Problems Don’t Just Dissolve

You utter it gently, but
your eyes are accusing
when you say, “you can
swallow your problems in a pill and
watch them dissolve
in your stomach.”

I know what you really mean–
that I’m taking the easy way out,
that I’m cheating at life, that you have
real problems.

Because standing in the kitchen for half
an hour with a jar of peanut butter in my
hand, counting numbers in my mind and
debating whether to eat
is stupid.

Because skipping my best friend’s birthday
party because I can’t breathe
in large crowds
is dramatic.

Because having to write down everything
on a piece of paper before talking to
someone on the phone is just me being
a perfectionist.

Because making someone else order
for me at Subway since I am overwhelmed
by the options– because I can feel the people behind
me in line drilling their eyes into
my skull, is me
being shy.

Because when I’m having a panic
attack and I choke out, “I can’t breathe,”
I’m being emotional.

Because when I am down and
I can’t figure out why, I’m
being distant and cold.

Because mental illness isn’t
real. Because I’m just
weak. Because struggling with
what you take for granted every day
isn’t a big deal.

Every day I must teach
myself to walk, when everyone around
me is running.
I must learn to quiet
the earthquake in my throat when
my voice shakes.
I must learn to brush off
the darts you spit
at me.

You say I am weak,
and for so long I believed it.
But I am learning my own
strength.

V for Victory

we taped our photos up on
the cinder block walls
and called it home, but
the word was slippery on
my tongue because
anywhere is a prison cell if it’s not
where you want to be.

i scratched his name into
my wooden dresser
followed by R.I.P.
and that 38″ by 75″ mattress was
my lifeboat through the desert,
leading me to mirages I’d awaken from
with teary eyes and a mouth full
of sand.

even the toilet paper
had my blood on it.
i would write love on my arms
in marker
to hide my scars,
but kept the ones in my
eyes exposed
just in case someone could hear
the way i pleaded
through the receiver: please take me
home, home, home.

Once you learn to love and accept yourself unconditionally, everywhere becomes home.

i was looking for home everywhere but in myself

Physics

the atoms i am made of
are mostly empty space.
what does that make
me?

Water & Fire

You spat fire,
but I pretended I was made of water
so you wouldn’t know you burned me.
Slowly, you evaporated me
until I was nothing– a puddle
on the sidewalk that
you stepped in on your way to
somewhere.

Thinking of Summer

my heart is a mix
of the butterflies that have escaped
my stomach and
too much coffee, and
my mind is growing green grass
by the ocean shore where we’d
go skinny dipping
at night.
the air in my lungs is a shot
of hot summer sand, sunblock,
and newly pollinated flowers
chased by freshly mowed lawns
and sweat.
sweat that slides from my face,
down my spine, and in between my
bikini top.
sweat that slithers down your chest
and pools in your
belly button.
sweat like ocean water,
sweat like tears.
sweat that makes me
shiver.

Define:

They wrote those dictionaries, you know.
The ones that tell you
who you are – the ones
that you think define you.
Do not believe for one minute
you can be printed
in size 12 font with a semicolon
after your name.
You are the only one who can choose
your phonetics.
You are not Merriam-Webster
definitions.
You are an entire novel,
and you alone are the author.

What Breaking Sounds Like

Her voice
asks him to stay.

The gravel crunches as
his car drives away
for the last time.

Her knees hit
the bathroom floor
as she silently starts
to pray.

Fighting to wheeze
between sobs.
Gasping because she cannot exhale
all of him and still
breathe.

Struggling to believe that
one day

she’ll want to inhale again.

– What Breaking Sounds Like, Pt. 1

This must be hell– reliving my biggest mistake over and over again.

it doesn’t hurt any less with the passing of time