If I die tonight, make up something creative.
She was a girl who never let her fears get the best of her.
She was a girl who took chances, who took action, who kissed me on the lips until I forgot that lips are even a thing.
She was a girl who shined so brightly that everyone around her couldn’t look.
They didn’t look.

She died saving the planet.
She died in a freak accident during a circus performance.
She died because that little piece of her was the small crack that spiderwebbed
Until it all overflowed and not even the foundations exist in its wake.

She was a girl who conquered suns.
A girl who captured my heart.
A girl who sang like a violin and plucked strings like wildflowers.
She was a girl who chased the moon and the setting sun and let the stars bathe her in their finite glow.

If I die tonight, make it memorable.
Think of something creative;
But please don’t tell them the truth.

I have this silly game that I play
where I test to see just how long
I can keep everything in.
Problems are thrown my way like dice
that always come up snake eyes
while I pretend they're smiling seven.

It’s just like roulette,
only there are no blanks,
the rounds are fired blindly,
and I wait to see when they will lodge themselves in my throat.

The odds aren’t fair.
I continue smiling as my body is used for target practice,
pretending not to feel a thing
until one day I can no longer contain this pool of blood.
My fingers claw at it, trying to drag it back,
but it’s no use.
I am exposed.
Either I will smile through red-tinted teeth
and laugh it off like a nasty paper cut,
or the reservoir will break and take us down with it.

I am afraid.
Every shot sends anxiety through my bones.
Bang.
I’ve only been pretending to like it because you do.
Bang.
I have so many questions I will never ask, because I’m scared that this isn’t real for you.
Bang.
I trust you – love you, maybe – but my past is lingering like ghosts in a cemetery.
Bang.
Why can’t I stop second guessing?
Bang.
Why can't I tell you?
Bang.
Do I want this because you want this?
Bang.
How do I…
Bang.
Where do I…
Bang.
Begin.

Ready,
    Set,
        Go.

If there is one thing I will never forget,
it's the weight
of your hand in mine,
the deep rumbling in a chest that pillows my head,
our conversations so far from superficial
as our voices carry over the movie we don’t watch.

If there is one thing I will never forget,
it's the way you smile down at me,
a softness in your eyes
I have never seen before,
and I think that I could get used to resting my head on your heart
with your arms wrapped around me.

I could go on, endlessly, about
every detail;
every kiss;
every laugh;
every warm embrace.

I don’t need to get high on your voice
or drunk on your lips,
because for once I am not in need of an escape.
I have found my safety in your love,
and I have found myself in loving you.

If there is one thing I will never forget,
it is the way you taught me what love
   really means.

today, we are eternity.
yesterday, infinity.
tomorrow, transient.

I dance to live,
I dance to breathe.
I dance to keep this heart beating,
      these feet on the ground,
           this spirit alive.

I dance because dancing keeps the world turning,
because everything is a song if you listen closely.
I dance to express that fight with my best friend,
      that diploma in my hand,
           that night that everyone left,
                  And I let it all fall away.

When you dance you become the music,
and who you were before doesn’t matter.
Every song is a fresh start,
      every missed step a new opportunity,
           every mistake a building block
                From which you build the person you want to be.

Today.
          Now.
                  Not yesterday at 5 PM when you spilled your coffee on a fellow commuter.
                  Not four years ago when he said you could just be friends.

You are not your mistakes,
            your rejections,
                   or your falls.

You are only as strong as the next step you take,
        to brush yourself off and fall until you learn how to catch yourself.

How loud can I get the music?
I hit the volume button a couple more times for good measure.
I’ve spent two years crafting a playlist for moments just like this,
Moments when I have a
Thousand anxiety attacks at once.

1.
I think of more and more reasons
To resent you for leaving me.
I hate that I can’t comfort you.
I hate that you can’t comfort me.
I hate that you left without a second thought.
I hate that I miss you when you treated me like ****.
I hate that thinking of you makes me cry.
by Another Ex-Best Friend.

2.
I live a good life.
I have a lot of things I’ve always wanted,
Made true by a draw of luck that sent my anxiety to the back burner.
I was happy.
I was really happy.
But I’m not happy anymore, and I can’t be sure why.
I no longer want these things,
But people ask them of me and I smile and
Either I’ll go or I’ll make an excuse.
There’s no telling these days.
by The Suffocating Cynicism.

3.
I wrote a poem about telling you
All the things you did to me that apparently you never noticed.
It was 3 AM.
It seemed like a good idea.
Now I look at you, calculating when I’ll get the chance to bring those words to life.
And I swallow them right back into my fractured heart,
Because looking at you terrifies me.
Being near you makes me sick.
This can go one of two ways:
Either you turn your life around in a flurry of realization and apologies,
Or you leave a couple more bruises and some blood and
Maybe a restraining order in your wake.
by Your Latest Conquest.

4.
Somehow you ask so much of me without even realizing it.
You’ve grown.
You’ve changed, just like the rest of us,
But there are still so many things you refuse to change
Because you have sculpted guard rails that block them from your view,
Carefully crafted and immaculately cultivated.
There is no escape.
I wonder why I feel this way, because I should love you, and I do love you,
But sometimes I want to cry because you consume my life
And I cannot escape.
by Your Life’s Work.

5.
There are things that stand between me
And my greatest achievements.
If you notice,
They both have “me” in them.
Did you know I wrote a book?
It has one scene left,
But I can’t finish it because
Nothing feels right and no one knows
What that ending needs, because no one
Knows this world as well as I do, like the back of my hand and a shred of my heart.
I want someone to give me the answer.
I want someone to finish it for me, because endings are important.
Endings are necessary.
They need closure and a reason to return when asked.
I finally stopped keeping my work clutched to my chest,
And thought maybe I would show it the light of day.
No one noticed.
I laughed and tried again, posting it in a couple of places,
Drawing nonexistent attention.
I’ve created obstacles I cannot scale.
by The Woeful Worriers.

6.
Very few people are able to see a person’s pain.
In my experience, it totals to one.
One person can tell when I’m hurting, and she lives 9,000 miles away
In tomorrow where life is sometimes a little bit better.
She’s the only one that gets pictures of my first foray
Into a ****** world I told myself I would never enter.
I told her it looked cool.
She disagreed.
I broke down.
She checked up on me every other day, and it hurt even more.
Eventually I stopped wearing long sleeves,
And stories stopped swirling in my head.
It became apparent that no one cared.
No one was going to ask about the healing scar on my arm.
Do I care? Because honestly, I can’t tell.
I want people to notice,
To know how much I’m suffering and tell me it’s okay
To take a break from all of the things that are drowning me.
But if people notice, they’ll know.
They’ll know that I’m suffering,
That I did this to myself,
And their footsteps will crush the eggshells they walk on.
It’s less genuine than Her. She’s been there. She knows.
I thought one person in particular would notice,
But it makes me laugh in hindsight,
Because she never noticed a single thing I did.
No one notices.
I’ve come to terms with that.
I’ve come to terms with the dark room that my own thoughts lock me in,
That no one else has a key
And it is my own responsibility to find my way out.
It’s like a sick, grotesque Escape Room.
If only I had the motivation to find the clues.
by The Silence.

7.
I’m happy.
Honestly, the last six songs were all it took
to heal me and cure me and take away all of this pain.
I’m smiling,
See?
I feel lighter.
Until this verse ends and the next begins,
Pulling that feathered feeling over my head and suffocating me,
Reminding me that nothing is okay no matter how hard I try to believe it.
I have learned that I am a very good actor.
I lie so often that I started to believe it was the truth.
But the truth doesn’t like to be ignored.
It came back and reminded me that I was never okay.
by Recurrent Denial.

8.
I can’t breathe.
My skin feels oddly cold even though I’m sweating,
And the deep breath I pulled into my lungs
Catches in my throat.
I have two options;
Hold it and suffocate slowly, deliciously, inching into darkness and leaving hell in my wake.
Or, I breathe out the stifled sob it has created and resign myself
To another break down.
Another one.
They never end.
As much as I like the first option, it isn’t very easy to suffocate yourself by holding your breath.
You see, your body has this thing called self-preservation,
Even if your mind doesn’t.
So I choke out a sob and wince at the ache in my throat,
Catching my breath and catapulting towards hyperventilation.
I close my eyes and breathe through my nose.
**** that.
I keep breathing, ignoring the tears on my cheeks, just trying to breathe,
Because apparently the body likes breathing even if it’s a hindrance to its inhabitant.
**** it all.
I curl my hands into fists and open my eyes, breathing deliberately.
I lick my lips and breathe away the tears,
Because I so cannot be bothered with this right now.
It lasts five minutes, and then it’s tucked away
For later.
I was always really great at repressing break downs until
They piled upon each other and exploded in a gut-wrenching fit
Of tears and swollen fists and maybe a tiny bit of screaming.
That’s how I broke my piano bench.
by Another Fractured Name.

She was great.
She shined like the stars,
Her eyes glowing like the moon,
And in her laugh was a thousand swirling galaxies.

But stars die.
The moon eclipses.
And even galaxies get lost in the universe.