isn't
it
just
magical
how
i
can
draw
with
silver
but
it
turns
out­
red?

my poetry makes you
sound like you’re a terrible
person, but really,
you’re just a fallen angel
trying to find your way back
home.

every moment i've had with any of you
is a moment of borrowed time
and the books are overdue.

you were the grunge
the thick paints on a feeble canvas
the weightless smoke in a tense room
the stars in the night sky

sometimes i wonder
if i myself am real
which leads me to think
are any of you?
what's to say
that this isn't some elaborate dream?
all i'm sure of
is that if you aren't real
you surely are the best thing i've ever dreamed up.

is it bad
that i hope
you don’t find
any of these
because they are too much
i read them
and i realise
how i sound
*******
these are horrible
i want you to know how i feel
but this is too much
too soon

I'm fragile. I know this, you know this, the homeless guy we pass on the way home from using our stupid food stamps knows this. He knows because he's seen me cry after glancing at him. I cry because I've been in his shoes, and I know how heartbreaking it is to see car after car drive by and nobody stops to offer you help. I've told him that I wish we could help more, when we bought him a muscle milk and some jerky at the gas station. We were broke, less than 50 dollars in our account. But we still had to get him something, because it hurt so much to see him smile at everyone just for them to speed pass.
I'm fragile. I am but a bubble, waiting to pop at any given moment. waiting on a needle or a finger to take a stab at me. Waiting on the curious being with no malicious intent to stare a little too long, and to point at me excitedly. When they do, I wobble, so close to bursting. Sometimes I do, in fact, shatter, as if I weren't really a liquid bubble but a solid one blown from glass. When I splinter, words fly and storm the pages with black ink spills and red tears and vast empty spaces. I scream until I can't scream any longer. I sob and pick up some of the pieces of me, just to scratch my surface and colour that glass scarlet. I have no desire to make you drip red with me.
But I think maybe I need to really break, to be ground into a million tiny pieces, with all the screaming and sobbing attached, so we can begin again. So my emotions can be raw and visceral and intense. So maybe the doctors and therapists who are trying to slowly peel back layers, just to be met with solid resistance of a complete wreckage, can slowly provide ME with the tools to piece myself back together again. Because back then, I know you were terrified. You were paralyzed with fear when I wrote that letter, the one apologizing profusely to you. You were stopped completely as you saw me writhing through that first disassociative panic attack. You snapped to and held me down, because the thought of seeing me hurt myself was too jarring for you to just sit back and watch. But there were also so many amazing things. We both felt more in love than we do when we fight and yell and let ugly words paint our skin and the spaces between us. You used to brush your lips on the back of my knuckles, humming the tune of our song and smiling each and every time I spared a glance in your direction. We went on long, nonsensical drives, watching the sun set and feeling the fresh air whip our hair around. We used to laugh and pelt each other with cheez-its when we had the TV locked in the closet where we slept. we had a fire going in the somehow still functional fireplace.
But with the first of the year, it seemed like we started getting small fractures in the previously bulletproof glass that was our relationship. We were unbreakable, but now pieces keep chipping off and we're so close to shattering beyond repair. Those thoughts keep returning, the ones that led me to write that ****** letter in the first place. I never wanted to hurt you. But now it feels like I get some satisfaction. I'm sick. Not just physically, but mentally as well. I need to shatter again, to get back to that point so we can heal together, heal anew. To hit that ******* restart button. To go back to step one. Maybe we shouldn't have proposed to each other so soon. But I know I can never give this ring back to you. i take it off sometimes when we argue, but I always go back to it. I need it to feel whole and centered. I need it to be okay. I feel disgusting even taking it off to cook, or shower, or to do the ****** dishes. I can't lose you. And that's why I'm writing this. I need you to understand that I need to fragment. WE need me to do so. It's for you, for us, for me. I need you to understand this. It's not a new thought. It's one I've been stewing over for seven months. Please don't be mad at me. Please try to understand. But part of recovery is relapse. I haven't done anything, but I feel every day more and more like I'm shutting down. I constantly feel like I'm running out of battery. I need to refresh before school starts again. I don't know how it's going to happen or what I'm going to do. But please, please try to understand.
I love you.

the tap dancers in my skull
swing to different tunes
each of them grabbing a different piece
and yanking, pulling, breaking
making my head feel ready to explode.
the pins and needles I used to feel
in my kneecaps
has now become a battalion
of trauma-ridden soldiers
shooting small brown kids
and feeling something
in the empty shell of what once was.
the hammering in my spine
is now a fleet of construction workers
and heavy machinery
operated by 400-pound muscled men.
My body has gone
from somewhat sturdy
to a fragile work of glass-blown bubbles
ready to burst.
I use a wheelchair
to prevent my inevitable dizziness
and knee buckles
that send me toppling to the floor.
I take managed medication
for a cacophony of mental health issues
not to mention
the obvious, glaring physical ones
but according to the
American healthcare system
I'm "just not disabled enough"
and I must find a job
even though
nobody will hire me.

I
WANT
NO,
I NEED
TO KNOW
ARE WE?
OR WAS IT JUST SOMETHING
THAT YOU SAID
TO MAKE ME FEEL BETTER?
PLEASE
JUST TELL ME

LET ME BE THE ANTIDEPRESSANTS YOU NEED EVERYDAY
LET ME BE THE REASON BEHIND YOUR SMILE
LET ME BE THE BANDAID YOU PUT ON YOUR THOUGHTS
LET ME BE THE ONE TO STOP YOUR ANXIETY
LET ME BE THE ONE TO MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER
LET ME BE YOURS

this air of confidence
i have
is carefully constructed
of nothing more
than toothpicks and marshmallows
and it has been left to melt
in the window of my fourth-grade classroom
destined to crumble and melt away
if it manages to survive
the threat of being crushed

I told you I’d try
But I’m already so close
To giving up
Not on you,
But on
myself