, so to speak (wink, wink)
[hbbg]
(11/13 at 11:00 AM)
and i thought it would be a one-time thing, and it was, more or less, until the moment you texted, telling me i had invaded your dreams
[wtbalos? (edited)/(redacted)]
(11/15 at ??:?? AM?)
but when i reached out, in the dead of night, maybe you thought it had underlying meaning, when really, i was lonely and wanted to talk to someone, but that someone was mainly you, or the version of you i concocted in my mind.
[twtnajgd]
(11/24 at 10:53 AM)
and after months of reading into nonexistent nuances, and constructing a cacophony of daydreams involving you,
when i threw my phone out, like three days later - well, i did say three was my favorite number -
i reached out, for i wanted answers, and clarity and closure, and i guess i got it; i finally ******* got it and it drove me to poetry, where i spent the most time in a long time
on you, searching for screenshots for timestamps so this ******* poem is the most accurate it possibly could be, and i even maxed out the discord character limit - just on you, and that's something that i rarely ever do.
[biadttg]
(11/28 at 11:48 PM)
so, my phone is still thrown out, and i get my access back tomorrow, and now i must stick to the reasoning for which i threw it out in the first place, but i still seek out your name and activity on spotify,
(?/? at ??:?? AM&PM)
but i will work to curb that habit and every other one i have associated with you, and one day, they will all be but a distant memory

the sting of a shot of lemon extract
sets my tongue and throat on fire,
but at least it's not a raging **** in my arm
that would scar and
inevitably make me feel
even worse about my
body image.
maybe the flame in my throat will roast my
vocal chords
and i can
read poetry
83% more aggressively than i already do.
-sorry, i didn't text back immediately; i was wondering when to start wallowing in self-shame-

instead of broken plates and dripping sinks,
tonight
my self-shame is visible in the way
the extract burns my tongue so prominently
that noodles feel like lemons and
taste like the nothing
that i'm so desperately trying to escape.
processed pasta and citrus-scented breath
have me gulping,
as the the air that reaches my chest drowns
in the same acidity as the rage that i feel.
this is a different numbness than what i felt when
i created alternative versions of myself,
just to run from the version of everyone else around me.
i guess, what, all my efforts have been forsaken, and did any of
it matter in the ******* first place?
-i guess i lied when i said
there would be no dripping sinks-

was it how you made me laugh,
or how that laughter decimated
my sense of uncertainty
and lulled me into a temporary constant,
where,
in my ignorance,
a real version of me
fell into a faux version of you.

this is a test
to see how this works,
and if
this will still be here.
and if it's not, i guess that's
just how the world is supposed to work.
...
but it's still here,
so i don't really
know how
to process this now,
i suppose.
i doubt this is a metaphor
and even if it were,
i have no subject it would be for.

you were a spider in the basement of my existence.
and while the webs you spun were not you,
they became some iteration of you to me,
and despite my damndest efforts,
they decorated every crevice in
the attic of my mind
~that really *****, 'cuz i don't like spiders

the way
that i spent
nearly countless hours of
my precious time
psychoanalyzing
nonexistent nuances
in any
desperate attempt
to escape the silent shouting
void around me;
only to be left
in the same void once more
the moment i got
an ounce of clarity.
~it's astounding, but not in the good way

there is a supernova
that resides in your eyes;
on the cusp of exploding,
waiting to shower everything with the light
you hold within;
soon,
the galaxies and all the stars
will be aflame with the
spark of your soul.