why?
if i fall
then Rowan falls
then Ahalya falls
then Hunter falls
then Alice falls
then Grey falls
then Lex falls
then Kat falls
then Sam falls
then Ebby falls
but what if they fall first?

"the reason i hug you so much is because that if i let go i'm afraid you will too"

can i stitch myself into you
so my hurt becomes yours
and yours becomes mine?
can we heal each others scars
and halve the pain?
can we travel the world
and grow lemons
in the backyard of an old house?
can i share a life with you
or will the weight of our problems
sink the stone to the bottom of the river?
because i promise you
when the scars keep opening
and you can't hide them anymore
i can't promise to fix you,
but i know you won't bleed out alone

we're all just hanging on
Ahalya could go any day
Rowan's already tried
so have i
but every thread
is different
and sometimes our threads get
tangled
if Alice goes,
what happens to Kayleena?
if Lex goes,
what happens to Grey?
if they go
can my thread break too?

the voices are never quiet
the sound creeps under doorways
and through keyholes
until it's everywhere
and there is no escape
from the endless noise
****** yelling
silent whispers
bombs and
knives sharpening
infiltrating
penetrating
perforating
until it's all you hear
until it becomes all i am
until it becomes all i know
until the voices and i
are alone together
always

for you and me and anyone else who needs this most

when the story starts and ends with
we'll be okay
how do we know when it truly ends?

while we watch under the slide,
waiting for the world to pass us by,
as the monsters under our beds yell
and hit

when we need our friends more than ever,
but we pull away
because we can't be a burden
why must the story keep going?

when we are the seeds in the ground,
the trampled underfoot,
when we shatter and are glued back
over and over and over
why do we always have to be fixed
when we were never broken?

when we dangle by a threadbare knot over a bottomless pit,
how do we keep from falling?

how do we know they'll catch us?

how do we know that when we feed the dirt,
our story ends?
how do we know where our story takes us,
when neither of us are even protagonists
in our own stories?
how do we know we won't fade into the endless crowd
of blurred faces and silent whispers
waiting on the banks of the river styx?

why do stories have endings?


why can't we live a life worth living?

silent wounds
and invisible screams
running
from the existence of
nothing
but then
turning around
because the
invisible wounds
and silent screams
from the absence
of everything
capture attention

broken
shards of glass
and the echoes of
who she once was
all she has
to make it through
but its not enough
the endless battle in her mind
rages on
as she pretends
its all fine on the outside but
beneath her raven hair
an eternal war
behind her ice blue eyes
a fight
every day
to keep going
but eventually
she gets tired of the fight
and her ice blue eyes
break
an endless symphony of
scarred hearts
and tightening chains
marks against skin
until


s
h

a


t



t




e





r

skinny
perfect
quiet
day after day
smiling in the mirror
hiding the pain
because crying isn't perfect
because yelling isn't perfect
never step on the cracks in the sidewalk
never show suffering
never hurt one arm without hurting the other
never eat more than a bite
always happy
but not too happy
always quiet
but not too quiet
or else people notice