I was afraid to swallow food when I was eleven. I lived on licking peanut butter from a spoon and yogurt. One time I went to Dorney Park with my friend and I got fries to not seem weird. I buried as many as I could into the paper ketchup cups. My friend's mother gave me a funny look. My father put cream of wheat in front of my face and I would shake, terrified he wanted me dead. I would eat a cracker until it was liquid and then spit it out. I would sneak my grandfather's Ensure milkshakes for when he had cancer just so I didn't become malnourished. This lasted for two months. Doctors didn't know it was  mental. They wanted to remove my tonsils. One day, I just gave in and thought "if I die, I die." The first solid thing I swallowed was a piece of boiled chicken. I screamed with joy at the dinner table. No one truly understood what that was like for me.

I'm terrified of deep water. Any pool or stream that I can't feel the bottom with my feet or that's at least a foot over my head makes me want to scream. I don't know why. Maybe I've watched too many sci-fi movies or read to many books, but I'm scared.

     Odd thing is, I love wading, and I really want to learn to swim. So how odd is that?

The darkest truth I have is

Darker than my depression.

Darker than my anxiety.

The darkest truth I have

I've hidden from everyone.

I hid it from my parents,

I hid it from my therapist,

I hide it under long sleeves.

I started again.

I don't really know why, but I love to see myself bleed.

I can only focus when I'm in pain.

I can only feel a numb bliss when I have slits on my wrist.

But what scares me more,

More than my own scars,

Is that I can watch others cry,

I can see them hurt and upset,

And I cannot care.

I can't bring myself to feel anything.

Before my depression all I felt was

A slight discomfort.

But now I just don't care.

And I have to admit I'm scared.

So there, two birds with one stone. Two of my secrets I never thought I'd make known.

things can never be the same.

they can never be the same, ever, you know, 

like every second changes us. 

we're changed. 

things can never be the same.

they always become different, 

and one of those things that

can never be the same,

like the way you look at somebody

like the way you see them and then

you don't see them like that anymore

because of some stupid thing they said,

one of those things that can never be the same, maybe,

like how you used to think something of somebody

but then they kind of let you down and now

they aren't like this magical thing anymore,

like now they're just this weird thing.

just this plain thing, 

like how you can live by the andes mountains for like two years 

and it starts out magic and great and cinematic

and then they're not really the andes anymore just the

mountains behind your house you lose appreciation and

they're just not the andes, anymore, they aren't

this picture thing that you had on like

this postcard they just

stop being magic,

like they're not the andes mountains, anymore, they're just this thing that

scratches its balls and has to brush its hair and smokes too many cigarettes,

and you kind of start resenting the andes mountains, because the andes mountains

won't stop eating all the chocolate ice cream without asking if maybe you want

a bite of the chocolate ice cream, too?

and they just kind of lose their magic.

and maybe one of those things that stopped being magic is like

...

me?

i stopped being magic?

maybe it was me who stopped being magic to you?

yeah, well, how dare you?

how do you just do that to somebody?

you tell them that they're significant and important and that they mean something and then all of a sudden they just don't, anymore?

like they did and it was true and then you could just turn the light off and never think about it, again?

like some little switch, or something, that you can just turn on and off inside yourself?

like today i mean something, but tomorrow i might not? 

so how do i deal with this?

just pretend every moment with you was as precious and significant as you told me i

was? rub these moments over and over in my head, or something, and then those

precious and significant moments will just get faded and then i'm just left with

the worn idea of like this thing that used to be really important but now it's just not, anymore? like me?

like i don't know a lot about anything, and i know that we're all just these tiny little

insignificant things, but maybe we're not so insignificant like meaning nothing, but just

insignificant in a kind of way where we all seem small, but maybe we're all just these tiny

little screws in this monster machine that's actually doing something, but we're just screws so we can't understand what we are, but wasn't love supposed to mean something? 

like maybe love was supposed to be the screws holding all our metal sheets together or something but you just stuck nails in my metal sheets?

like if we were airplanes; nails can't hold metal sheets together at these high altitudes and these kinds of speeds and i trusted you.

i thought it meant something!

was it that i was never really like magic to you?

maybe i was just some trick? like i'm entertaining the first time and the second time

and maybe even the third time, but then i get old and boring, and i was a cool novelty,

but never a real person, and now i'm just this ball-scratching,

chocolate ice-cream devouring, cigarette-smoking thing?!

fuck you.

I'd like to be a

Master of brevity

Cut through the bone,

Tap the marrow;

Fill my pen with plasma

Press it to the sky,

Be the dot

On the I

I'm not really sure if this is much of a secret to anyone else in my life but I just found out I have no idea what I'm doing. I can't even go food shopping without second guessing myself and putting canned corn or fucking mozzarella back in its place. Then, I'll go back and find it right where I left it and put it in the cart. I'll make it to the checkout and now force myself to place all the items on the conveyor. I keep everything on the belt but it's HARD. I'll be judged for putting things back among the candy bars and 5 hour energy shots where they don't belong. Cashiers will roll their eyes and middle aged shoppers will shake their heads. All in unison: DISAPPROVAL. 

Again, I never have any idea what I'm doing.

I quit my new job as a Project Manager after a month. I always thought "yeah, I'm doing this and it'll be so great and I'll be able to get another job like that" but not so much. I'm fucking living on Indeed changing my direction every other day. 

Maybe today I'll be a 

Nurse

Dog walker

Communications Associate

Consultant

Banker

Farmer

WHAT THE FUCK?

No idea at all.

All I know is it's embarrassing - not knowing what you want to do or where you want to go or if you should buy that pound of fresh mozzarella for $7.15. Is it worth seven bucks for cheese?

Up until now at 25 years old, I never second-guessed anything because I knew if I did I would disappoint my parents and be one of those people who wasted their degrees. The people your grandparents relay information about in between pasta servings "that Jill, she went to school for 4 years and now wants to be a vegetable farmer, can you believe it? Her POOR parents!"

I didn't want to be Jill, so I lied and pretended everything was okay and marketing is great and so is life. Everything is awesome! Until it wasn't awesome and I cried on the way to work and on the train and hoped no one was looking. I invested in huge sunglasses and Kleenex and tried my best to look normal. I looked at train tracks too long and wondered about them too much.

It'll be one month on Monday since I quit my job. 

One month of 'finding myself'. I didn't really find anything even with all that time. I've been on interviews. I've put on stockings. I've printed resumes and proposals and plans. I've done the research. I answer questions impressing even myself. But no job. I'm upset but also relieved?

I don't really know anything.

I hate myself for being such a screw up in this world! I screwed up everything I ever wanted in this life because I only knew one way.

SO FUCKING ANGRY!!!!

I hate this life

I just want to break things

And eat people!

I want to cause pain to those who caused me pain.

I want to sink my fangs into his skin and bleed him dry.

Drink his soul and vomit it to Hell.

I just want to be free of this.

Well, okay, so:

Remember that time when

I said that I really didn't care

about, ya know, loving a boy or a girl?

Sorry for the confusion, grandma,

but I still don't care if it's a boy or a girl.

©SelfTitled, 2017

Although all my friends think I'm a huge romantic, I'm secretly afraid of falling in love. I've seen my father and my mother fight, and argue, and scream till they were breathless and leave each other. I've seen my mother fall in love with someone who we all thought was an okay person, for him to turn into a lazy, drug addicted jerk, who abused animals. After we left, I've seen my sister fall in love with someone who cheated on her every other week, and her become pregnant with his kid, to only turn around and cheat on her with her best friend.

I lost my virginity to a 20 year old my freshman year. I thought I was in love, but he ghosted me for a year, until I was 16, and there was no legal ramifications to dating me. I was just too naïve to think that it would work out. I dated a 20 year old when I was 16 who I've known since my freshman year who seemed like he would treat me right, only for him to guilt trip me into doing what he wanted, and emotionally abused me and threated to 'break down my door.' He broke into my house. Twice.

But now, there is this guy, who treats me amazingly. He so sweet and gentle and I'm so afraid to trust him.

But he's the only person that I want to say 'I love you'. He's the only person I can feel safe enough to sleep beside. He's the only one who I'm able to be vulnerable around.

He's the one who I want to be like this with. And I'm afraid.

kisses against my neck

in a stairway at school, hidden.

he's beautiful,

he's made of marble

and any girl would be lucky

to have his lips against their skin.

but i do not feel any lust,

any desire,

any love.

i feel nothing.