I told you again and again.

I’m not the guy you want.

I told you again and again.

That my past makes up who I am and I have no intention of changing myself.

But you insist on it so many times, believing in the good that didn’t exist in me, thinking you could fix me to the ideal one in your head.

And I hate it. I loved you, but I hated how you always say things that were always meant to change me, rather than accepting the person I am. I hated the disapproval remarks, expressions you wore at the sight of my unapproved behavior. But I swallowed and tried to please you. But you were never happy.

I don’t think I regretted breaking your heart then, as I packed my bags and went out of that big apartment that you wanted so badly. I don’t think I regretted my actions because I think I knew I wasn’t meant to be yours and you weren’t meant to be mine.

You yelled and screamed, blackmailing in one second and crying in the next. I loved you. But as I hear your cries, I am struck with an realization that you were always pulling the strings behind me, like a little puppet that was showcased to the world.

I knew you love me, dear. But I’m not a puppet and I can’t do this anymore. Because I don’t want you. I want someone to just accept the person I am and loved me the way I was, rather than what I can be to the outside world.

I know you think it was meant good for me. I know you will be heartbroken. I could hear your cries and howling that was filled with pain. And I’m sorry. I’m forever sorry, but as much as I love you, this isn’t my way of living.

I’m sorry for everything I’ve done, the hurt I gave you.

How many words

To reach your heart?

How many lies

To tear me apart?

Did you ever even

Love me at all?

Was our time together

Just so I could fall?

Who are you

Under your charming smile?

You reach out to me

And it's hard to resist your guile.

But I do understand who you truly are

And I do resist.

I finally break free

From your grasp

And become the best I can be.

Hurting makes no sense. You can remember everything for what it was, and that can hurt, or you can remember it for what it wasn't and that can hurt.

Memories are fickle things. I remember crying, and I remember laughing. But, I do not remember the happiness I felt with you there. I do not remember feeling loved, or wanted. It was like I existed and that was all.

But in your memories, there is a different story. The story is about how great you were. How much we took you for granted. How you were the best thing that happened to us, to me.

But, if I took you for granted why was I always crying when you forgot about me, when I was the last person to know the important things. If I took you for granted how come I became the most hurt by everything that happened after.

I guess this is the after. Right now, with me on my birthday crying because you still have everything important to me. And there's nothing I can do about it. I can't just get over myself. I can't just pretend I'm not hurt. I'm all alone, but I still remember for your birthday I gave you a party. I gave you friends. I gave you happiness. And yet, you took all of that away from me.

Memories really are strange things, because I can see all the things you do, I see right through your lies. I remember them. But everyone else cannot. They give you a second chance. Then a third chance, and a forth. And suddenly everything become my fault. But, we both know who has the better memory. And we both know who lies.

Someday maybe these memories won't hurt. And someday maybe everyone will see what really happened. But that is not today, all I have is hurt and loneliness.

In contemplation upon the why of my life I find nothing. I must step outside my broken head and try to see the quantifiable. Factually, my life is given to the needs of others. Taking care of everyone but myself. I am a wife, a dutiful daughter, amatuer therpist, online crisis hotline volunteer, pet sitter. This should be a life worth living, but the lies my brain tell me make me think differently. So in the contemplation upon the why of my life, I still find nothing.

Lena hung suspended by her seatbelt, her SUV upside down in a snowbank. She didn’t seem to be hurt, just a little disoriented and the blood rushing to her head from being upside down wasn’t entirely comfortable. Release the seat belt? Jammed.

Reaching for the center console and clicking the button Lena gasped, covering her face when the contents erupted all over the ceiling. The trusty multi-tool her brother had given her last Christmas was amongst the detritus, gleaming palely in the red haze from the tail lights diffused in snow. With its help Lena cut herself free and tumbled to the ceiling.

Locating her purse Lena checked her phone. No signal. Of course. She was upside down, who knew how far into a snowbank, literally miles from civilization, why on Earth would she have a signal? And, OF COURSE, she had to pee. Like now.

Crawling across the ceiling to the back hatch was a strange sensation, but logically the snow should be less dense here since she went in hood first. She hoped. Pulling the handle and shoving with all her might yielded a few inches and some incredibly cold air. Bracing herself as best she could Lena pushed with her shoulder, with a sudden jolt the hatch door flew open, flat to the ground. She lay flat on her back, panting, eyes closed, glad to be free but knowing she would probably never get that door closed again. Thus it was freeze to death or walk and hope someone found her.

That’s it. I’m dead. I died in that accident. She thought as she stared up at an impossibly pale pink sky. Getting to her feet ang stumbling a few steps away from her car, she felt as if her eyes were open so wide they would consume her whole face. This can’t be real. She turned back to her car, but it was gone.

Lena turned a slow circle. There was no discernable horizon, the pale pink sky bled into a swirl of lavender, like ink and water. The lavender swirled, a living watercolor, into a spring green that transformed itself into velvety hillocks the closer it came to her.

She suddenly realized she wasn’t cold, and looked at her feet. Not a speck of snow. Wanting to feel the velvet under her feet Lena abandoned her shoes and began to walk. The green velvet was nothing like grass, and nothing like velvet. If fog could be made solid, then that’s what this was.

As she walked a large tree began to appear as if from nothing. It was as high as a three story building, with drooping branches like a willow that dragged the ground. Lena parted the curtain of branches with their millions of tiny heart shaped leaves, each branch bearing thousands of miniscule violet feather shaped flowers. As she brushed through them their fragrance made the air smell of bliss and melancholy and taste faintly of spun sugar.

At the heart of the great weeping tree Lena found the innermost branches draped in the sheerest of fabric, water made gossamer, rippling in a non-existent breeze. Mesmerized by their dance she lay her hand upon the trunk. It was soft, like silk, and yielding, like skin. It was ice cold. Finding this suddenly unsettling she practically ran out through the trailing branches to emerge on the other side.

Was this it? Endlessly pink skies and sugar dusted air? Lena walked for a while, following what appeared to be a brook, though it tasted like lightly sweetened wine, as it ran clear as glass over perfectly round indigo stones. The light had not changed. Seemed to not even have a source. There were no animals here. She had seen no other plants or trees. Giving up, she sat where she stopped.

Abruptly, her phone rang.

“Are you going to get that?” A voice came from behind her.

Lena stood and spun all in one movement, her hand plunging into her pocket for her forgotten phone. “Who..?” Lena stared dumbstruck at a creature that defied description. She, for the voice sounded feminine, seemed to be made of ink, light, and fog, perhaps not entirely in this realm.

“You may call me V’aa’la, as you will get no closer to my real name. We are the Noi, and we are all around you.” She swept her arm and an entire shadow civilization appeared around Lena, hundreds, if not thousands of Noi, a village, a forest. All as insubstantial as V’aa’la. “We are the protectors. When an Ur’du’nas reaches what you would call maturity a guardian is chosen. A companion. Evangelina, you were chosen by an Ur’du’nas. It brought you here.”

“It? What is an Ur’du’nas? What do you mean guardian? Where is here?” Lena demanded a bit hysterically.

V’aa’la responded serenely, “If you choose to stay the name of your Ur’du’nas will be known only to you. The Ur’du’na require a living being as a companion. It is necessary for their health, in return they store all the knowledge of the realms.”

Lena say where she fell. This couldn’t be real, but her heart beating its way from her chest told her differently. “If I choose to go?” She whispered.

“Your Ur’du’nas will wither and die. It has chosen you Evangelina. If you choose to stay you will become Noi and fully live within our realm. You have already met your Ur’du’nas.” Va’aa’la revealed softly.

All at once Lena was overcome by feelings of bliss and melancholy, the air tasted of spun sugar. An overwhelming longing rocked her and a visceral need to protect. When she looked up at the ethereal creature that called itself V’aa’la there were tears running down her face.

Lena’s cell phone rang again. She stared dumbly at it, it was Richard, her fiance.

“Richard?” She croaked.

“Oh my God, Lena! The Sheriff found your car on the highway with the seatbelt cut. We’ve been looking for you for 2 days. Are you okay? Where the hell are you?” He demanded.

“2 days? I’m fine Richard. I didn’t...I didn’t realize it had been so long.”

“Lena, when are you coming home?”

Lena squeezed her eyes closed, the deep realization that Richard no longer mattered settled over her, and she breathed, “I’m not.” Turning off her phone before he even had a chance to respond.

“Does anyone ever choose to go?” She asked V’aa’la.

“Many millennia ago someone chose to go. The Ur’du’nas whithered and died without the chosen companion. The knowledge it contained was also lost.”

Lena nodded, she’d accepted her choice. “What now?”

“Welcome home.” This time when V’aa’la waved her arm it was Lena who changed. The essence of who she was was pulled through the veil into that other realm. Suddenly the world on which she stood was full of trees of all shapes, sizes, and colors. There were thousands of Noi here, their bodies more substantial than the ink, light, and fog that V’aa’la had appeared to be, or they were just easier to see now that she was one of them. Dozens of faces smiled at her in welcome, and here, under a pink sky stained with purple, Lena had never felt more content.

Creeping, crawling though my brain,

Trying to remember your name,

Teeth clenched with eyes ablaze,

I hold my hand in front of my face.

Blood drips down from my slit wrist,

No nerves trigger my senses are numb,

Picking up a knife for fun.

I hope you do not forget me,

How my eyes light up each time I see you,

Here I am stuck in this cage,

Help me out, save me.

Bloodshot eyes from crying all night,

Shaking hands from all the fright,

Bloody mess, because pain reminds me,

Of being alive and being human.

Don't worry I've gotten better,

But there are scar you cannot always see,

On a person, who may be standing in front of you.

To me madness is an emotion,

It comes from my heart and brain,

From too much affection,

For what causes me pain.

Just like anger or sadness,

I feel it rising up inside me,

Sometimes it explodes with,

No warning signs I can see.

Like some emotions,

I try to hide,

And ignore the feeling.

But when it explodes,

I may become,

Dangerous.

This is why I fight so hard,

To be a good person.

This is why I am so nice,

To those I know deserve.

This is why I listen to others,

Who might be ignored.

I don't know how to explain it.

Just ask some of my friends,

They will say I am slightly insane,

But in a good way,

A way that makes me who I am.

Madness is staying up every night

not caring about getting enough sleep

if it means I get to talk to you.

Madness is it being impossible

for you to ever leave my mind.

No matter what I’m doing,

you are part of my thoughts.

Madness is all the doubts I have

when you aren’t by my side.

It’s the way every fear melts away

the second you wrap me in your arms.

Madness is all I’ve given up

just to be with you.

I would sacrifice almost everything

to be with you forever.

Madness is not caring how quickly

you could change your mind about me.

You could leave me any second,

but it doesn’t matter.

I want as much of you as you’re willing to give.

Madness is believing all the promises

even though the odds are against us.

You say you could never stop loving me.

I hope it’s true.

Madness is believing we can make it.

We don’t have a chance,

but you make me believe it will all be okay.

You are my madness.

You are the cause of my anxiety,

but you are also the reliever of my stress.

I don’t know what the future holds,

but it will all be okay

if you stay.

making the choice to commit suicide

is one of the hardest decisions

to have finally reached the lowest point

to truly believe you have no one

that pain is physical

not just emotional anymore

to gather up the guts to kill yourself

because there is no going back

you can't change your mind

once it's done, that's it