"hi there,
I'm here to confirm your death
this is your last chance- speak now or forever hold your peace!"
(writes ‘patient lying in bed with eyes closed. no signs of life. identity confirmed.')

"i'm just going to perform a few tests
can you hear me? (she shakes them, inflicts one final pain)
does this hurt?"
(writes 'no response to verbal cues or supraorbital pressure')

"i'm just going to have a listen in to your chest"
their heart is finally still
not broken, or aching
lungs empty,
forever breathless
(writes 'no heart or lung sounds on auscultation, no carotid pulse on palpation')

“i’m just going to shine a wee light into your eye)
she pries open their lids and looks for life,
finds the same every time
empty tunnels gazing above
eyes wide open, taking in what comes next
what horror? what wonder?
(writes 'pupils fixed and dilated')

“that’s us all done now, they’ll take you down to the morgue”
uttered to a body waxy and fixed
often warm
hands held by so many
now forevermore empty
('death verified at/on')

and then-

she strokes their hair, the way their mother did as they were laid in her arms
gently closes their eyes
traces a cross on their foreheads
tucks them into their deathbeds
leaves them to sleep

God, have mercy, on this your child
for you know the life they lived,
you made and dreamed of them
be with those they left

God, be kind
I hope you are at peace
Be at peace

sad small baby with an easter egg and a surgeon who didn’t know her ***
sad helpless parents leaving her to get her chest cracked open
as theirs did the same
sad sad stories and tiny hearts and mine indifferent and cold

we’re going to be okay
aren’t we
three messes broken by the same people
two hearts shattered
all mentally ill
it’s in the family !
One erratic and spilling everything and everywhere
pun intended
one grounded and lonely on the ground
broken by a girl too toxic to have
the other both erratic and messy and lonely
loneliest

i want to take away their pain
cure it with a hug
make them realise
they deserve more than what they settle for
that they’d saved my life
but is that worth anything
and i would absorb their hurt
radiate my happy and bleed me cold

i hate the way my thighs rub together
and the way i feel when people leave
and the rub in my soul
with no reprieve

can they see the ghosts in the gaps between each blink
in the space in which they’ve claimed their own ?

do you like me (yes)
do you want to be talking to me (not anymore)
is it too much (yes)
am i too much (yes)
am i enough (no)
where is this going (to end)
what do you want (he doesn’t know, except not me)
will you hurt me (yes)
is there someone else (there will be)
do you like me (he did)
do you want me (not enough, not anymore)

God gives and God takes. Usually takes. God gives and takes and gives back and takes back. God forgive me my unfairness
“It’s not the end of the world if we break up.”
God, I hope he’s right

He struggles to be with me
I am a struggle to be with
He chose not to struggle

Why do we feel? How do I stop?

Why do we not take away the pain
But then those in pain cannot
And pain for purpose to warn
But what if the harm is only the pain itself
If what is bad is only that it hurts?
It wouldn’t matter that he doesn’t love me if it didn’t hurt
I don't know what love is anymore,
So I drink
Pretty alcoholism for the ache

Strength? Or masochism
Sacrifice? Or emptiness

The pain of being reused in the sheets she chose for him
In the hoodie she wore first
Haunted by a ghost who heard the declarations of love he would never make to me
Being the girl who follows in the shadow she cast
Where what she didn’t give him rendered him unable to accept what I could

I confuse lust for love
Mistranslating tight holds and neck kisses as signs he chose me
That he wants me, not just wants me
My lust, i just want your love

This beautiful boy asleep in my arms
Committing his face to memory
By touch
So that if I were blind and he was in a line
I would know it was he who was mine
So I watch and wish and wait
For him to wake,
For us to break

He let her tell him she loved him
He says he doesn’t know what love is
But he knows that he loved her
That he doesn’t me
And that she tainted this thing he doesn't know for him
And now he, for me

"Do you think you will fall in love with me?"
"Sometimes I do"
And I stay for a sometimes.

The words that should soothe, save, heal
Would end.
The confirmation he suspected
That he cannot
So she holds it in
When she feels like she could burst, spill over
She would give him everything
But her everything is not what he wants
So,
The words remain unspoken and wane

He told her when he said it to her, he would say it every morning and night.
It was if, not when

And eventually, she didn’t crave it
Didn’t need it, didn’t want it
Let it mean nothing
Never said it.

I’m with a boy who will not or cannot love me, or say he loves me
If we accept the love we think we deserve, and I chose and choose him-
It seems fitting
The lack of love I deserve

It’s not right, right now. And the rest is up to God
Oh, God.
In Him I’ll trust.
When the time is right, He the Lord will make it happen
But for now, Him first I need. To seek with all my heart.
To find when He is all I have, that He is all I need and more, much more.
To know and to love. To be right with God.
Everything else can wait. Will wait.
His hands. My story.
Redemption? I pray so.
Is he an Isaac? I pray so.

I cry often and hard at the moment,
From the soul
Anxiety is rampant and how I wish it wouldn’t control me
I’m too heavy for the people I want to bring joy
But he listens and he cares and he knows the outlines of the darkness inside of me
He kissed my hands and my head
When I called him beautiful
He almost cried

follow the light back
patterns traced on my shoulder
there’s warmth and light and goodness
enough that the darkness doesn’t have to consume you

all change
please all change

God is love
And I am in God