What is real to me
Is not real to you

The weight on my back
You can’t see from your angle

I must be so bored
To complain so **** often

As my spine starts to give out
Pain trickles down each vertebrae

I must want attention
When you ask why my feet ache

I tell you how a man filled my backpack with stones

Oh!
You know who i’m talking about!
What a ******* right?

Oh.
He would never do such a thing

Well,
Because,

He’s never done that to you.

That must mean my story’s not true.

I must be so sick
And ****** in the head

To be crying at night from the soreness years later

You’d think i’d adjust to the workout
Sometimes it doesn’t work out that way.

Who would want to be around someone with such a bad limp?

It’s just easier to stay in bed.

Then the pain is just mine.

And nobody gets to have an opinion on if it’s real or not.

I've gotten a lot of parking tickets,
To know that all they take from you is money.
I've shut off a million alarms,
To go through the same loop every day.

And it's only been a month, I know
Since you dropped my hand and went off alone
But if the words never left my lips then,
Would you have stayed and listened?

I would've squeezed your hands tightly
And saw the mark my fingers left the next day
We wouldn't be noticing how the headlights shined brightly
And how your hair became red as it came.
-
-
-
You would have found it funny,
If I told you that I memorized every lot we went to,
I was never one for remembering things.
But it's embedded in my brain,
How ironic it is that our last and worst memory
Happened in the same place where I betrayed you.

And maybe a part of you already knows,
All the silent apologies I've got stuck in my throat.
Maybe one day I'll whisper it down the road,
But right now the pain is just too strong to let go.

Did you lose weight in hopes
you'd lose the guilt of the shame you made me gain?

Anger in my life hits me in the chest. I allow the fire to spread to my limbs.
I observe and attend.
Sadness in my life grips my stomach. I allow it to devour my body as I cry out.
I observe and attend.
Guilt in my life empties my throat. I let it wrench my guts and weaken my knees.
I observe and attend.
Joy in my life blossoms in my heart. I allow it to melt my bones.
I observe and attend.

Realizing the mayhem sprinkled into my past
has left such a sour taste with me
it's put my emotions on blast;
finally seeing what happened to me.

I'm beginning to feel better
after having picked out the reminders,
but the child in me is bitter
and wants to see them covered in spiders.

The morning after I killed myself, I woke up
I walked up the creaky stairs and made myself coffee
My favorite Dunkin Donuts cup, filled to the top with ice, coffee left out from the night before, and chocolate milk
I wiped the coffee off the counter and filled the dishwasher
I added salt to my avocado with eggs and toast
I sluggishly made my bed
The morning after I killed myself, I fell in love
Not with the girl I talk to everyday on my phone
Or the grocer who always smiled extra long at me
I fell in love with my mother as she sat in my room,
Looking through each notebook, looking for all the signs
Dusting off the rainbow flag I never took out of it's packaging
I fell in love with my brother, who worked desperately at the construction site,
Making new things as he tried to forget I wasn’t there to say “How was work?"
When he comes home
I fell in love with my niece,
Texting my friends what happened,
Crying in the same room we laughed and had sleepovers in
I watched the family dogs,
Who pointed their nose when squirrels run past
I saw the empty space in Stella’s eyes
When she jumped on my bed to snuggle and there was nothing under the covers
I saw the coldness in Maple's heart as she searched and searched my room for me
How Mama cuddled into the blankets, waiting for me
I stood by as she protected my Mom during walks, just as she used to do for me
I picked the purple flowers and some dandelions on the side of the house
And put them where I used to sit in the woods
The morning after I killed myself, I stayed up all night to watch the sun come up
The morning after I killed myself, I went to the morgue and gazed at that body
Wondered if death was truly worth it
I carefully touched all the scars, all the markings no one ever saw but us
I told him about the avocado toast, the friends, the dogs, the woods, and his family
I told him about the sunsets and the brother and the warm blankets
The morning after I killed myself, I cried and cried

this facade has cost me damages beyond repair
bridges to ashes
glitter to sand
i feel undeserving of looking up the sky
how foolish of me to think i'd ever shine as bright
my fear coalesce into a person and i am running
running as fast as i can
exhaustion sitting heavy on my back
chains wrapping around my ankles
i trip over the roots of the past
and suddenly i am falling down a rabbit hole
with no end in sight
the stars, they are more stunning than i recall
i have never seen as many as tonight
oh, they twinkle, they wink at me
as i fall down deeper into the earth
dear stars, you must forgive me for my shameless mistake, okay? okay.