I look back to how I used to treat myself, how I used to act and the way I reacted to certain things, and I honestly cringe. When you exist just to exist, when you hate being alive but do it anyway for the people you love, your vision of life becomes skewed. Life was anything but beautiful and I hated every single minute of it. I remember sitting on my mom’s porch, staring at the sunset and wishing for something to take me away. I constantly planned on running away. California, Louisiana, Florida, down the street hidden behind the dumpster, all the places I would have rather been. I hated where I was, I hated WHO I was, but I couldn't change either thing. I felt so trapped and alone in my own home. I grew into my insecurities. I grew silent and sad and craved affection and escape.

So now, when I look at that, I regret it. How can you grow around something that made you who you are today? It left such a large hole and now I have to fill it.

When the hole was building, starting my sophomore year, I remember the caving sensation in my chest. Kind of like a black hole. It sucked the light and joy out of everything. At first, I thought I was just sad. Everyone gets sad, and that’s okay, so I thought nothing of it. But when it didn’t end, and I would wake up already hating the day. Once I stopped laughing, I knew I was a goner. That feeling kept growing. I remember feeling so upset and disappointed in myself. “How could you let yourself get so bad?” I’d ask myself. “Why do you suck so bad?” I would completely tear myself down because I thought I was being stupid for being upset over seemingly nothing at all. At this point, my parents had gotten their divorce and I moved in with my mom in her small apartment, where I slept on the floor in the living room and had to go to school with my back aching. (Such a strange thing to be grateful for a bed, but I am now and always will be). The hole kept growing, it grew and grew every night as I stared at the ceiling and wished, again and again, to be somewhere other than on the floor with my head underneath a bookshelf.

The hole grew and I grew angry. I couldn’t control anything in my life other than my appearance. I didn’t take care of myself. I hardly brushed my hair, never washed my face, and didn’t let myself eat or sleep. I thought I didn’t deserve it. At lunch I would buy a cookie and a drink and laugh off the comments about anorexia with “I eat at home, I had a huge breakfast!” but I didn’t. I didn’t eat at home, I never ate breakfast, I hated food and hated the thought of having to eat food. The relationship between food and I was simple: I ate because I had to. Food was not enjoyable to me and wasn’t for a long time. I lost a lot of weight. I remember being so afraid to eat in front of people. I thought if they saw me eat a lot (since I was starving all the time), they’d think I was fat and gross. Even today, I worry about how people perceive the way I’m eating.

The hole, at this point, had taken over my chest and stomach and began to take over my head. I sincerely thought every person secretly hated my guts. I would stare at myself in the mirror, directly into my own eyes, and tell myself “everyone hates you. I hate you. It would be so much easier if you didn’t exist.” I believed myself wholeheartedly. Crazy. I remember going to sleep with the hope that I wouldn’t wake up the next morning. Life sucked. Life sucked and I hated every moment of my existence. It got so bad that I pushed people away and didn’t ask for help; in my head, if people didn’t like me anymore, they wouldn’t have cared if I died. I remember trying to plan exactly HOW I would’ve died. I thought pills would be good because hanging myself scared me and I didn’t want to drown or shoot myself. I would have probably snuck alcohol and downed it all before swallowing all the pills and dying. I would write rough drafts of notes everywhere: the margins of my notes, scraps of paper, the notes on my phone. In those notes, I would apologize and say I couldn’t do it anymore, that I felt so lonely and had felt that way for years and couldn’t see myself waking up anymore. Then I would cry and erase the note or crumple the paper or backspace until the note page was blank again. A constant cycle.

Eventually, the hole grew and I wasn’t Angie anymore. I felt empty and stupid and wrong all the time. Senior year was supposed to be good. I was supposed to get accepted to a college and be at the top of my class and win prom queen and have a good time. Life had other plans. I kept getting more sad. I realized that I was average at almost everything and bad at everything else. I was in a relationship that I shouldn’t have been in, I was still struggling at home. It was so weird to walk around with my friends and know that they didn’t know one thing. They saw me as happy Angie and didn’t pry any further. At graduation, I realized that I needed to plan for my future. How do you plan for the future, how do you live a life that you hadn’t planned for? So I applied to college, got accepted, planned to go and didn’t, and instead went to community college. I was broken up with over text, a two-year relationship gone in three seconds. My friends had everything figured out and I still didn’t know what I was doing. I still felt empty.

However, there can be good to every story. I think we all know that by now. I am sitting here writing this, and that is proof that I survived. In college, I made new friends and got closer to my older ones. I talked to people and failed to date until I realized I had a crush on an old friend from band and miraculously got with him and fell in love. I know what I’m doing, I know where I’m going. I look back at high school and remember the loneliness and emptiness of it all and compare it to how I feel today. The opposite of lonely, the opposite of empty.

I used to feel so empty. At times I thought my chest would cave in on itself. But now? Now I feel full. I feel so full of life and love for myself and others and so full of happiness that I could BURST! Everything is beautiful to me now. The smallest things excite me. I am growing into who I needed when I was younger; that is the person I am going to be. Life is beautiful and I am so grateful that I am around to enjoy it.

The preacher's son had a small hobby

of nailing birds to the side of the barn.

Watching them twitch and stutter,

blood seeping through the rotten wood,

reminded him of the fragility of life.

He felt like God.

Where his ideation of crucifixion came from remains a mystery,

hidden in the messy scribbles in the margins of his bible,

scratched parallel to the story of Cain and Abel; brotherly love.

When he sang on Sundays,

as any choir boy should,

he held back gnashing teeth,

bit his tongue until blood drip, drip, dripped

to the rhythm of a hymn.

But now he sung his own tune

as he watched a mockingbird thrash,

crying out for mercy,

pinned to a stained white wall with iron nails

by the preacher's son.

A list of things I am afraid of (because my therapist thinks it is a good idea to list them all):

-yelling

-tall buildings

-planes

-cars

-things being thrown

-loud movies in the theater

-popping balloons

-people touching my legs and feet

-people lightly touching my body

-whispering

-my dad

-my grandma

-not being in absolute control

-sketchy carnival/rodeo rides

-footsteps up the stairs

-hearing people fight

Loving you was never easy.

I imagined a future with you,

and I can no longer see one without you in it.

There comes a time when you and I become synonymous,

everything revolves around us.

Loving you was the easiest thing I have ever done.

I could listen to your voice for the rest of my life.

Waking up without you

is the hardest thing I have ever done.

Love is supposed to be easy.

Love hurts.

The future is going to happen

regardless.

it has been three days since the end,

and i have cried all the tears i could muster.

i choke back sobs under my blanket,

heaving with the realization that you are no longer mine.

i want to beg on my hands and knees,

tell you that this can work,

because it has always worked.

i was going to marry you in the spring,

beneath oak trees and Spanish moss.

childhood sweethearts turned beautiful family.

four cats and a quaint dollhouse on a hill.

i wish the earth stopped spinning

so i could catch my breath.

The definition of heartbreak:

noun

overwhelming distress

We had defined heartbreak,

nearly three years ended in a text.

it would hurt less if you hated me,

but we still finish our conversations with 'I love you'

and 'goodnight.'

i wake up and the thoughts of you flood my mind,

reminding me that once you were mine.

i can no longer imagine a future without you,

but the future will happen regardless.

the moon and sun will continue to chase,

the earth will still spin,

and i will always love you.

In the end, I am alone,

left to rot under the weight of my thoughts.

I remember not the words of bullies,

or the days where everything went wrong.

I am left to think of all the times I cried out for help

and everyone stayed silent.

I cut off pieces of myself for others,

losing everything I was.

I am nothing now,

no one can piece me together.

And nothing I shall stay,

because in the end,

I will be alone.

i am so tired of feeling empty and alone. my nights are plagued with nightmares and tears that don't seem to stop. life seems so empty, so pointless right now. i don't want to kill myself, but if something were to happen, a disease or an accident that would end in my passing, i wouldn't be opposed. i can't see myself growing old. i can't see myself as my friends do, living their best life with their true love. why can't i be normal? why can't i just fall asleep and wake up feeling fine? i just want one day where i feel fully happy. but today is not that day. i am laying in bed and hoping to god that i don't have to wake up tomorrow and face another day, because every day ends in tears, late at night when no one else is awake. i wish i could disappear. i wish i had someone to hold me. i wish i was a different person, someone who is happy and friendly and pretty. i just don't want to be tired anymore.

there is nothing i would rather do more than just vent to you. i could tell you my whole life story, from beginning to end. every moment of pain and tragedy could escape my head and float in the air between us, hanging like a thick smoke. maybe i could feel like myself again. maybe i could feel whole, because right now, i feel less and less human and more along the lines of a shadow. i do not own this body. i am not worth the space i fill. i am not worth the life i am living. sleepless nights are spent wanting to text you awake, but i stop myself. you need the sleep, and i need to stop worrying. but what if i do text you? would you pity me? i would rather you think me brave for surviving, brave for telling someone. i told my mom once, but she got angry. "everyone wants to kill themselves," she said. so i stopped talking about it. i bottled up everything. now im posting it on a website, and i feel bad for anyone that keeps reading, but im glad they keep going. its a relief to know that someone is listening.

tonight i will sit in bed, staring at my phone and wishing i could tell you, but you are not a therapist and i am not brave enough regardless. please know that if anything happens, i always wanted to tell you. i knew i could talk to you. but i did not want to share my burdens because i was afraid you would worry about me. dont worry about me. please dont worry. just let me vent

-Noun

1. being in love with someone who does not, and will never, love you back.

You are the textbook definition of heartbreak,

a Rosaline to my Romeo, a Daisy to my Gatsby.

It's a modern-day tragedy;

the one I love doesn't love me.

My heart beats in the tempo of your favorite song,

my mind thinks in your favorite poems.

I want to be your favorite, I want to be your moon and stars.

I want you to love me like you love the sunrise every morning.

I pray that the sunrises you experience

are speckled with hues of pink and yellow

and shades of blue

and I hope they remind you of me.