Where Your First Loss Leads You

Living in my head are the memories
of a blue eyed girl in a blue house.

These memories that grow
further and further from who I am
still carry on the first loss
of the best friend I ever had.

Almost twenty years have passed,
and I'm still not sure
that I've ever experienced
grief as deeply as I did that day.

Anytime I think of it,
it eats away at me
because the experience to follow,

while it was also
a blue eyed girl
in a blue house

was a devastating blow.

The memory of that failed friendship,
it's the biggest disappointment
that has me running
further and further from who I use to be

and growing more and more
into who I am today,

because you never forget.

Love is so Much Better

I dreamt you asleep
in a pitch black room
lit only by the colors
of an old 9inch tube TV.

That's the reality I grew up in

but you're so much less bleak
than the view I had in mind.

Yet for some sad reason,
my mind can't escape
the perspective it created.

You're so much more
than a ripped up mattress
laying on the floor,

or some crushed ashes in a tin can.

There's no smoke rising in this house,
no red flame that makes
it so hard to breathe.

You make life a place
to live lightheartedly.

I Only Ever Wanted to Be

I'm realizing
as time grows colder
at some point
we all hate
who we use to be,

and even though
I'm growing older,
I can't quite
put my finger on why
we do this to ourselves.

I know
the version of myself
I still need to leave

behind

because at times
it makes me
feel less human to know

how often I hit
a dead end,
how I had to turn around

again and again,

only to fall
into yet another
fit of failure.

So as I write,

I think, maybe

I'm learning to see
why we hate so much
who we use to be.

It's simply because
we become someone else

entirely.

A better person.

What I Can Recall

What do you do
when life feels like a needle
dragging across your skin
and there isn't much you can do
to quiet the sound
of fingernails on a chalk board
in your head?

I never thought I was sick,
never knew I was sick,
but I was sick.

It was a different kind of pain,
a kind very difficult to explain,
the kind that would tear
your paper heart to shreds.

I'm really no stronger than the rest,
my heart is made of paper too.

I'm just determined
to keep cutting mine new.

I Don't Want to Remember D.

I still see the days when we use to sing jumper
while doing our hair in the bathroom.

I still see the
mouse stuck on the mirror.

I still see the smiley you smeared
on my parents bathroom door
with my shimmery white eye cream.

I wish I would have seen
the trouble you'd bring
which made that song
bring back your memory.

I wish I would have seen
right through that mirror.

I wish I could paint over that door
and everything that you destroyed.

The Drive to Survive

Without that voice speaking inside my head,
the desperation to be done with this disease
would have had me dead long ago.

Despite how insane you may think
it is for me to believe this voice is God;

He's always spoken to me
through the endeavor
against depression depleting me
and anxiety anxiously eating away at me,

He's forever pushing me
to move on
through my thoughts,

regardless of how pathetic
this fight has made me feel,

He's even had me reasoning
with myself on my darkest days.

So while I can't explain
His existence in my heart,

I can understand how questionable it is,

but I also can't explain my consistent
and incomprehensible desire to stay alive.

Blend or Break Away

Alienation,

again,

another place you've been locked up in.

You've never been
able to blend
and with so few words
they tell you
you're better off
on your own.

It's a crippling feeling,
of a tattered sort
of hanging turmoil,

that makes an already
sleepless sad soul
unable to be at ease.

You're tossing and turning
surviving the uncertainty
of several sleepless nights,

then and there you should remember
you didn't let anyone down.

You need to
walk away.

Walk away.

Walk away,
from anyone who makes
you feel that way,

because you're whole
the way you are,
and your self worth
isn't defined by
any individual view.

The Road Ahead

Sleepily I see

a light behind me,

of many tangled twists and turns
from the windy roads
we once walked upon.

I look forward and see
a very dim light
burning ahead of me,

guiding me to the future
which was meant for me.

A destination
I've arrived at before
is also still ahead of me

and we light its trail
every step along the way.

Someone Needs to Know that No One Needs to Know

Some words of advice
I wish I'd told myself sooner,
communication is key
to an uncomplicated life.

We all underestimate
the entity of our words,
and often choose
to hold them discreetly inward
until we fill up and erupt.

No one should ever
have to feel their
thoughts are insignificant,
and let their voice
be still in the end.

You Were the First to Ever Ask Me

Instead of simply asking if I was okay,
I've been criticized too many times in my life,
about situations completely out of my control.

God, many times did I just want to be okay
but all too often,
I've gotten caught between the people I care about,
and their lack of caring for me.

Something I still can't understand
is how you've been able to say the things you say,
and act the way you act
without feeling any empathy whatsoever
for the person you're making feel the way you do.

So let me say something,
I don't need to be okay. .

No, I don't need to be okay,
I need to survive because
I'm pretty sure that no one
I care about cares if I'm okay.

I won't tell you if I'm not okay,
and you won't bother to ask.

No, I'll slip right between those tiny cracks
if that's what it takes to get me through
because sometimes, myself is all I have.

Despite the dark places that I have been,
empty, alone, hospitalized, starved, and scared.

That could be anyone,
but it's not me today.