x r

mulan

i'm sick, i'm sick, and i -
i'm losing weight and losing time, i
don't know what i look like anymore,
who this person i'm supposed to be is;
don't know if i ever did, i'm just -
i feel like i've been dropped
out of the sky, out of my mind, it's like -
where have i been, where have i been,
where have i been that i
don't recall how i got to be
this body and these actions and i,
i don't know who i am anymore
because i'm starting to realize
i don't think i ever knew
who i was after all.
i'm sick, i'm sick, and i -
i'm losing, losing,
lost.

kinley

it's funny, looking back;
reflection isn't something i'm very good at doing all the time,
and maybe that's why i never saw this the way
i now wish i had.

sometimes you convince yourself that someone is worth trusting,
and you convince yourself so thoroughly that you ignore all evidence,
presented before or thereafter,
that this person
is not worth
trusting.

but let's get a bit less ambiguous.

look:

i know you're stressed.
you put a lot of pressure on yourself when it comes to school,
and i have always respected and worried for you
because of that.

i know you're not good at confrontation.
it's admirable, in a way, that it's something you want to avoid -
even if it means that, let's be honest,
you spend an awful lot of time
talking behind backs.

and let's be fair, it's not just you.

i know i'm hard to talk to.
"i can dish it out but i can't take it."
i'm brash and abrasive and not always the most approachable person ever,
but you have always found it in you
to seek me out when
you've needed it.

you keep calling me selfish.

why couldn't you find it in you
to seek me out when
i needed it?

i told you this on multiple occasions and i trusted you enough to understand:
i need to be told plainly and specifically when and if i am doing something wrong,
or if i need to change something.

i don't understand how you can be so smart
and yet honestly believe that you were doing me a favor
by not telling me about all these little things i could have changed or prevented,
and letting them build up until you couldn't keep it in any longer.

i can't change things now.

and i understand that i can be hard to deal with because of a lot of things,
depression not the least of it i'm sure.

but how could you possibly believe that keeping all these molehills to yourself
and unloading them on me as mountains
could possibly be okay?

i don't know why you get so angry when i get upset
after you basically let me know that you've been angry at me for ages
and just haven't said a thing?

the other day i asked you,
"are you angry at me, or have i done anything recently?"
because you'd been quiet for a while and i wasn't sure if it was stress
or if it was me.

and, as always, your answer was no.

this isn't the first time you've lied to me like that.

and i'm sorry that you don't think enough of my attempts to make sure things are fine
to even remember them come the time you decide you want to fight about it,
but they're there. they have happened.

i have tried.

but i cannot try any longer.

when we first moved in together you promised me that things would be open
and we would talk and it wouldn't be like it had been for you in the year before,
when you let things bubble up inside you 'til you burst.

i have been nothing but open to you.
and maybe because you came to me in tears a few times i believed the same about you,
but you have proved me wrong.

and that's the most shameful part of it, really.
is that when it all comes down to it, this is still my fault.

i trusted you and the evidence was right in front of me that i shouldn't
and i trusted you anyway and you hurt me like you hurt others
and i trusted you anyway
and i trusted you anyway
and i trusted you anyway.

tonight we fought,
and it was two against one like it always is,
and i guess, in that respect, i lost.

i am used to losing.

but then,
when you knew that i was crying in my room,
alone -

you left.

i can't use suicide as a threat, in all honesty,
because i care about suicide an awful lot more than that.

but you knew.
you knew.

you knew i had what i needed in there to do it -
the thing you keep desperately trying to prove to me
that you don't want me to do.

and all your arguments,
every word, has been undone,
just with this:
you left.

i could have.
i could have, and you wouldn't have been there to stop me.
less than that, i could have, and you wouldn't have been there
to care.

you're right, you do have your priorities sorted -
"some people still have to pass their classes,"
thank you, thank you, thank you.

i could have,
alone in my room tonight,
and you wouldn't have cared.
and that is why i didn't.

because never again in my life
will i give you the power to believe
that you can make an effect on me.

i have never been more disappointed with another human being in my life -
and this is coming from the girl whose own mother doesn't want her.

i am pretty disappointed in myself,
every second of every day for as long as i can remember,
especially for trusting you.

but that aside,
i hope you find relief
in not having to worry about me anymore.

you repulse me.

goodbye.

thank you:

every night i come home to a collection of pills
and i have to remind myself to take the right amount;
no more, no less.

and i'm sorry if this hurts you -
if it bothers you to hear;

i wish it were not so.
i wish it were not so.
i wish it were not so.

an ode to the vacuum cleaner:

clean your fucking room.
just, get a fucking garbage bag and start sorting your shit out.
stop turning molehills into mountains
just because you're looking for reasons to hate yourself.
clean your fucking room.
stop ruining places that used to be safe
just so you feel validated for lying in bed all day.
get up and go.
clean your fucking room.
you hate this mess.
it's embarrassing. it's disgusting.
it's not a reflection of you and stop telling yourself
that maybe it is just because
it's easier to feel sorry for yourself
than it is to plug in the vacuum.
clean your fucking room.
clean your fucking room.
clean your fucking room.

when is crying yourself to sleep alone in the dark supposed to become romantic

crossed

you described it as "alarming."

oh,
i realized,
too late as always.

that was it.
that was the line.

shit

i want to talk to you about suicide.

it's the great dirty "s" word;
selfish, sneaky,
sad.

the problem with depression is that there's a misconception therein -
a misunderstanding that makes people think that i'm sad,
and that's not quite it, it's not -

the problem is that when people think that depression means you're sad,
they think all they have to do is make you happy.

people think that if it's not one, it has to be the other,
and that's all well and good except you're trying to measure me
on the wrong goddamn scale.

i'm not sad - i'm.

i'm tired.

i am tired in a way that sleep cannot cure,
and trust me, i have tried -

spent days in the dark pretending to be dead,
but pretending isn't good enough after a while.

i want the real thing.

so let's talk about suicide.
let's really, really talk about it, and i want you to try to understand
how depression kills people.

my story is simple:
my mother was depressed,
my father was too stupid to be depressed,
toss in some mental instability and substance abuse
and voila: a recipe for my gene pool.

i came out about as well as you'd expect.

therapy started young,
medication soon thereafter,
and as i got older the appointments decreased
while the dosages climbed.

i've been diagnosed with a few things:
manic depression, obsessive compulsive disorder,
borderline personality disorder,
and vague sociopathic tendencies.

i'm real fun at parties.

the thing was, for a while, it was enough.
having a name for these things, knowing it wasn't me -
it was okay.

"a fault in chemical, not in character."

it wasn't my fault that my brain wasn't programmed right.
it wasn't my fault that i was broken;
i was born that way.

i have never been whole.

you can see how quickly this line of reasoning
can turn from comforting to condemning.

this is how terrible a person i am:
there are days that i wish i had cancer
so i had a valid reason to die.

or, if not a valid reason to die,
i could know that at one point in my life
i hadn't had cancer.

even if i had it now, it was okay -
it wasn't always like this.

i have always been depressed. i have always had whatever various
chemical screw-up happening in my brain that makes it so that
i can't do the things that other people can do.

there are days that i can't get out of bed.
there are days where i am lucky if i remember to feed myself.
there are days when i cannot stand my own existence.

and the problem, the pervasive, ugly truth of it
is that on the days that i manage to do all these things,
all i can think about is killing myself.

i'm on the side of the road and a bus drives by and i think,
i could have been in front of that.

i'm home alone, cutting up vegetables and i think,
i could open me up. i know how.

i'm counting out my prescription medication,
adding milligram by milligram and i think,
i could do it. i could go.

it is always, always, always.

suicide.

i am writing this on november 13th 2013,
and i have 1140 milligrams of escitalopram and 450 milligrams of quetiapine.
likely not fatal dosages, to be honest, and i won't risk waking up.
so here we are.

today i had to weigh in at the nurse's office,
and she kept telling me there was "nothing to me,"
and i wished that it was true.

i am suicidal. and i need you to know that what that means is not that i wish to die,
but that i wish i was dead already.

more than that, i wish i had never been alive.

i wish i had never had the chance to know people
and do and see and and touch and think and feel things
and have an effect on the world.

this is it:
a suicide letter from someone who is still alive.

because here's the tricky part, the hurtful truth, with suicide:
you will be accused of being selfish for not staying alive for other people.

this is true, trust me -
i've had it thrown in my face time and time again,
that shouldn't it be enough that other people want me to be alive?
never mind what i want, no - how could i do that?

how could i hurt other people like that?

and i have to admit that i've never fully understood this argument
because you have to know that i'm not trying to hurt you -
how can you not know that i don't want to hurt you?

and if you do think i'm doing it to try to hurt you,
how the hell am i the kind of person you want to stick around?

it's a pretty precarious situation, because the bare bones of it is that
if i kill myself, i hurt you in the process of getting what i want.
if i don't kill myself, i hurt myself in the process of giving you what you want.

correlation may not be causation and all that,
but it literally hurts me to be alive.

the only reason i am here still is because i don't want to hurt other people.

my own father called me selfish.

i don't want to cut myself because i'm scared that other people will find the mess.
overdosing seems easy but i don't want someone else to have to clean up my body and my vomit.
guts and gore were never my thing, and i shudder to think about the things
the human body releases in sudden death,
if you catch my drift.

on "danger nights," when i am scared that i might hurt myself,
i sleep in full and clean pajamas in case someone has to find me.

and these are just the big ways i might ruin someone's life,
but every day of living with depression is me chipping away
little pieces of other people who have to deal with me.

friends who have stayed with me all night to make sure i don't do anything,
my dad, who calls me long distance every 4 seconds to make sure i do something,
my mother, who hasn't spoken to me in 3 years because
i am literally volatile.

i don't understand how people don't see
that i am hurting everyone around me and inside me every second of being here,
and if i could just rip it off, like a bandaid,
just - let me, let me.

depression is killing me.
it has always been here.
it will always be here.

and i am tired of trying to fool the world into thinking
that maybe somehow i will "get through it,"

because depression isn't curable. it's only treatable.
and i will never "get through it." i will never be done with it.
i will have to treat it for the rest of my life.

that is exhausting.

and i am so, so tired.

i am sorry for suicide.
i am sorry for those who are hurt by it,
and i am sorry for those who end their hurting with it.

i'm sorry.

add it to the list of dirty "s" words.

higher education, lower self worth

i am a participant in a system that introduces me to friends
who literally do not have time to care about me.

and why should they?

the problem with hating yourself
is that you make yourself a very easy person
for other people to hate too.

and i am so tired of waiting
for somebody to prove me fucking wrong.

it's not fair of me to pin this burden on anyone else,
and yet lord knows i can't be trusted
to bear the burden
myself.

for all that everyone sees my flaws, i'm the only one who sees how to fix them

my roommates told me i was selfish and i
wanted to melt into the walls;

every day that i'm alive is a struggle
for the sake of everybody else and i'm
sorry if it's still not enough -

i'm so tired of always getting angry
only to find that i'm the one at fault.

everything in my life proves the same thing,
over and over and over again:

things would be better
without me here.

a riddle

i want a break from being. my bones are heavy
and i'm tired of fueling this flesh with anything but fire.

burn me alive. char me to death.
i'm so tired of sucking in breath,
i need release.

i am tied to so many things that i can't bear to care about
and everyone i try to love enough to explain this to
sheds tears that i can't mirror.

there are a lot of somethings that i wish i could destroy,
but there is only one someone.

ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
i am tired of mattering.

no more, no more.

guess who.

i'm sorry you can't see it

'cause it's all inside my head;

it's a beautiful morning

and i can't get out of bed.

nurse

sign my cast.

sign it, "get well soon." sign it, "bffl!"
sign it with your name in a heart.

i can't draw my name in a heart
because most of the time it makes me laugh,
but some of the time it makes me cry.

yesterday i gripped the desk and gasped for air
and cried so hard i blew out my candles.

happy sweet 16 years of therapy,
happy's just another word whose definition doesn't strike me quite right,
but i have prescriptions for that.

shall i show them to you?
in lieu of a doctor's note, a letter from my parents?

this is what's wrong with me.

this is why i couldn't come to class last week,
why i had the readings done and my paper complete
and they stayed on my desk until they were four days late.

i can't get out of bed some mornings.

i hate it.

i'm awake and i know i have to go and i just can't.
i can move, can roll over, i'm not paralyzed, it's not -
it's not something i can explain from the outside,
but i can't get out of bed some mornings.

sign my cast.

i want to look down at a plaster case that's going to hold me together and heal me.
i want to see all the names of the people who asked me what happened;
the names of who i got to tell.

i can't carry my prescriptions around like a fucking battle wound.

you can't sign my fucking pills before i swallow them,
trying to heal up the cuts that bandages can't hide because they're fucking inside me.

how am i supposed to tell people what's wrong
when i don't fucking know?

nothing is wrong.

it's just that sometimes i forget that my room is messy
and then when i remember i start to cry.

sometimes i think people hate me,
and then i hate myself for thinking i'm important enough
for other people to anything me.

sometimes i want to die.

a lot of the time, i want to die.

there's no splint or sling that can hold me together.
and the worst part is that if anyone asks me what happened,
i will have to tell them,

"nothing."

this was no accident.
i was born broken.

there is no such thing as "get well soon" for me.

sign my cast,
"i'm sorry. i'm sorry. i'm sorry."

fog

spent all morning fending off the heat, the hurt;
the cold-sweat bleeding through the soul, the skin, the shirt.
spent all morning in a single blink; my eyes sealed shut trying not to think -
spent all morning fending off the heat, the hurt.

numbers

six minutes to go and i
can't force myself to start, i have to
wait until the time is right.
it's longer than five and shorter than ten
and seven is sometimes okay but not now.
not now.
the clocks have all gone digital,
so i can't map out two and a half minutes anymore
unless i count,
i count,
i count the seconds while pouring out a glass of milk
and if i don't time it right it overflows
but i can't just turn it back.
i have to
wait until the time is right,
until the numbers add up,
and now it's four minutes to go and i've missed it.
i've missed
being free from numbers,
and maybe if i wait for three i can squeeze on through but
that means there's only two minutes that have passed
and it's not okay.
it's not okay, it's not
a matter of choosing to count
as much as some days it feels like the counting chose me
and i can't, i can't, i can't
just leave, come on, we're going to be late.
i can't
just stop in the middle of ten taps to the desk,
how many lines in this poem before i can leave,
how many lines must i force myself across
before i stop tallying them up in my fucking head;
i have to skip steps at work because there are fourteen of them
and it is one step short
of okay.
i am always
one step short
of okay.