even the best fall down sometimes

I am not a graceful person. I am not a Sunday morning or Friday sunset. I am a Tuesday 2am. I am a gunshot, muffled by the city blocks. I am a broken window during a November night. My bones crack on a nightly basis. I fall from grace with nothing but a dull thud, While apologising for my awkward sadness. I sometimes believe that I don’t belong around people, I belong to all the February 29ths in the leap years that didn’t happen. I can easily become all that’s wrong with the world. But if you stay a little longer, I swear I can make it up to you

I wanted to die And all you cared about was The size of my bra.

ONE: i was four years old and i made cakes out of play dough for my preschool teacher i was four years old and i didn’t understand why my mother was laughing so hard on the coach until i realized she was crying TWO: my best friend and i wore matching halloween costumes my best friend pulled my skirt down in first grade in front of the whole class THREE: the principle came into my fourth grade class to listen to my teacher sing and play his guitar the principle came into my fourth grade class to tell us our teacher had been hit by a car FOUR: when i was twelve years old i grew four inches and lost ten pounds when i was twelve years old i took a razor and sliced my thigh for the first time FIVE: freshman year of high school i learned how to love myself freshman year of high school i accidentally lit my leg on fire and watched the skin melt off SIX: tonight i helped my dad make dinner tonight i took four shots and cried in the shower

It starts when you first get a 62 on your history test that you stayed up until 3 am studying for. You brush it off but deep down inside it disappoints you and you’re angry at yourself. Then you start eating lunch with your biology teacher instead of the 7 people at your lunch table. They ask you why you don’t sit with them anymore and you say, “oh I have a lot of work to catch up on!” when in reality you are completely caught up. Your friends ask less and less everyday about where you are and they avoid making eye contact with you in the lunch line. Then getting out of bed and doing a simple task like brushing your teeth is a chore. It takes so much time to force yourself to do the simple things a five-year-old can do. Then you start skipping breakfast, eating only an apple for lunch, and forcing down piece of bread for dinner if you’re lucky. Your appetite has suddenly vanished, you favorite food on the dinner table makes you sick. Then you start to think that you’re fat, useless, stupid, and a failure. Your hours of sleep go up from 7 hours to 10 hours and you feel like you can sleep all day. Not because you’re tired, but because you’re depressed. You lie down on your bed as soon as you get home from school and stare at the paint chipping of your ceiling for hours before your mom walks in on you. She yells at you to stop being so lazy and to do your homework that you haven’t been doing for the past few months. You drag that sharp metal razor across your skin and dark red seeps through that thin line you just created. You feel in control and this physical pain on the outside overcomes your emotional pain in the inside. You’re afraid of death but think about dying - drowning, jumping off buildings, carbon monoxide, and overdosing on your medication. And eventually, the thought of death no longer scares you.

1. I’m losing myself under this constant current. I feel like I am made of the most fragile glass and every rock I am thrown into, I shatter; my pieces scattering and I am afraid I will never find them. I will never find them. 2. Everybody seems to be doing okay so I will keep my mess to myself. But I am dying. Can’t you see? I am dying, world. I am dying, dreams. I am dying, love. I am dying, self. 3. The only comfort I can find is when I am chasing these pills with alcohol. I am doing everything to destroy myself so quietly. I don’t want to be bad again so what the fuck am I doing? 4. Somewhere inside of me there is something human. Maybe it was there when I was a child. Maybe it ran and hid when the monsters housed themselves in my chest. If I keep digging, if I keep tearing out my veins, maybe it will kill off the bad. Maybe it will set me free. 5. Love and hate is the same thing when you think about it. Both red. Both hot. Both overbearing. So perhaps when I scream out how much I hate myself, all people will hear is ‘love. love. love.’ Please don’t hear me for what I am. 6. I have looked in the hearts of all the people I can find and there is so much color. So much light. So much good. My heart is a tornado that sucks in all the bright it can find. It is as dark as my brown eyes and sometimes I am not sure I exist. 7. I’m okay. How are you? 8. Hate me. Hate me so you can see you deserve so much more. I am so sorry. 9. I do not know who I am without this sadness and I am scared. I cannot tell you if I want to be better because there is a romance so intense in this place. It is familiar and I do not like change. 10. Do you ever think gravity gives up on certain people? Maybe the ones that have a soul so damned that it cannot be held down. Maybe I am falling into space and I will run out of air soon. Maybe this is why I am connected to oxygen more times than I am speaking. Where am I? Where the fuck am I?

Aries - sometimes the only thing you can count on is your own word; be so honest with yourself that it doesn’t matter how many lies are on someone else’s tongue. Taurus - if you are afraid that some parts of you are hard for other people to swallow, remember that letting another person swallow you whole is not something to be proud of. Gemini - sometimes your last goodbye to someone comes out shaky and unsure, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t obvious that your heart was in it. Cancer - we both feel things so differently, but I don’t think that has ever stopped us from understanding each other. Leo - so many things are so scary, but so many of those terrifying things are also inevitable; you can either spend your whole life worrying yourself about those things, or you can try to accept them gracefully. Virgo - I can’t stand anything that makes me imagine a life without you in it. Libra - be safe with your sadness; be kind to your healing. Scorpio - people might try to put blame on you when you have done nothing wrong, but it is always okay to speak up for yourself when others are trying to speak over you. Sagittarius - grief is a tricky thing: you want to stop feeling it, but when you do, guilt often takes its place; remember that it’s okay to heal. Capricorn - being difficult is not easy, and neither is being honest; plant yourself so deep that nothing can sway you, no matter how much you wish you could be disloyal to yourself just once. Aquarius - sometimes hurt comes disguised as light; sometimes love is hidden in darkness, and you can only begin to feel it when you see beyond what you’ve been taught shelter looks like. Pisces - I just want you to feel safe, but I think the world is just too loud for that sometimes.

In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically me because I alone chose it – I own everything about me. My body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or to myself – I own my fanatasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears – I own all my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me – by so doing I can love me and be friendly with me in all my parts – I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know – but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and for ways to find out more about me – However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me – If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded – I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me – I own me, and therefore I can engineer me – I am me and I AM OKAY

I’ll never be what you need, I’m the drug that kissed your lips at a party two years ago, the high you could never find again. You think that you love my dull eyes and the way my hips move as I trudge through this life, you think that you truly love the girl with a heavy heart and tired lungs. This girl has a pretty face and a mind you never pay much attention to, but you think there’s stardust in her veins, right? You think there’s something special, something she just hasn’t had the guts to show you? Maybe she’s just fucking normal, and maybe just fucking depressed. There is nothing beautiful in pain. There is nothing beautiful in scars. There is nothing beautiful in starvation. There is nothing beautiful in these eyes that can’t seem to brighten like yours. Do you think my hands, my scarred hands, could ever grasp yours without shaking? That these words clasped in my throat could ever be what you wanted? Did you honestly think that I could be the girl you could take home and say “this is mine”? I am not an object to be ogled over, I am not sweet poetry, nor am I an angel sent to save you. I am flesh. I am entirely too human. I am the air that I breathe and the sweat on my skin, I am not the visions dancing through your mind when you slumber. You can’t make art out of chapped lips and tired eyes. I will never be what you want me to be.

My mother warned me about cigarettes that could cause cancer But she never told me that self-hatred can grow faster than any tumour ever could My father warned me that I should never stop thinking But he never told me that overthinking would kill my happiness My sister warned me about other people who might make hurtful comments about me But she never told me that instead of hearing someone else’s voice, I’d hear my own My brother warned me about drugs in baggies sold on the street, But he never told me about the ones that people put in your glass when you’re not looking My grandmother warned me about the devil with his tail and red horns But she never told me about his angelic smile and dark, ocean blue eyes My grandfather warned me about booze that could kill But he never told me that if you drink enough alcohol, it tastes like love My cousin warned me that I should lose my virginity to a guy I love But she never told me he should love me, too My aunt warned me that if I kept eating that much, I might vomit But she never told me that even without eating anything, you can hang over the toilet and puke My baby sitter warned me that a boy could break my heart But she never told me that if I made him mad, he’d also break my arm and nose My teacher warned me about dangerous men with knives that could cut my throat But she never told me that I didn’t need these men to cut my skin They all warned me that I shouldn’t do dangerous things that could kill me But I never had the chance to ask them if slitting both of my wrists vertically And taking thirty-eight aspirins, was one of these dangerous things.

i. because one day your daughter will ask you about the scars on your wrists. you will lie. you will say you cut yourself on some glass when you were in high school. she will smile. she will think the story of your clumsiness is charming. she will tease you. she will laugh. you will spend the rest of your life worrying that she will find out, the same way you found out your mother had lied. ii. because it’s not just one summer of wearing long sleeves. it’s going to the beach and clasping your hands over your wrists instead of letting them chase the wind. it’s going shopping and being afraid to try the strapless dress your mother likes, because she might see the red lines. it’s not letting the person you love kiss up and down your arm. it’s not just one summer. it’s a constant, flashing, screaming, hiding in the back of your mind. iii. because it won’t make you feel better. it might make it easier to breathe for a little bit, but see the blood will dry and you will panic and how do you clean the wound and see the skin swells and then it burns and it’s not poetic, it just hurts. iv. because someone loves you. either your mama, your dad, your sister or your brother, your best friend or your boyfriend, but someone, in your life loves you. they love your skin like it contains galaxies, for you they’d move mountains, they want to kiss your tears away. you have a home in their arms. now and forever. and all they ask is not to hurt the person they love. all they ask is to keep the stars within you alive, to let the galaxies expand. v. because you will get better and life will get better and days will get shorter and hours will get fuller. you will get better and when you do you won’t know how to make amends with your own body, how to apologise to it. you will get better, but your body will remember. vi. because you still haven’t seen the sunrise over the ocean and you haven’t driven down the highway with the roof down and wind ringing in your ears. you haven’t kissed for hours that passed in a blink of an eye. you haven’t seen your favourite movie yet and you haven’t discovered you new favorite book. you haven’t built a snow fort with the love of your life. you haven’t danced it all out. or maybe you have. but are you really sure? are you absolutely certain that you’ve done everything you’ve ever wanted to do? everything you could ever possibly want to do? are you sure? vii. because no sunrise is the same, and if you’ve seen it over the ocean, now it’s the time to climb mountains my dear. it’s time to fight.

At first, I had trouble dating a girl who was recovering from an eating disorder. I couldn’t get by the fact that I may not ever be able to treat her to a nice dinner because she simply could not go out. I hated sitting by and watching her as she ignored the compliments I gave her and constantly commented on how she wished to look like “that girl”, or “her over there”. And it used to bother me that there were so many things she just couldn’t eat. Then I realized that eating out wasn’t important in a relationship like ours. What was important was our meals together at home, and how I knew exactly what to make her every night. How we sat together at the beginning of each week and spent at most an hour at a time planning the meals we would share. How appreciative she looked when I refused to sit in silence at the table to keep her from focusing on the calories that entered her body. I almost enjoyed that I knew exactly what she couldn’t eat, and I soon got past the fact that we might not ever be able to order pizza from domino’s on a Friday night while we watched Harry Potter in the living room. All I cared about eventually was helping her, and that was what a relationship should be like. I loved her so much that I could stand the nights where she stood in front of the mirror and cried, and it would tear my heart to pieces when she would ask me why I could ever love someone that looked like her. I would hold her, I wouldn’t tell her she was beautiful more than once or twice, and that was all. I trusted her and she I enough that we could sit together every night and she could tell me whether or not she had thrown up her lunch, even if I already knew because I was so scared that I watched her after every meal. Even if I knew, though, I never stopped her, because they were her battles, and I knew that no matter how much it hurt, me fighting them for her wouldn’t help. Soon enough though, I saw that she became more confident. Her trips to the restroom following meals became fewer until I could relax, knowing that there was a good chance she was safe. There were less times when she looked at the mirror and pinched fat that was actually only skin. Finally, she asked me to take her out for dinner. Finally, we ordered domino’s on a Friday night and watched Harry Potter. And that, that’s what love is.

GOOGLE SEARCH:Painless ways to kill yourself.i. There is no painless way to kill yourself, someone, somewhere, will feel the pain.ii. The internet says, “sleeping pills, you will fall asleep and never wake up! You won’t feel a thing!” When that is a lie, your stomach will turn to fire and your throat will fill with the taste of your own stomach acid. You will drown in your own spit. That isn’t even the worst party, it’s when your mother comes home from work. She will walk through the door, and call out your name. She will call and call and there will be no response, maybe you’re in the shower? Maybe you’re asleep? She will walk up the stairs, knock on your door to receive no answer. When she walks in she will see the lifeless body of her baby girl, lying on the floor. Her heart will stop but she will run to you with shaky knees, touching your face that is now still and cold. Her body will be on fire, and her throat will begin to tighten, the sharp pains in her chest will feel like knives in the heart. That image will kill her more than her own death, it will haunt her living years each night. She will no longer be alive, but just as dead as you are now.iii. Years ago, your father showed you the gun safe he kept in the house in case of emergencies, you knew the pass code, you knew how to shoot and loud, at least you had an idea. They say a bullet to the brain will do the job.. So one night, when your father is fast asleep, you will be down the hallway staring down the mouth of a gun. One, two, three..Your father’s heart will jump and his body will follow, the first thing he thinks of is you. He will scream your name and run down the hallway and bang on your door. It’s locked. His knees begin to feel weak as he bruises his body trying to knock down the door, the first sight he see’s in blood splattered on the wall. At that moment his breath began to stop, and his eyes wandered to yours. Still open, but no more life inside your shell. He will drop to his hands and knees and scream why, why, why. There will never be a day he won’t hate himself, for keeping a gun in the house, for not making you happy, for not knowing. He will live a life without a son, live a life with an empty space. Live a life of hurt, and hatred for himself. iv. You may think that when you’re dead and gone you will not be hurting anyone. You may think when you slide a blade across your wrist, you’re only hurting yourself. Yet I have learned that is not true, it’s not. The person who will find your body, the one who see’s the cuts, their chest will feel tight and they will feel like it was their fault for letting it get this far. The only mark you will be leaving on them is pain, hurt, and the question why? So please note this, there is pain in every suicide attempt, every death, every cut. You are not only hurting your life, but others too. Because you are cared for.