I just jumped on my
Bed for the first time
In 25
Years

Be real and let me tell you that you're who I wake up wanting to see
-
You're who I want to joke with and explore with and listen to music with and have tons of *** with
You're who I think of when I am singing in the shower

I relapsed in every way I could last night and when people ask about my scars I have trouble saying "I used to cut" because I feel like I'm lying to them and when she asked me why I did it I didn't know what to say other than "I'm drunk" and it was one hundred and one degrees Fahrenheit today and I wore a flannel shirt so my parents wouldn't see the canyon I carved into my arm and I didn't get out of bed until four PM because of my hangover and my mom brought me Advil and seltzer water and it breaks my heart that she helped me and I couldn't tell her what was wrong and I don't know how to ******* help myself anymore I feel like such a lost cause and I think it might be better if I just killed myself because then I wouldn't have to deal with this and I wouldn't keep hurting people and I'm sorry I keep doing this I'm sorry I don't know how to handle this I'm sorry I'm a bad person I'm sorry I stole your ***** I'm sorry I got blood on the sheets

i've been seeing you around a lot lately.
     it's almost as if see you everywhere.
          But why do i always feel like
               i still remember you
                    but you don't
                                r
                                  e
                                    m
                                    e
                                       m
                                           b
                                              e
                                             r
                                         me from all those years ago?
                                              [Am i really that
                                                                      e
                                                                    a
                                                                  s
                                                                y
                                                             to forget?]

               {Sorry for feeling
          the nostalgia- that we
     could have shared- alone.}

Does my pride make you falter?
Or does my veracity intimidate the walls you built?
Fear me not
I tell you
I am fragile

he took the blade on my skin and turned it into the pen on my paper

Dear Talia,

I don't want to be a tortured artist.
I don't want to be depressed and I don't want to be anxious.
Competitive sadness and disorders treated like accessories disgust me.

The world glamorizes mental illness, and I don't understand why. There is nothing romantic about being mentally ill just like how there's nothing glamorous about a broken wrist or a torn medial collateral ligament. There's nothing romantic about constantly being afraid that the world will fold in itself and **** you with it. There's nothing romantic about feeling like you could break down and cry at any moment.

This is the first piece I've written while being medicated.

I want it to be Christmas already.

The world dreams itself a halo, but can only attain horns. The halo is an illusion and the horns are an idea.

I'm due to take another Lorazepam. Would I look cool to the kids who idolize dysfunction and misinterpret pain as style, if I were to take one of these, with water and a distant glance, in front of them? Geez, to have their approval would to have everything and nothing at all.

I'm not sure why I've written as much about this as I have.

You.

It is 2:48 am and all I can think about, in this moment, is you.

I can't wait to spend Christmas with you. I can't wait to wear bad Christmas sweaters, and be the couple everyone hates, as we sing Christmas carols and spread holiday cheer.

I wrote this poem a few minutes ago. Sometime around 2:30 am. I'm not sure. I'm exhausted:

I sat on the edge of my bed, and on the edge of my life,
medicated to the point of pointlessness. Soft.
It was the nineteenth, not the twentieth,
and I wished I saw the fireworks with her fifteen days earlier.

My gasps tore the shingles off of the house.
And they hung suspended above the hole in the roof.
And God stared down into my room, as the shingles swirled skyward.
"I see you," I said, "but I don't believe in you."

I left home and ran until I was a dream that had passed itself.


I hope that was okay.

I love you.


Yours,

Joshua Haines