4

The 21st of May, 2012

I am admitted to the adolescent ward of a psychiatric hospital

I am 14 and wish I could have gone home to swallow those pills

I am admitted under suicidal ideations

I have no idea what that means

It stops my parents from finding me hanging pale and blue in my closet

The air feels like better days to come

Somehow I capture the feel of the air and the smell of the earth in that moment

When it felt like the world stopped

It comes back with the springing of lilies as a reminder of how far I’ve come

Ironic isn’t it, that I got help in the season of rebirth?

It was mine as well

Coming forward with your struggle weeds out every person who wasn’t there to stay in your life anyways

When I was admitted to the ward I was afraid of who I would meet

But they were some of the most beautiful people I have ever met

My sister was too young to know what suicide meant

My parents told her I was sad and would be back soon

As if that kind of empty isn’t completely debilitating

I felt lost at sea with no way back to shore

When she was old enough to understand

Her tears told me she understood how those 8 days kept me alive

 

I hope she isn’t crippled by her own mind

The way I was

Some days I still am

Please, get help

Please

Candles

Ribs flickering through my skin with every breath

Bones peeking out of the canvas that is my skin

I fluttered through as a ghost

No one thinking I could last the year

It was a race of which would fail first

My thinning body

Or would I succumb to the salted sea crashing

Making me numb with every thought of

How beautiful I would look in that casket

My family was already mourning the death

Of their once bright, beautiful, happy first born

Every ring of the phone

Would lead to thoughts of what I could have done this time

I didn’t even know what was happening

Public schools don’t teach you about what happens

When you stop eating

They don’t teach you that sketching the blueprints of your death means there is something wrong

I had frozen over with ideas that I never meant anything

Ideas that I was better off under 6 feet of earth

And it didn’t sound any alarms to my family

Because I was dismissed, told it was part of being a teenager

If only I could get those years back

Returning them like clothes that didn’t fit quite right

I lost so much time

I would gamble everything I have for them

And I’m lucky because

So many people like me don’t survive the slings and arrows of this noble existance

One stopped gracing us while you reading this

Light a candle for them

#MaybeHeDoesn’tHitYou

For every month I stayed in an emotionally abusive relationship

 

14. He says he loves me

Being in his type of love feels like swallowing poison

13. Bruises aren’t the only sign of domestic violence

12. My smile is playing hide and seek with me, hiding along with my laughter

I am no longer enjoying his company

11. The very friends he is trying to suction me away from

Tell me this is all wrong because I can’t recognize it on my own

10. I was only taught to run if his touch ceased being loving

9. Threats of suicide hiss through his teeth if I try to leave

8. Nothing is something I felt long ago

That he says he is without me

I’m beginning to feel it creeping up on me again

7. One in three women are victims of physical violence at the hands of a lover

But I am a statistic they have yet to count

6. No one will believe me if I tell them

So what’s the point of leaving?

5. The only leaving I can do is leaving this life

4. He never hit me so does it even count?

3. No one believes a woman when she cries abuse anyways

2. Maybe I’m overreacting like he says

Maybe it’s my fault

Maybe I actually do deserve it

1. A month after our paths split, he is in love with someone new

I am afraid to fall in love again

He’s happy with her and I’m letting him be

Now it’s my turn to find a new muse whose words don’t cut like knives

Please, let me be happy again

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Puddles Muddling

I only ever bother looking at my reflection in puddles anymore

Mirrors remind me that you looked into the depths of my eyes for hours

I was trying to dig for clues in your eyes as to why you felt so far away already

But you were sitting cross legged inches away from me

Did your mind catch a flight to her arms?

To her smile?

All I do is give you every piece of me while you took like a hungry child

Yet you were still waltzing around with eyes for another

Where did I go wrong?

Where down the road did I lose you? Or did I even have you at all?

One night I fell asleep with you curled up next to me

Only to awake to an empty bed

Just use your words, don’t leave me guessing

I know there is always someone better to love

For you just hear a broken record

I still hear a symphony that I guess I should just stop listening for

You can still look me dead in the eye

And say you love me with sincerity

Knowing it will keep me running back every time

But you’re kissing another goodnight

I have given you everything I had to give

You barely give me the time of day

I guess her lips taste of a stronger alcohol

She must smell of a sweeter candy

While you put a ring on her finger

Remember all the nights I held you until you fell asleep

Do not let my name slip from your lips in vain

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Anti Hallucinogen

Zoloft acts for me as a crutch that allows my moods to stay on the ground

Recently I was off for a couple weeks for the first time in 3 years

See I don’t really know how long it was because I lose all understanding of the concept of time

And usually the voices are dull and whispering like the quiet hum of FM static on the car radio

But they were turned up to the sound of thunder cracking, crackling, colliding

Just as I remembered

I had to act like I didn’t have knives twisting my heart out

I had no idea if I even existed

Maybe I was a phantom

Or in purgatory

The first week without I didn’t want to leave my bed

My feet were bricks that I could not carry

The next couple weeks

Insurance was fighting me

Presumably trying to kill me

Paranoia was seducing me with ideas that everyone was trying to kill me

My father said I sounded so far gone that it scared him

Because maybe this time the voices would actually convince me to fill my lungs with concrete

Emptying the roadmap of veins running through my body

Watching a loved one go through this is like watching a horror movie over and over

Thinking the ending will be something different

Over the phone my father asked about the hallucinations

Trying not to tell him that part of me was convinced his voice was one

I told him they were old friends visiting

I couldn’t bring myself to joke that I should name them

Eventually I got my lifeline back

Stopping the world from spinning 20 different ways while collapsing in on itself

Love Letters

After Jeanann Verlee

 

Nathan, the sweet kiss of death should have taken anyone but you

Austin, I had to leave you behind

Seth, years change us

Matt, when you kissed her I felt my heart shatter and never looked back

Thank you for teaching me heartbreak

Mitch, your eyes were an ocean I would have swam the rest of my life in but you had a taste for anything that got you higher

Jeremy, my heart is still yours

Mikayla, the scars faded but my love for you remains the same

Alex, making out on the ski slope was a beautiful surprise I regretted even more after learning you raped my friend the year prior

Adam, the sadness didn’t last forever

Alyssa, I wasn’t quite ready to come out

Jeremy, my heart is still yours

Josh, the bruises faded away just like you

I’m doing better without you and I hope it stings

Evan, no

Nick, I understand

Will, the love affair between my knuckles and your face was beautiful

Jeremy, my heart it’s still yours

The love I had for you never went away

No matter how many times I tried to wash your name out of my mouth with alcohol or the kiss of another

I’m ready for you to wander back

Almost Was

To the  first girl I fell in love with-

You moved halfway across the country years ago

You probably thought I’d be dead by the end of that calendar year

From the sight of scars running up and down my thighs you caught glimpses of in the locker room

We were all filled with a sadness none of us knew how to escape

I haven’t spoken your name since you left

It use to spill out of my mouth as wine spilled into my veins

I got drunk off your laughter

I started smoking the year after you left

I guess you leaving left a new void – I don’t think I knew how in love with you I was

I didn’t get enough time to memorize the map of your eyes

How cliché is it that I wish I kissed you when I got the chance?

You use to steal my shirts in the locker room after gym class

I would wear yours home – I still have some I refuse to let go of

It would be killing the memory of you

It’s the last thing I have tying me to you

I hope you kept mine – I didn’t want to tell you that you left this town with my favorite shirt

It’s a little goofy I’m reminiscing about some shirts

I can’t love anyone the way I love you

You heard music in my silence

You loved the way I looked at the world

Would you still love me if you saw me now?