warm these frail and lonely bones.

i open my eyes again and my feet hit the floor, im not really there. im a spectator in my own life, turning it off to make it through the day. i see through my eyes like a tv screen, like it isn't my life to live. like i can walk away from my own body if i wanted to. but im trapped between my own skin and bones. i put on makeup, widening my eyes, lifting my brows, i appear friendly, happier. i curl my hair, everyday, just so it looks like i have it all together. getting ready is a blur, my face in the mirror is not one i care to see for too long. or at all. i like to look through myself, like its just a dressup game and im the character. 

i get through the day with a smile, or a look of mild irritation, but i hold it together. i turn it off and pretend to be fine, and most days i dont have any memory of things i do or say, or what work i did, or who i talked to. i am not present enough in my own mind to play a part in my life. 

i get home, and the switch flips, i am all of my feelings at once, and the girl in the mirror doesn't look how she should. i look scared, and exhausted, and sad. and its true. but i hate it. my slightly downturned lips, and quivering chin, my shaking hands and blood shot eyes, my frail bones sticking through my frail skin. im cold. all the time. i get cold sweats daily, because im anxious, and underweight, and my hair falls out. but im cold. im so cold. 

i get home, and its me, and my brain, a cold bed, my own cold skin, and hair i lose on the pillow. i love cold weather, it gives me an excuse to wear a jacket, or to get the chills, or to wear long socks. i love the cold. it gives me a reason to seek out warmth i would otherwise be looked at sideways for. 

im cold, i am not okay, and i dont feel right. im tired of wanting to sleep and never wake up but truly if i can find peace in between the nightmares under a warm blanket, i will stay there forever. put me to sleep and keep me that way. warm these frail and lonely bones until i burn to ash and make me a tree, pick apples from my branches and bake a pie. eat all the calories i never could, and fall in love with the cold because its beautiful, not because its a good lie. recognize my loneliness and understand that on my loneliest days, i loved the hardest, i begged for any shred of love through compliments and acts of service. hoping to gain approval or praise or a hand grazing my arm. i wanted simple human connection but i never could verbalize that. instead i loved so hard it made it impossible to not love back at least a little. and thats sad. i dont want to see anyone beg for love and affection the way i do. 

all this jewelry.

 heart.

 this organ, this symbol. dictates most decisions, relationships, emotions. this heart of mine, has dragged me to hell and back. but more importantly, it lets me feel every human emotion. it lets me feel love, and sunlight, and joy. it beats faster when im scared, warning my body to protect itself, it slows down and lets me know that im comfortable and protected by the people im with. it stops and skips a beat when i feel excited. this heart, reminds me i am alive. this heart, knows how to love, but she struggles to accept that she could be loved as well. she slows down and lets me breathe, but she speeds up the moment im alone. she lets my brain overtake her and create ludicrous theories and scenarios, all of which would never really happen. this heart of mine, feels betrayed. every other organ in my tiny body fights her. my head, my stomach, my lungs. even my limbs are against her. i used to scratch at my chest, right over my heart, until it was raw and red. i finally stopped doing that a few months ago, my chest is clear of scratch marks and my heart feels lighter somehow. i've gone back to fidgeting with this necklace instead of plucking at my skin and trying to claw my heart out. 

wrist.

my left wrist was always the one i used to checked my pulse, to see if my heart was truly beating as fast as it felt. it was always the one i wrapped my fingers around to see if my thumb and my middle finger still overlapped.  i didnt always do that, but once i started it was hard to stop. it was like my heart was telling me all along it wasn't right, but she sent that heart beat as a "please stop killing me" kind of sign. like she was saying, "hey im still beating for you, please take care of me". it wasnt about the number on the scale, it was about the corners and crevices of my bones showing clearly through my thin skin. and now its about the healing, its a reminder. the scars that were there are faded and invisible. the corners of my bone there, are less prominent. i still wrap my fingers around my wrist, but its to adjust my bracelet, or check for growth. my left wrist is a reminder that it's going to get better. i've gone back to fidgeting with my bracelet, instead of tracing my scars and bone. 

fingers.

my fingers used to be something i was too aware of. like they were pudgy and short, and my nails were jagged and chewed to the skin. the edges always picked red and raw, and sometimes bleeding. i wore long sleeves to hide my wrists and fingers. and now i buy tank tops, and i dress my hands in rings, new and old, yours and mine, silver or gold. i paint my nails and let them grow. i use these fingers to transfer all my positive energy to those around me. i use these nails to gently caress my arm before bed, as opposed to trying to claw my heart from my chest with them. instead of plucking at the skin around them, i spin the rings, and pull them on and off. i've gone back to fidgeting instead of drawing blood from my own temple. 

i used to hate wearing jewelry, especially the sentimental kind. but it seems to be my saving grace recently. giving me love to remember when i see my wrist. and giving me comfort and a good way to cope when i feel my chest. giving me something to spin on my fingers when i shake with anxiety. all of them are reminders that i can get better, reminders that im worth love or at least worth life. to me this is progress, and i couldn't have gotten to this point without learning to accept love, and help, when i need it. im still working on it, but all this jewelry, all these ways im coping. remind me im not as alone as i always feel, and its not as hard to get better when there's people who are trying to show you that you're worth it. 

6:30am at the bottom of the sea.

 what am i allowed to need, or want? who sets the rules and limits, how does this work? i would love to know how much, is too much? 

i want to sleep through the night, i need someone beside me. i want to eat twice a day, i need someone to remind me that food is important and i’ll look healthier if i have some. 

this needing i do gets really exhausting, this wanting i do gets really old. 

i am the rustling of the trees and the chirp of the crickets. it’s nice at first, almost peaceful. but after a while, the rustling sounds like tv static, and the chirps seem repetitive. it gets annoying. i get annoying. 

i am the condensation on a cup of cold water, and the steam from a warm mug. you don’t think it’ll bother you, but it makes a mess, or it’s just a little too warm. it’s inconvenient. i am inconvenient. 

i am the creaking floor in a silent house, and the candle you forgot to blow out. it’s quiet until you press too hard, and it’s not a problem until it burns the house down. it’s unfortunate. i am unfortunate. 

annoying, inconvenient, unfortunate. 

needy, in the way, broken and in need of repair.

need, need, need. 

i didn’t realize just how damaged i was, or how much care i required. it was never brought to my attention. and now i feel like i’ve been plunged into the deep end of the pool. and all that’s at the bottom is all of my issues, my needs, my wants. 

i thought hugs were supposed to be few and far between. i thought my nightmares were normal. i thought my walls were supposed to be this high. 

i never realized i could fill the whole sea with all my issues, wants, and needs. i realized hugs don’t have to be few and far between. 

but the thing is, one or two hugs in 24 hours, is still only 20 seconds out of the day. 

the thing is, my issues are mine. the nightmares, the tears, the anxiety, the pain, the insomnia. they are my cross to bear. so i hold back. 

i cry in the shower now, so it’s silent. i make a plate for lunch, and most days it finds a new home in the garbage where no one else will see. i battle the insomnia on my own at night. i write, or read, or cry, and just wait for the nightmares to start, because my brain doesn’t know the difference between rest, and restless sleep, right? because if i made a plate, i don’t have to eat it too, right? because you didn’t really cry if no one else heard it, right? because my issues are mine to deal with, and if you’re quiet you can’t possibly be annoying, right? because i can’t let my own insomnia keep someone else up, or inconvenience them, right? because pain is less unfortunate to everyone else, if i hide it with a smile, right?

this sea im drowning in, will not let me breathe. 

i hold back. i try to need as little as possible. i try to want as little as possible. i hold back. i’ll settle for 20 seconds out of a day if it means you’ll still love me tomorrow. i’ll toss the plate if it means someone else will remind me how flat my stomach looks. i’ll cry in the shower if it means no one else feels responsible for wiping my tears. i wouldn’t, haven’t, and won’t, ask for more than the bare minimum. so yes, i am settling, at the bottom of the sea with all my issues, wants, and needs. trying to just get through it, and reach the surface on my own. as many times as i want to ask for help, i think i could drown in that one reoccurring thought. as many times as i need a hug, the ocean floor would have a foot tall layer of my wants for affection. 

i hold back, and it drowns me, but i’ll gladly drown alone if it means everyone around me is breathing on the surface. my issues, wants, and needs are an anchor and i am not strong enough to pull it up alone, so let me drown. 

set me on the ocean floor.

 mother’s day. 

From the moment I woke up. it was heavy on my heart. A boulder that I was not strong enough to lift off of my chest, a weight I was too weak to lift. 

I startled myself awake after too little sleep, and instantly the waves rolled in. The tide rose with every post, message, and reminder. 

I was drowning in a sea of my own tears before my feet hit the floor, and let the emotions swallow me whole. That boulder on my chest anchored me down, trapping me in this ocean and pulling me under with each passing hour. 

I flailed my arms, and gasped for air, I tried to reach the surface. Everyone says it's not that deep, but it is. There is no sandbar to stand on or hand to reach out for. It is that deep. 

Because I am not a mother, and I'm no longer a child. I always walked between those two on a fine line, being tugged back and forth by those who I felt responsible for. I am not a mother, nor did I get to be a child. 

Before I knew it would drown me, the responsibility made me think I could've walked on water if I tried. 

I changed diapers, soothed fevers, dried tears. I cooked the meals, packed the lunches, washed the dishes. I calmed the nightmares, swept the floors, showed the affection. I checked grades, monitored social media accounts, signed the forms. All for children I didn't create, filling a role that wasn't mine. 

It wasn't always just being the "mom", it was being the guardian. I took the brunt of every bad mood, jumped in front of every swinging fist, or thrown object. I held them and hugged them, and told them you'd be home soon. I reassured, and comforted, and supported to the best of my ability... for years. 

I was a child. You were not a mother. In your eyes, I was a maid, a babysitter, a punching bag, a waste of space. I was not ever enough, unless I was doing too much. Too much cleaning, too much makeup, too much studying. But some days you wanted me to be less. Less eating, less emotional, less worried. 

In my eyes, you were everything. My whole world. Every decision I made, dish I washed, head of hair I braided, was to gain your approval. I never did. But damn did I try.

I excused every night out that you wouldn't answer the phone, every party I had to clean up, every hateful word you spewed in my direction. I decided that because you were my mother, you had a reason. There was a reason for every time you hit me, every time I took care of your kids, every time you left in the middle of the night with no shoes and no phone. 

I justified it all, just because I love you. 

It was never justified, it was never warranted. 

Your children called me mom more than they called you at all. When they started their periods, they came to me. When they started dating, they wanted advice from me. When they were scared of you, or anyone else, I was their comfort. I filled your shoes and kept them cleaner than you ever could've. 

Now I'm guilty. Those were my babies just as much as they were yours, if not more; and I let you rip me limb from limb, pound by pound. You took away my strength, and my composure, and left me empty and broken. Too sad and scared myself to soothe anymore tears. I was too exhausted to jump in front of your fists, and too drained to absorb your anger. I was left as a shell of a person with no energy to protect my babies. I had to give up, I had to let go. Not because I wanted to, but because I was weak and withering away, drowning in the sea that you were. 

This is the first mother's day I am without you, but I'm without my babies too. This is the first year they haven't told me happy mother's day. This is the first year they resent me, this is the first year they hate me. This is the first year they want nothing to do with me. This is the first year they are going without the comfort they've known their whole lives. 

This is the day that I am doused in guilt and wishing it was gasoline to light myself aflame. This is the day I hate myself for missing you, and hate you for making those kids miss me. This is the day I loathe. This is the day I would gladly leave that boulder on my chest and let myself be drowned. This isn't the first day I'd have wanted to let the boulder set me on the ocean floor, but it is the worst day. 

This is the day that is about you, even though I feel I deserve it more. This is the day you gave me, and took away just as easily. You made me a mom, and resented me for it. You made me a mom, and punished me for it. You made me a mom, and deserted me over it. 

You made me a mom, and tricked my babies into thinking I'm the problem. You took my babies. 

So if this boulder drags me down, I'll let it. If the tide rises and pulls me under, I won't fight. I hate this day. I hate all the days. I hate you. I miss you. I miss my babies. I hate that I still love you. 

happy mother's day. 

kansas, let me go.

 i love you. 

i love you with every shedding hair, and lost pound. i love you with every sleepless night. i love you with the trees at 5am when i know you’re awake somewhere. i love you with every meal i skip, and cigarette i smoke to numb the hunger. i love you with every mascara wand and concealer i apply. i love you. 

i miss you. 

i miss you with every song we used to love. i miss you with every text i’ve reread. i miss you with every car that looks like yours. i miss you with every glance in the mirror, like your face is staring back at me. i miss you. 

i hate you. 

i hate you with the raging wind of anger that followed you, and the wild tornado of passive aggression that tore us apart. i hate you with every memory you gave and ripped from me. i hate you with every heated argument and every cold silence. 

I feel everything for you at once, like the storm is made of lightning and thunder and rain and wind, i am made of you. 

i feel the dry heat of the desert under your stare, and hear your voice in my head like a state i can’t escape from. i am trapped between hot and cold, love and hate, heal and hurt, lost and found. 

i am dorothy, enamored by oz, but somehow still missing kansas. i don’t want the red heels, because i’ve made a home in oz, but kansas, goddamn do i miss it. 

The weather is terrible, and the cyclone is around the corner. It’s a lonely, windy place. oz is euphoric and colorful and comforting. but how am i to find peace in oz when i’ve never known peace at all. 

kansas was my tornado and i found comfort in the storm. i don’t want to click my heels and go back, i want to kick my heels and forget. i want to feel safety between the colors and the flowers in oz. 

kansas, you stole my peace. and oz isn’t as beautiful when my mind is turning against me. but is it really mine, if kansas is screaming for me from the core of it? 

kansas, let me go. i don’t want to need reassurance to feel wanted, and i don’t want to feel like a burden in oz. i just want to feel comfortable because goddamnit i’m not in kansas anymore. 

if i die young...

 If I Die Young

If I am called home, by god, or by my own hand, please let these things be known. 

Give my phone to my sister, let her hold all of my secrets and reveal every reason why I let go so young. I can't fathom her feeling at fault, or guilty, when the only guilty party is myself. I've always been too weak to just keep moving forward, always stuck in a loop of past events and memories and mistakes. So give her my knowledge, my poems, my songs, my life. Let her be the keeper of my story and let her be the only one who knows, it's too painful to tell. 

Give my crystals to my mother, give her every ounce of my love and energy I left behind. She may not believe in my ridiculous magic rocks, but I did. I infused them with all of my kindness and love, knowing that even if she didn't often acknowledge the help, she needed it. The extra bit of strength I could give her, was my life's purpose until my dying breath. 

Give my guitar to my brother, let my passion be shown through his talent. His fingers pressing the strings in a way I was never quite strong enough to master. 

Give my flowers and my paintings to my baby sister, the one I helped raised, who accidently called me mom more often than not. Tell her these dried hanging flowers, are a symbol of my undying love for her, and my paintings represent the joy and emotions that came with her presence in my life. 

And to my baby brother, I may have not seen you growing up, or been around much, but you were the fresh start and second chance my dad deserved. his biggest blessing, and out of the five of us, you have the best chance. so i'll be watching you from wherever I am, cheering you on. 

Give my dad back his stolen tshirts and hoodies, he was the only man i loved enough to wear reminders of traumatic memories. those clothes held memories of drunken stumbling, and one night stands he thought he hid from his childs prying eyes. but they also held his scent, and his love, and were for years, the only hug i would get from him. he loved me, he did. just not enough to show it. 

Give my clothes to someone who will wear them without fear of being too big, or too small, who will not leave them hanging in the closet because the mirror isn't her friend today. give them to someone who isn't afraid to walk around in her own skin, someone who eats when they're hungry and doesn't cry afterwards. 

And wear colors at my funeral that remind you of who I was. Play dreams by fleetwood mac, and dance like fairies with my mother. Then play dream a little dream of me, and hold her while she cries. Wipe her tears and remind her, i'm at peace. plant me as a tree in her yard, so i can be with her always, just like she wanted.

pay for my spotify premium so my playlists i've made for you, still play. i made one for each person i know and love, despite the fact that no one has ever made me one. so maybe in my death do that, my final wish is to feel so wanted and cared for, that you make a list of songs that make you think of me. 

give my books to my bestfriend, she'll read my notes in the margin of every book, and feel close to me. she'll be getting to have one last debate with me, and read my funny jokes, in my weird script like handwriting. and give her my letters. love letters, hate letters, my last letter. give her my writing so she can peer into my soul one last time, and have a tangible piece of evidence that shows just how much she meant to me. 

on the anniversary of my death, celebrate. every year. a beautiful dance around a fire surrounded by people who share in that pain and turn it into art. paint for me, sing for me, laugh for me. smoke a joint with my mom while she retells my most beautiful times alive. and drink a beer with my dad, and comfort him when he says he didn't know me well enough. 

bury me in a field of sunflowers, dressed in all my favorite earth tones, with my socks inside out, and jewelry made of quartz and amethyst. blow my bangs out one last time, and paint my eyes purple like i used to love. 

tell me you forgive me. tell me i was loved, and i was enough. even if it's too late, and im far too gone already, tell me. 

dont be angry with me for listening when my body was too tired to speak, and my limbs too heavy to move. dont be angry with me for letting go too soon, or not hugging each of you one last time. 

and if you wont be angry with me, i wont be angry with you. for being too silent in my living, but screaming in the face of my death. for wishing to wrap your arms around a corpse, but taking for granted the warmth of my living figure. not a hug, or a second glance, no care for my struggles. even when i screamed in your face that im hurting, or posted online that im exhausted with life. i wont be angry that you didn't listen or love me, until i was gone. 

healing is not linear.

 Healing is not linear. Healing is melting ice and refreezing it, and setting a forest ablaze just to put it back out. It's growing a garden just to watch the drought kill everything you created. It's mapping your way out, just to get lost among the trees anyway. 

 Healing is breaking down every wall, watching them dissipate under the heat of your own stare. Melting ice. You try and try to let down those walls, to feel the pain and anguish, to process through and out of this dark tunnel of lonely emotion swallowing silence. Melting ice. You question yourself, and try to gaslight yourself into thinking it couldn't have hurt that bad, it wasn't that serious, I'm being overdramatic. Melting ice. You tell yourself it's okay to melt the ice, to watch the walls fall, to accept that maybe sometimes things are just meant to happen. Maybe I'm meant to feel this way. Melting ice. 

  Although the melted ice is kept in a nice and tidy box, shaking like lighting hit it, it seeks out the cold. It seeks to be refrozen, and form a solid, freezing wall. It wishes to be strong and firm in a way that allows not a single drop of feeling. It wishes to be tall enough to block the tsunami of tears and heartache. That tsunami is a mass made up of every traumatic experience, all the breakups, all the times you asked god why and got silence in return. As that tsunami gets bigger, so does your disdain for the ocean. With that, you build the wall up again and again, higher and higher. You are like a fortress, keeping yourself hidden and protected from anyone that could possibly do harm. You are like a mountain, unwavering against the storm.

 You are not only the mountain, but the trees. You are tall, and outgoing, extending a branch to anyone who needs it, without second guessing it. You move with the wind, but it never knocks you down. You dance in the rain, and hold the water on your skin like it belongs there. But you are the trees. You are too high for anyone to reach you, stuck with your head in the clouds. So high that when lightning struck down you didn't feel it. That high up, it takes you forever to realize the flames are engulfing you. So strong-willed, that you thought you could win against the flames. You thought the fire couldn't take you out if you didn't particularly feel the burn. But it chars you through and through. By the time the rain comes, you're black and brown and burnt to the core. Still high but without dancing limbs and colorful expression in the way you move. You are no longer a mountain of trees, but a desert hill with a single cactus, afraid to let anyone touch or get too close, thirsting for affection and love. 

 But that desert, used to be a garden, you grew it. You planted flowers of every color, worked through every emotion, watered every painful memory. Gave it your all to do the right steps, and watch yourself bloom. But that drought came without warning, like an empty vessel of emotion you can't feel, ran through the garden you created and sucked up every ounce of everything. No flower left untouched, you were sucked dry of the sadness, and the love, even the anger and the confusion. You were a blank canvas of unpainted flowers and white skies and white trees. Void of everything you worked so hard for. The drought feels like emptiness and despair but it's the kind of despair that lies beneath the surface. Like it wants to be felt, it wants to be heard, and it's screaming at you from the bottom of your heart but you just can't reach it. 

 You can try and try to map yourself a way out of the trees, and across the desert through your now dead garden, but you'll still get lost. You'll be lost among the trees and turning in circles trying to remember what the world looked like from that high up. You'll wander aimlessly through the remnants of the black and brown ash colored forest. If you make it through, you'll find yourself stumbling through the sandy hills of the desert, emptiness swallowing you for miles and miles. You cannot map a way out of your own mind, this empty desert is the land you own, and the home you chose. The dust blowing around in your mind is your own doing, the lack of silence that you've created cannot be calmed. You have trapped yourself inside your own walls. No one but you and your own thoughts kicking the sand around till the wind catches it and it's carried through the forest, over your dead garden and between your charred trees. Eventually those grains of sand your kicking, your thoughts, they hit a wall. The wall you built yourself. One on each side, to keep everyone else out. Or is it to keep yourself in? Do you find solace in the char and dry air? Peace in the tsunami that chooses to attack or be at bay depending on the day? Do you feel most safe locked safe inside your own head where the only person who can hurt you is yourself? Do you feel perfectly guarded by hiding like a little girl behind your own walls with your back pressed against what's left of your favorite tree, favorite memory. Do you hold a dead flower, and try to repaint it while you hide behind that wall? How is that little girl ever supposed to grow up if you keep her hidden from the world? Healing is not linear, but healing is not hiding either. Feel it all, replant the flowers, put out the fire, swim in the tsunami, let the desert swallow you up in the sand. Let the emotions envelop you and spit you out into the world. Be overtaken by the pain and climb over your own walls, scale them like your own damn super-hero. Then, you build a door. You keep the walls up, but open to those who deserve to know you. Those walls are the home you built, and sometimes you can let people in, and they might just help you put out the next fire, and plant the next garden. 

 

The Little Girl I Wanted To Be.

 The responsibility I carried at the age I should've been carried was heavy. I did carry it though. I carried it with all the strength I had in my 60 pound body and I kept carrying it for years, but I stayed small. Physically and mentally. I just didn't realize that for a long time. I thought because I could cook before I was tall enough to ride the ferris wheel, and comfort with the wisdom of a woman 6 times my age, that it meant I was all grown up. I thought that because I knew how to mix drinks before I could legally drink them, and clean a house like a trained professional, that I was all grown up. I thought my old soul, and wisdom that I was praised for as a child, meant that I was an adult this whole time. I knew deep down that it wasn't right, and I wasn't the right kind of kid. But I never quite knew why, and I never felt like anything was missing. But it was because I had never been around something really normal, or healthy, or right. 

 The older I got, I sort of realized that I was missing out. My daddy never cooked, or spent time with us, and my mom wasn't affectionate or kind. I didn't receive love, or hugs, or reassurance. I was met with disdain and disappointment from a young age, and that just never changed. But as I grew up, and went to friends houses, or worked with kids, I started to realize that the things done to me, and not done for me, were completely wrong. Mind-bogglingly wrong. 

 I saw children being met with compassion, and affection, and patience. I saw parents who laid with their children and watched movies, and ask them how they felt, and cook for them, and comfort them. I saw safety and comfort in those children's eyes. I saw something I wish I had known the feeling of. I saw memories I wish I had, instead of the blank slate in my mind where my childhood should be. I like to think that there's a reason I don't remember much of it; if it's anything like the bits and pieces I do remember, I don't want to remember the rest. I don't want to put the pieces together and look at the whole puzzle. I am terrified of what that would mean for me, and I truly don't think I can handle it. 

 I do wish I had never seen healthy love like that sometimes. It has set me back tremendously. To know that there is always the choice of being good, and they couldn't do that for me. To witness first hand how happy and carefree I could've been, had they just loved me a little better. I learned when I taught children, that I find comfort in the things they do as well. I find peace in the small mundane things that bring children joy. I love to color, and fingerpaint, and sleep with a stuffy, and play in the rain. I find solace in playing make-believe outside, and talking to the trees like they're talking right back. All of the things I never did when I was little, but now I'm big. Now I work, and read, and write. I still sit outside, but I can't talk to the trees, and I can't play make-believe. I still sleep with a stuffy, but I don't carry it around with me like I would like to, and I don't like to tell anyone I sleep with one. 

 I don't like to tell people I'm still scared of the dark, and that I hate sleeping alone. I don't like to tell people that every time it rains, my body is pulling me like gravity to go dance in it. I don't like to tell people that sometimes I like to be wrapped up and held like a baby because it's the only thing that truly calms me down. I don't like to tell people that more often than not, I feel like a small, scared child, in a big, terrifying world. I don't like to tell people that when I feel alone, my mind drifts back to all the times I was alone as a little kid. Being left in the supermarket, being home alone in the middle of the night with kids to watch because I was long forgotten after a few too many shots downtown. 

 I feel like I look put together, and grown up, like I'm handling this whole adult thing really well. But truly, I am mentally 5 years old, and scared, and lonely. Like this little girl wants to crawl out of my adult skin, and burrow herself in a hole with her favorite stuffy, and hide. She is craving love, and comfort, and reassurance, and safety. She is screaming out for the compassion she has never been shown. She wants to play in the dirt, and watch The Little Mermaid, and wants someone to hold her when she cries. She wants someone to soothe her back to sleep when the night terrors wake her up. She wants to listen to someone's heartbeat while they read her a bedtime story. She wants the childhood she was robbed of. But she can't have it, and I think that's why she cries. That's why I cry. 

 When it's late at night, and I wake up from the night terrors, I sob in silence, stuffy in hand, begging God to fix it, to fix me. Make me feel grown up like I used to. Make me cook, and comfort, and fix. Make me able to do for myself what I did for everyone else. But I cannot hold myself, I cannot rub my own arm till sleep consumes me, I cannot be my own safe space, when I am no longer grown up. I feel like I have regressed into a small child seeking shelter wherever I can find it, accepting any affection thrown my way, like a dog begging for scraps. I am ashamed to feel this small, and embarrassed of it honestly. I miss the oblivion I lived in before I knew love and comfort were an option. I miss not knowing there was an alternative. I miss not knowing what could've been my life. I miss feeling grown up.  

It's just a holiday.

  It's just a holiday. It's just an event. 

I've been trying to tell myself that all day long, but it's not true. It's cookies I didn't get to bake, and family I didn't get to see. It's dressing up, and walking around the house listening to music that matched the occasion. It's stories that I didn't get to tell the kids, and crafts I didn't get to make. It's dinner I missed, and pictures I won't be in. It's an empty seat at the dinner table with everyone asking where I am. It's dancing and cleaning the kitchen together, and having drinks after the grandparents leave. It never was all roses and sunshine, and more often than not the day was mostly full of fights. It was never only good, but the good was there enough, and so was tradition. Even if it wasn't perfect, it was family, and it was what I was used to. It was home, even though it never quite felt safe, or comfortable. 

   The holidays weren't great, but it was a reason to smile, or at least try to. My family hasn't every really loved me in a grand or even healthy way, but they did show up, and bring food, and games. We put everything that hurt, on the back burner and we just loved each other for a while. It may have been toxic, and there may have been many pairs of rose-colored glasses worn, but it was enough. Those few hours where we pretended everything was okay, made it better. It was a break from all the pain and hurt, it went in a little box, and we all collectively left that box outside for the day. I think that's what I missed, the love. Even if it was fake, or came with stipulations, it was enough. Even if I had to pretend I liked boys, or not bring up how mama gets after one too many, it was enough. 

   Enough to make me miss it, and spend the day consumed with making other people feel better, enough to make me put it in a box and wait till midnight to feel it. When I'm half-drunk, and definitely stoned, and outside by myself, I know I'll feel it. The box is slowly being pushed to the front of my mind, and by midnight the box will be open and all my feelings will be chucked around the ground in front of me. My silent tears, and my mama's favorite songs will be the only thing coating my ears. My face will be red and swollen from tears and alcohol, and my throat will be sore from trying to keep quiet. When all I want to do is scream. 

   I want to ask God why, and fight with him, and tell him how unfair it is. How unfair that all I do is worry about them, and wonder. How unfair it is that they continue on with their lives while I've got nothing but a bag and a laptop. How unfair it is that they got to eat a feast and dance and love one another. How unfair it is that they're angry with me and how I know I was the topic of conversation there. How unfair it is that not once have they asked me if I'm alright. How unfair it is that my feelings come last. I could really keep going, but it's a rabbit hole I've been trying not to fall back into. Because really, it's just a holiday, and it's just an event. 

Peace that you're giving me.

  The world stopped. Everything was quiet, and no one could be heard for miles. It was late for some, and early for others. It was sometime between light and dark, and the rain poured for hours. And we just sat. We talked and laughed, and nearly cried, but somewhere in between all of that, I found peace in your voice mixed with the rain. I found comfort with your hand on my hair and safety just from your presence. My mind, and my heart truly felt free for a second, like I could finally breathe. Like everything was going to be okay. I feel like we always find an odd gap in time where it's just the two of us. Whether it's midnight and we can't sleep, or its 5am and we don't want to. Whether it's storming, or the sun is shining, or the moon is looking over us; there we are. It's something very foreign to me, the conversation. I am so unused to someone valuing the things I say, or even considering my thoughts on a situation. I am unused to being company, and not a burden, or a placeholder. I am unused to feeling like we share a space, and not like I'm taking up too much. Somehow you have seemed to pull me out of my shell, and set me down in yours. You made a home for me, right up under you, metaphorically. I feel like a small extension of you, like if we get too far apart, I start to shake a little. You created this little safe haven, and every time you do something new, it shocks me. You give me a space, and time, and a family, and affection, and your ears, and your words. I never asked, or begged for it. It was like you offered your love to me on a silver platter and gave me no choice but to take it. And if I'm being honest, I'm terrified. Terrified to breathe wrong, or say the wrong thing, or not say thank you enough times. Terrified that one wrong move I make will cause you to take it all back. It's nothing you did, it's what everyone else did. They left, or turned away, or sent me away, just off the smallest of fights, or even just because they needed someone to hate. I don't want to lose you like I lost everyone else, because at the end of the day, they never loved me the way you do. They never left me speechless because of something kind they did, they never gave me a safe space, they never asked if I was okay. And that's all you seem to do, give me everything I need, and you'd probably give me more if I let you. I am scared at every turn because I feel like nothing good lasts. Especially something this good. You love me like a mom, and a best friend, and a therapist all rolled into one. I've never had a good experience with any of those. So when you showed up and gave me all three at one time, it left me a little overwhelmed. And I still feel that way. So I'm trying to not feel it. I'm trying to just be, and let things happen. I'm trying to believe that you are different from everyone else, and you really mean it when you say that you love me, and you aren't going anywhere. 

I am my mother’s child, despite my best efforts to be the opposite.

  I find peace in chaos, I find comfort in crowds. Although that is only after I've consumed copious amounts of what everyone calls "liquid courage". 

  Maybe courage is the wrong word, because it never gives me the kind of confidence I would need to heal, or scream, or cry. Even in a drunken stupor, I still hold enough fear of the world, to just stay quiet. I find solace with a drink in one hand, and a lit cigarette in the other.  With every sip, I find my buried personality and set her free. My mouth is no longer muzzled by my own worried mind, my legs are no longer bound by a ball and chain. I no longer worry about the space I take up, but relish in it. With every puff of smoke, I find myself thanking god for my legs that dance me around, and my hands that are no longer handcuffed to my own pockets. The alcohol induces a care-free, fearless state of mind, it shows me who I could've been. It describes to me through action, all the ways I have been hurt and what those experiences took away from me. I am reminded that the world will not end if I speak, or move. I am shown that reaching out to ask for affection, will not always get you crucified. I am guided towards people instead of running from them. All of the things that are normal to most, only come to me when I am intoxicated. The intoxication makes my small body feel like the biggest in the room, like I deserve a crown just for standing there, and being in the presence of the crowd. It makes me forget my weight, and the color of my hair, and the calories I counted that day. A mixed drink, makes everything sound better, and feel lighter. Like the music, I no longer enjoy sober, it sounds like a symphony after a few whiskey and cokes. 

   I wish those thoughts and feelings made a home inside of me, but they never do. The symphony ends and my head starts to spin the second I stop moving. The ball and chain reappears and my hands are re-cuffed to my pockets. I'm no longer fearless, but terrified, and embarrassed. As the nausea sets in, so does the memory of every word I spoke, and every step I took. I think back to the way it felt to be so physically close to someone I barely brush against sober. I regret being so loud, and letting my legs find a place in anyone else's space. I start to premeditate my apologies and make a mental note of all the people I should avoid for a while. And later, when I realize just how sick I feel, my body will empty the contents of my stomach, reminding me I'm weak. 

   Weak enough to fall in love with the feeling, and too weak to let it stay. Too weak to be a whole person on my own, too weak to introduce myself to a stranger, too weak to ask to be loved without being drunk. Too weak to not pick up a can and pop the tab just because I don't want to feel. Weakness and fear are my two most prevalent emotions lately. I'm quiet, and secretly screaming on the inside, trying to make everyone around me happier. Because it's easier to force a smile when everyone else is wearing one too. Because my pain does not get to burden everyone else the way it does me. Because if I'm suffering like this, and I know how awful it feels, I'll go to any lengths to make sure no one else feels it. Because I don't want to waste a second of your time trying to answer when you ask if I'm okay. Because the world see's me as sunshine, and that is a light that never goes out. Because if everyone expects me to be the sun, I am not allowed to be the moon. 

   I think maybe the reason I find my peace and comfort there, is because that is where I used to find it when I was young. I was mixing drinks and grabbing beers and touching men before I could legally drive. I cleaned up the parties, and poured the gatorade the next day, I mopped the sticky floor, and trashed the solo cups. I was only loved when drinks were consumed and I dressed too old for my age. I danced with the older, drunk men, and put them to bed before their mind could carry them to my bedroom. I lived in fear of being loved too much or not at all. When someone said dance, or come give me a hug, it sent a chill down my spine. For two reasons. One being that I loved the attention I never got anywhere else, and two being that I knew this wasn't the kind of attention I really craved and that hug always lasted too long and their hands always drifted too low. Believe me, I know it's screwed up and I should've known back then that it wasn't okay. But I spent a lot of time being invisible, so I took what I could get, and went outside where the party was when my mother asked me to. We didn't spend much time together, but when she drank, she got really friendly, and almost seemed proud of her little girl, who acted way too old and hung out with the grown ups. 

   I loved being loved by her, and her friends. It was the only time I felt like I was noticed, and had a voice that people cared to hear. But being so much older, I know it wasn't okay, and I should've been in bed instead of putting on shows for them in a garage much past midnight. I shouldn't have mastered shotgunning, and drinking games, before I learned how to drive. I shouldn't have been allowed to walk around and talk to them in a t-shirt and panties at twelve years old. Maybe back then I was too innocent and naive to understand the staring and the hugs that lasted too long but I get it now. 

   I think that's the sad part, I seek it out now. I don't do it intentionally, it's just that I shift back into that state of mind any time I step back into that setting. She taught me to grab everyone's attention, to be the sweetest, biggest personality in the room, and make sure everyone loves me. Even if that means wearing the smallest shirt, or the shortest skirt, or the highest heels. Even if it means touching, and caressing, and dancing like my soul is on fire.  I am all of her worst traits in a younger form, trying my damndest to be the opposite. But two drops of alcohol, and she takes over my body, to everyone else, any semblance of my own personality or confidence, and I am reminded that I am her child, in looks, and spirit, and behavior. No matter how far I run from her, she will find me, even in my own mind. 

Release in Toxic Waters.

 It would be so temptingly masochistic to fall back into the pattern. 

 It would be so disturbingly comforting to give into the worst parts of myself. 

 It would be so incredibly fulfilling to find release in those toxic waters. 

 I dream of deep diving back into you. Up to my neck, not trying to stay on the surface at all. 

 Sinking so far into the ocean where you drowned me for your own sadistic pleasure. 

 Your waves pulled me into the depths of the darkest parts of my mind. 

 My ears filled with your waves, your words, stealing my mind. 

 Swallowing every drop you gave me, in hopes of finding ecstasy. 

 Gulping back my words and choking on yours, all while gasping for air. 

 Your needs were a ball and chain, keeping me from swimming. 

 And I relished in the need to please you, and the validation that followed. 

 Your praise felt like getting high, like the one drop of oxygen I earned.

 I stopped drowning long enough to keep breathing, you gave me just enough. 

 You kept me alive and writhing, but barely clinging to life. 

 Your air in my lungs was my only lifeline, and you got off on that. 

 Making sure that we were alone and drowning together was your speciality. 

 The blackest of oceans and no one but the two of us, chasing a release.

 Me from you, I wanted to swim, to breathe. And you from yourself. 

 The drowning was your favorite part, wallowing in the water. 

 Thriving on the lack of air, and life; you just needed someone to drown. 

 Someone to die with you, so it was less lonely, but it’s a big ocean. 

 And a bigger world, my release is not for your pleasure, or your pain. 

 And your release will no longer be my pain, simply because I was stronger. 

 I chose to swim alone, while you tried and failed to drown with me. 

 Whether you sink or swim, is not up to me, nor will I take the guilt. 

 I am swimming, and breathing, and that is something you can’t say. 

That's the First Step.

 I used to love the forest. I loved how big it was, and how small I felt. I enjoyed the rush I felt when I looked down at the ground from the top of a tree. I liked the way that time and real life disappeared, I could be anyone, forget everything. I was a warrior, an assassin, a princess, I was free. It was like as soon as I stepped in between the trees, I was anything but who I was. I would sit high up in the branches, and hug the trees and nap. I felt like the trees deserved love too, and they were my friends, so I hugged them, and talked to them, they were safe. They were my escape. 

 I loved the small fields I would find if I walked far enough. They held sunflowers, I think that's why they're my favorite. I liked to pretend I was a fairy, and dance around to the sound of the birds. I would lay on the ground and find safety when the blades of grass made a cocoon around my small figure. I counted the clouds, and picked the flowers, and fell in love with the way the earth goes quiet. So quiet, I could hear every bird chirp, every howl of wind, every crunch of the ground with my steps. 

 

I decided my favorite part was when I would find patches of empty land between the trees, and I'd make forts. I hung sheets for walls, and logs were used as chairs, I dug holes for my poems and songs I'd written, and hid out there for hours. I loved that it was my own little home. I felt safe there, in between trees and cotton walls, I'd bring snacks, and water, and a bag of toys. I decided when home got too loud, or too quiet, I'd go there. I left the sheets up for years. I kept going back. I stopped taking toys, and started taking my paints, or my guitar. I kept burying my journal in the hole for years. 

 I stopped going into the woods the older I got, and found comfort in other things, though not as often. I missed it, but it slowly came to hold darker memories and no longer brought me the peaceful feeling it once did. I loved the forest because it was an escape, and what I was escaping started to take over my mind. I forgot the beauty, the sound, the feeling, that I felt. Even if I was escaping, I found my calm in the storm. I found what made me sing. I found what made me safe. 

 Though I didn't see that silver lining till recently. I let the forest represent a dark and terrifying journey, I let the fields remind me how alone I felt, I let my first safe place, become my biggest fear. All because it resembled parts of my journey that I didn't want to remember. Recently, I saw the woods. I didn't go into them. I know now that with age, I've become scared. Scared of how large the trees are in comparison to myself, and I can't imagine climbing one now. I've since gained a fear of heights, and the unknown. The fear of being lost between the trees, or finding myself alone in a field holds me back. I know I'm too old to play pretend, I no longer hear the trees talk back to me. I don't feel the childlike joy that gave me the courage to dance alone in a field. I hear the birds, but they no longer make a song. 

 I've since removed myself from every last drop of my youth, and all that remains is the trees and myself. I spend copious amounts of time outdoors. I still don't go into the trees, or dance in fields; but I look, and I listen. I watch the trees sway with the wind, and I hum back to the birds when they chirp. I sing when it rains, and I think about when I used to dance in it. I decided that's my goal, to dance in the rain. And really feel it. To cry into the ground with mother nature, and be bathed in rain water and scream at the sky. I want to feel every part of nature, I want to bury a poem, and hug a tree. I think that's the first step, really. Wanting to feel better, and safe, and make peace with what brought you pain. It's progress at least, to sit in silence with the earth and realize that in that moment between the trees, with my feet in the grass, I'm safe.