the problem with saying "i love you,"
is each time it weighs less on your tongue,
with the cage of your teeth less effective,
with the air come too free from your lungs,

and it's hard to take back once you've said it -
it don't matter how hard you regret it.
yes, the problem with saying "i love you,":
it don't always come back where it's from.

i'd rather have my depression be the punchline than the flatline, i think

it is nothing

i've never been in love;
don't know if i might ever be.
i don't know what to picture when i think about the future,
but the only person there is me.

and i'm angry just imagining the lack of you,
i'm ignoring that it's all i ever had of you.
call it selfish, call it stupid, call it anything you want,
just don't call it what it is.

and i'm sorry that i only ever thought about myself,
and i'm sorry that i'm thinking of me still.
i'm bad at just believing; can't think you into being,
but if i ever learn, i will.

i know it's not fair - we haven't even met.
but why wasn't i worth you loving me yet?

i've never been one of the good ones;
i just never tried to learn how.
and hindsight's 20/20, hoping scars will turn out pretty,
but it's too late to try to learn now.

and i'm angry just imagining the lack of you,
i'm ignoring that it's all i ever had of you.
call it lonely, call it desperate, call it anything you want,
just don't call it what it is.

i keep blacking out alone inside the shower.
i keep staring at the bottle in the dark.
i keep wishing i could spend every breath of every day,
every hour trying to be where you are.

i know it's not fair - we haven't even met.
but why wasn't i worth you loving me yet?

breathe, hurt, shake.
i just want a name for this ache.
call it silly, call it sad, call it anything you want,
just don't call it what it is.

i've never been in love.

razor sharp wit,
the unbitten tongue -
no one cares you can fit
the truth in your lungs,

and the fools carry on,
as fools often do -
but none of their noise is as pretty as you.

wake up feelin' like i do,
like someone asked, what's wrong with you?
i wake up feelin' just the same,
still cringing as i shake the shame.

i feel nothing.
i feel nothing.
i feel nothing.

wake up feelin' like i do,
still wake up, like i promised to.
i wake up feelin' out of breath
like someone might have mentioned death.

i feel nothing.
i feel nothing.
i feel nothing.

wake up feelin' like i do,
my disappointment overdue.
i wake up feelin' sad and slow -
i wish you'd all just let me go.

i feel nothing.
i feel nothing.
i feel nothing.

time goes by so slowly,
i can't wait to go to sleep.
i know i said i wouldn't do it -
i would never put you through it -
but it's a promise i just can't keep.

i am tired,
been holding my breath too long.
i love you so please let me go
to the place i've been wanting all along.

better

"how are you doing," he asks me.
"better," i say, which is sort of a lie
because i am never getting
that.

what i should have done
was laugh hysterically
because

it's all a joke, right,
it has to be a joke,
just a joke, right,
ha.

"how are you doing," he asks me.

i am not doing anything.
i am not, i'm not

better can be measured in increments
but something is always so far off about it,
like the time:

"how are you doing," she asked me.

"get better soon," she said.

and who am i to tell her
that this is not just a matter
of restoring things to right -

i have never been
that.

i'm just a fool.
i'm a fool for trying
when only the good die young,
and i have never been enough of
that.

"how are you doing,"

i have never been
better.

"please, god, please."

the prayer:

if i lose you,
if he loses you,
if we all lose you,

just do not lose yourself.

needed

what i needed was out,
and what you needed was me, in.
there is no winning.

now, what you need is out and i
am too far ahead to reach back for you.

i am here for you, but i know
it's not the same as being there,
for you.

i'm sorry.

life is kind of funny, in a sad, dark way:
i never knew i was worth being needed by anybody
until i was too far away to remind you
of your own worth, too.

please be okay.

outta yer head

i just wish i knew what was or wasn't normal behaviour.
i keep checking in with my boss because we aren't very busy right now and i just want him to know that it's not like i'm slacking on work i could be doing, it's a lot of hurry up and wait happening, and i just want to make sure he knows i'm not bumming off, i dunno
and he keeps just like reassuring me that it's fine and that he trusts me and that i don't have to check in, but i feel like i ought to anyway and just ugh.

sometimes i really wonder how broken i look to other people.

"when you get better."

what a loaded statement
while i am loaded up on medications
that still don't keep me full, i

try to understand that you don't mean it like that
but i have never been good at understanding,
and isn't that the problem.

"when you get better,"
and this is all i've ever been
and all i ever will be

is sorry for that.

i know it's not enough, never enough,
never, never, never,
is -

"when you get better,"

is never, never, never.

prescription

the label reads anti-psychotic
but it's just the pills,
not me.

pisces

it's a fog that rolled in
the minute my mother and father made eye contact
and it hasn't rolled out since.

my forecast never called
for anything but grey.

and so, you see,
when you try to tell me that
"it will get better,"
i try to picture the sun, i do -
but i don't know what it looks like.

summer's never coming.

i'm the february gloom.

ablaze

i want you to do something,
for me.

i want you to invite your ex-boyfriend
into your house. i want you to tell him,
"make yourself at home."

i know he lied and cheated
while you were honest, but so am i -
trust me, trust me, trust me.

call up your estranged grandmother.
tell her to drop by for tea.

find the time, someday, to invite her over.
"come in, come in," you will say.
"please, take off your coat."

i want you to hold your front door open
for the girl who laughed at you in high school,
made you feel so fucking small -

wave her in.
tell her, "welcome."
it's okay.

trust me.

i want you to invite every little bad thought,
every insecurity and every negative emotion,
every scrap of self-doubt or self-hatred
that you have ever felt, let them
wash over you and in, in
over the welcome mat.

i want you to welcome into your home
everyone and everything that has ever made you feel
like less.

and i want you to sit everyone down
so they're nice and comfortable,

and i want you to go to the drawer in the dining room
and pull out the matches,

and i want you to say to everyone,
"let me just step out for one quick moment,"

and i want you to go outside
and burn that fucking house to the ground.

i want you to take everyone and everything
that has ever made you feel like you were less
and i want you to

make them less.

i want you to do this, please, for me.

because when the flames die down
and the ashes of all these sad, angry, awful things
has blown away on the wind, i promise -

i will teach you how to do it
for you.

young lady

my mother used to warn me, used to say
"you're an attractive young lady,
you have to be careful."

don your lipstick,
put your heels on,
walk away.

that i should have to exercise caution
for fitting into someone else's idea of a pleasing aesthetic
was always such undue punishment -
that these thoughts should even be placed
in my young mind, that -

the man talking to you in the breakfast aisle of the grocery store
wants to have sex with you. this whole conversation,
"i prefer the one with granola,"
he's been imagining holding you down,
pinning your body, so small beneath him,
fucking you, fucking you, fucking you.

don your lipstick,
put your heels on,
walk away.

"you have to be careful."

that i should have to question, second guess,
why anyone would talk to me,
why? why, if not for
that.

that dirty thing i keep being told i'm supposed to like
while in the same breath being told to fear it, be careful, so careful,
and in the exhale, under the breath there, i can hear it:
this is what you're good for. this is it.

this is all.

don your lipstick,
put your heels on,
walk away.

when i was young i used to fear
halloween and monsters under the bed;
ghosts, werewolves, witches.

i grew up the moment i learned
that what i really ought to fear
is men, is sex, is my own body.

i wore makeup for the first time in eighth grade,
and my mother cried, said,

"be careful, be careful, be careful."

and i wiped the lipstick from my unkissed mouth,
felt it come off charred, burnt black.

i hid my body, this weapon against me,
clenched my jaw, lowered my brow,
hoped to god this was it, this was careful -

don your lipstick,
put your heels on,
walk away.

my first pair of heeled shoes, and my mother's boyfriend
told me that high heels were only invented to make women
look better for men.

i found files on my mother's computer,
letters she had written,
explaining to her boyfriend why it hurt her
that he was attracted to me.

never been touched and i was filthy, dirty,
ruining this, ruining, ruining.

i never asked for the attention;
just wanted to play with the facepaint,
just wanted to hear my footsteps click and clack.

i grew up when i stopped fearing the dark,
when i stopped believing in werewolves and witches
and started trying to arm myself with their tactics.

don your lipstick,
put your heels on,
walk away.

my lipstick is black
and my heels have spikes
and when i walk away you better know not to follow.

i will destroy my own body before anyone else has the chance to.
and i will take you down with me.

"you're an attractive young lady,
you have to be careful."

don your lipstick,
put your heels on,
walk away.