Dear Momma,
The monster got me.
He dug his nails
Into my bones.
I swear every
Time I cried
He rejoiced
My tortured groans.

I fought hard,
Momma. I swear I did.
I gave up everything
Ive ever had to give.
He took my hair;
My piece of mind.
Yet still he wouldn't
Let me live.

But there's one thing
He'll never have, momma
No matter the pain
Or immeasurable weight
Of this hellish trauma.
He'll never have my soul
For your love for me
Is far too great.

They said I was special
Called me brave and strong.
Claimed me a warrior;
They've never been more wrong.
For I was but a child
Too afraid to turn around.
They'll never know that truth
For my heartbeat's 'ever gone.

-ARI

chocolate fills
the gaps
between
my soul
and the
places
   their hands
   press
cotton
candy
bruises
into
milky flesh
while
strawberry
syrup
pools
  on
   the
    floor
and the
    ginger ale
that oozes
from
agonized
eyes
    burns their
      faces into
  my retinae

Sometimes it feels like I’m looking a stranger or maybe even a ghost in my mirror. Dark eyes with no sparkle stare back at me and part of me wonders when I started looking like a corpse. Meals get skipped more often than I actually eat and my body starts feeling like it’s made of glass that people keep breaking while she tries her hardest to put me back together. And when I get sick, because it always happens, it’s like my bones rattle as I shiver and each cough feels like my throat is being torn apart from the inside out and after each fit I try to be surprised that there’s no blood. When I’m asked about medical history I have to tell them I don’t know because I really don’t. I’m so stupidly afraid of getting some preventable but hereditary disease because I never knew it was in my genes. I find myself turning the same words over and over in my head while I lay in bed every night: they didn’t want you and they didn’t love you and it’s your fault. It’s gotten to the point where I believe the lies my anxiety-ridden subconscious tells me. The logical part of me knows the lies aren’t true but how do you console yourself in those lonely hours when you’re alone and no one can hear you cry yourself to sleep? Six nights a week it’s all fitful sleep and when I wake up I’m still so exhausted it takes everything I have just to haul myself out of bed to take the pill that makes it so I can just barely scrape by during school and even then it’s not good enough so I find myself failing and then I realize I just don’t care anymore. There is no in between for me, I can’t just kinda care it’s all or nothing and ninety nine percent of the time it’s nothing so I lose myself in my video games and ignore the screaming in the back of my skull that tells me to get up and do something productive with my life but I just can’t. It’s not that I don’t want to try it’s that I physically cannot make myself care enough to do anything and it’s almost like I can ******* feel my muscles begin to atrophy.

When you texted me back
and said you were in the building,
my heart skipped.

I couldn't tell
if it was from relief that you responded,
or anxiety that you were so near.

I knew that if I saw you
I would either break down,
or become too numb to function.

But if I did not,
my mind would think up awful situations,
and send my panic level to the stars.

I can't help but wonder:
if we weren't so close,
would things be different?

I like to think
that if we were further apart,
I would have gone out to find you.

But instead, I stayed where I was.
Hoping you wouldn't pass by,
while at the same time needing to catch a glimpse.

You didn't text again

If you ever find someone
Who cares for you as I did,
Do not push her away.
Selfless people are hard to find.

If  you ever find someone
Who trusts you as I did,
Do not betray her.
Trust is not so easily glued together
Like broken plates.

If you ever find someone
Who cries as many tears
As I did because of you,
Do not hurt her.
Tears quickly dry up and disappear
But scars often do not.

If you ever find someone
Who spent every moment thinking of you,
Do  not make her think you're doing the same.
Such betrayal is of the deepest,
Most painful kind.

If you ever find someone
Who loves you as much as I did,
Do not play with her heart.
Hearts are not easily mended
Hearts are not easily healed
Especially hearts that were given unreservedly.