I can't understand how everyone can do it. How can anyone smile and laugh like that, how can anyone still want to live knowing all the awful things that happen, that will happen? How can they be so happy, so carefree? How do they walk through each day, seemingly so normal, so cheerful? I watch them, and I wonder how they do it. I could never do that. I can't smile without it being fake, I can't laugh without it being a hoax. I don't know how to love people, I can't feel emotional attachment. How do they do it, loving and living? I wish someone could teach me these things. I wish I wasn't like this, I don't want to be suicidal or depressed. I want to be able to smile like that, to be able to not worry about the future. Is there still any hope for me, or am I just too far gone? Is it too late for me to learn how to be happy? Someone please tell me...

language distorts meaning. some say

it is harder not to speak. yesterday, i

listened to bells from the windows of

small hotels in paris, which today are

drowning in capitalism. but imagine:

icarus was more than a body breaking

the waves. a marriage is more than its

divorce contract; it is sixteen years of

summers on the sound, watching the

love fade out of her skin like a saint-

tropez tan. and when morning comes,

she is still asleep in your bed, so there

is no real betrayal. even in kolkata, a

child throws dishwater at his mother

in the street. you see a taxi passing by

through some reflection in a different

window. sudden movement — words

exchanged: this is new york, baby. yet

if a rowboat anchored in the harbour

last night, then it saw the waterfront

holding one eye wide open, only half-

asleep. and that is more than enough.

I was quite comfortable on my tidy little shelf

Oh no, no one ever wanted to pick me up

Quiet, closed, a little scary looking

The few who window shopped put me back down in favor of the other shinier ones

And that was more than alright

But then you plucked me out of the back row and took me away

Hey! I was at home there!

We walked through your front door, indignation burning through me

A nice house, sure, but not mine

I sat on your mantle, guarded, unsure

But then you smiled at me

And I felt the shutters crack a little

Fast forward a bit

Still quiet, closed, a little scary looking

But pretty and sparkling whenever you glanced at me

Fast forward a bit more...

You found another one.

Shinier maybe, maybe not. 

Didn't matter when you set it right in front of me where we couldn't see each other anymore.

I cried in the shadows like I used to every now and again when the loneliness hit me.

But I tried not to let you hear.

So you wouldn't be upset too.

One day the wind shifted and you dusted and moved that shinierornotshinier one to a different spot

And suddenly

Oh! Hey you! I almost forgot about you. You're the best prettiest sparkliest of them all!

I'm open again, and not crying, and there you are looking at me the way I've been silently craving

Until later.

When that fucking shinierornotshinier grimy little thing crawls back in front of me.

And you forget about me again.

And round and round it goes, I'm your in between nice to look at thing when there's nothing nicer in front.

I'll never get a permanent place at the front of the mantle.

I don't know how to learn to be okay with that.

I want to push them all onto the hardwood floor, but I know that would make you sad.

And you'd just buy more to put around me anyway.

You should've left me on my shelf

I didn't care when no one looked at me there

The trouble with dancing on the edge of a cliff is sometimes you slip

You skid down the impossibly steep incline

Screaming and clawing for purchase when you realize no one's there at the bottom

Letting go and closing your eyes when the mirage of a safe landing comes again

Back and forth up and down 

Your hands and arms and eyes and throat are raw from this endless alternating drop and cling routine

Night 1 (and 2 if you're lucky as fuck)

happy sighing sleeping sweet dreams closeness everything's fine

Night 2 (or 3, see the aforementioned good fortune)

crying gasping can't sleep nightmare distance nothing is okay

And rinse and repeatrepeatrepeatrepeatrepeatrepeat

Why can't I stop

Who willingly stays on the cliff, letting it bleed them dry and gouge divots in their back?

Someone crazy mad fixated obsessed insane

Psychosis maybe?

Or just stupidity

I'll keep screaming and grasping and letting go in this dark to light and back again pulsating aching addicting fever dream

Because at this point I just don't remember what else to do

Someday you'll catch me

Or I'll hit the ground

Doesn't matter anymore

I prayed

To any 

Deity who

Would

Listen

To give me

Someone 

Who could 

Love me.

But now I

Need you

To hate me.

There’s been a moth caught in my room for the

past two days. By this point, I’ve given it a name

and a back story so I can’t bring myself to kill it.

And I know there’s probably a metaphor here –

about how easy it is to kill something until you

start to understand it. Or maybe about how this

time last year things started between us and I

learned your story and cried more than you did

when you wrote the suicide letters anyway. So I

hold your name in one hand and my hurt in the

other, try and figure out which weighs more.

The thing is, I don’t even feel angry anymore.

But I still keep buying roses and setting them

on fire. Maybe this is a healing ritual, but I

don’t think ingesting all this smoke is doing

myself any favors. So, there’s this moth caught

in my room and I can’t bring myself to kill it,

because it’s worthless struggle to try and

swallow the light is something I can relate to.

So I give it a name, and I give it a back story,

and it’s identical to my own, and I hope that

it looks a little less sad on something else.

I am standing in a throne room

With fragile walls made of conflicts and dark emotions

Here the guilt and the ineptitude weigh so heavily on me

That I am forced prostrate on the floor

Sobbing, screaming, begging for forgiveness

Staring into the face of my twin protectors

My twin oppressors

They sit on the same throne, intertwined, curled around each other like the serpentine beasts they are

Obsession laughs when my screams are so loud they shake the walls

Anxiety smiles, pleased, when all I have left to offer are my doubts (certainties) as tribute to the twisted crowns

And they both slither onto me and cover me drown me suffocate me

When all I have left to say is "I'm sorry" and "I tried"

They whisper to me that it will never happen again

Obsession shows me the proof as many times as I can handle

Anxiety reassures me that my worst nightmares will indeed come true and they will solve everything

Quietly behind my back, they gesture with their dripping tails to their servants Depression and Old Habits and order them to fortify the castle walls, make them unbreakable

It takes all I have to throw their grimy, well-worn bodies off of me and to rip a hole in the wall before they have the chance to chain it board it brick it make it impassable

It is a tiring task, indeed

Don't cry over spilled milk

Unless it's from your left breast,

And you're feeding your baby but

Your nipples are aching from the latch,

And you listen to them cry,

And now there's no will to carry on.

                                                           Don't cry over spilled milk

                                                           Unless it’s from her left breast,

                                                           And you’re trying to communicate that

                                                           Your stomach is completely empty,

                                                           And you listen to your mother cry,

                                                           And now she feeds you with a bottle.

Don't cry over spilled milk

Unless it's in your fine china,

And you threw it enraged by

Your now ex-partner's infidelity,

And you picked the nearest thing to you,

And now this puddle is the only thing remaining.

                                                         Don't cry over spilled milk

                                                         Unless it’s mixed with broken glass,

                                                         And now you’re thirsty because

                                                         Your drink is gone,

                                                         And you know your mother wants what’s best,

                                                         And now she goes by mom and dad interchangeably.

Don't cry over spilled milk

Unless it's your first Christmas Eve alone,

And you've said Santa's coming so

Your little ones won't sleep,

And you spent your last paycheck,

And now there's no electricity for the tree.

                                                        Don't cry over spilled milk

                                                        Unless it’s the first Christmas Eve without dad,

                                                        And you don’t think Santa’s coming but

                                                        Your mom insists on laying out milk,

                                                        And you don’t want to ruin the magic for her,

                                                        And now she sits under a dark tree.

Don't cry over spilled milk

Unless it's your last cup,

And you've used it to cook

Your last box of mac and cheese,

And you knocked the pot over,

And now there's no dinner until tomorrow.

                                                        Don't cry over spilled milk 

                                                        Unless it’s the last cup,

                                                        And your mother is on the floor and

                                                        Your mother is crying too,

                                                        And you watch her burn herself,

                                                        And now she can’t look you in the eyes.

I wondered

How could I

Possibly be

Loved when

I don't

Even love

Myself.

There is a sickness

That looms in my body,

Slowing my vital organs

As I hallucinate

Into pure blackness.

Only to realize,

I was asleep.

But now, my eyes are open

And I can see clearly.

The monster isn't

Inside me.

I am the monster.

I glare at the reflection

Of a girl I once knew,

But I murdered her.

I murdered me.