Do you remember your last fall, when the leaves changed? We walked side by side down the same streets we always did. There are so many memories in those sidewalks in those trees and in that wind. I miss you so badly sometimes, the change of seasons brings a change in me. I wait for the season to pass so I can pretend I’m okay for another eternity. Scream to me Scream to me from wherever you are. Are you even there at all? I need to see you again. Because sometimes, I feel like you aren’t there at all. I’ve gotten used to your absence but there will always be this lingering absence in me. Your smile still paints the night like it always did. You live on through the little things, the subtle things. I’ll keep this notebook as a time capsule, and as a piece of you in me. And as a cornerstone for all the fighting and struggling that I put myself through in order to find myself again after you went away. I’ll never be the same. I don’t believe in ghosts anymore but I’d like to think that your soul still resides somewhere between these walls because you will always reside in my heart. You will always reside in my heart. Just run away, just run away and never come back. That’s what I keep telling myself but no matter how far I run that sparkle in your tired eyes still glistens in those stars as if nothing ever changed. But everything changed. Everything changed. All I know is that I miss you so much. I miss you so much, but you live on through the little things, the subtle things. And I’m okay with that. Send me a sign tonight to show me that you can still hear me after these years that have passed. I don’t want to stop believing that someone is out there listening. Please show me that there is more than what I see. These years will pass by like wind through the trees, the trees that we watched as they grew and blossomed each year and then fell silent in the winter. Everything has become winter to me. A cold, dead, desolate landscape. And I can’t get myself to care enough to change it. But God, I miss you so much. So badly that I want to fall into a dream and never wake up, one where we only exist in those moments that we shared so long ago. I want to fall into a bed of vibrant color and watch the distorted greyscale slip farther and farther away until I can’t see it anymore. I always was a dreamer wasn’t I? I always your dreamer wasn’t I? I was always a dreamer, and now all I can do is dream. So scream to me from wherever you are, Well are you even there at all? I need to see you again because sometimes it feels like you aren’t there at all. Were you ever here at all?

It was such a sad sight to see the passing days slowly take your life away. It was an interesting year for all of us, each of us with our own experiences and memories. I spent a year watching a beautiful flower wither and lose its color. It was like watching a story unfold before my eyes, through a glass house with no door through which I could see everything but do nothing. We tried so hard to help you, I swear we tried so, so hard to help you but our words were muffled through the glass and fell on deaf ears. There’s nothing you can do to help, they said. There’s nothing we can do. And so I suffered through the day to find myself in bed each night. I kept you at my bedside for safe keeping. But that phone never rang because it couldn’t. And I’m glad it couldn’t because I was always strong enough for words but never strong enough to put them to action. And I’m still that way today I just don’t even bother with words anymore. It was as if my responsibility diminished when the darkness and I was free until dawn broke. And that’s what kept me sane. And there were days that I wished it would all be over, like this would be easier on all of us if you were gone. And I know that sounds terrible, I know, I know it sounds terrible, but the truth hurts. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Alive and hardly breathing Asleep but never dreaming Poems for the broken but how selfish to be writing for myself, and not someone else. But I’m becoming someone else, aren’t I; becoming no one at all. Watch me take the mark I made and erase it all. Your eyes change when they lie, Those patterns never ceased to amaze me but never surprised me, And I got used to the dishonesty you used to try and hide till you used up all of the energy you set aside for it. And now you don’t set anything aside for me. I never understood you until I had no choice but to be you, a breaker, and a taker. And now I hate you more than ever but did you ever stop to think that maybe this was something you should have never been doing or was that thought blotted out by the heat of the sun on those bright summer days where you got lost in the haze and I sat alone in my room. And sometimes, I try to convince myself that I don’t need anyone in my life, that I’m okay with being alone, but when the chemicals in my brain decide to shift, I find myself here. Every time. I tell myself I don’t need anyone because whether or not I really do, there’s no one there anyway. And so writing is that crutch, it’s my heart, and it’s my savior and I know you expect me to pull and pull and pull, and I do too. But I’m finally getting to the point where I’d rather suffer through it on my own than strangle some pity-inspired empathy or sympathy out of you. The times I see this side of myself are fewer and farther between now but they will never fail to dig themselves up every once and a while. And that’s fine, because it reminds me of how life is, and who I really am. Life isn’t always this euphoric daydream that I so often try to make it. So can you just be honest with me for once, and tell me you don’t want me. Tell me you don’t love me. Scream it in my face so that even if I ever force myself to forget it, my eardrums will remember the damage they were dealt and remind me. And I used to try so hard to put my hands to work and paint a picture of you so that I'll remember you after all of all this but your face always came out crooked and your nose was never the right shape and I know it's because I never saw you for who you really were. My thoughts of you are convoluted by these condescending attitudes and thought patterns that I can’t control, but I'm not exactly doing anything to stop them, because I’d rather have a skewed image of you and convince myself that this is all a thing of the past than come to terms with the realization that I’m not over this. There’s nothing like the sound of your own heartbeat, pounding day in and day out like a drummer leading an army to war. It’s a sound I’ve heard so many times before and I hate you more than you could ever imagine, but I love you more than you could ever know. See, love and hate have become the same to me anyway, two fires burning, scraping for something but never quite reaching it; two flames burning in opposite directions, but still one in the same. And the storms will never hesitate to put those fires to rest. Because when it rains it pours, It’s been the same storm for years now. I’ll keep singing the same song until I find someone to silence it. A part of me progresses while another stays and treads water. A part of me progresses while another treads water. But I know one day it will all come together because it always does. You only have one chance live out your life so I’m not going to waste mine wasting away. We’re all dying, but that doesn’t mean we can’t live. Live while you can. I can’t bring myself to tell you this, so I hope this song doesn’t fall on deaf ears tonight. I hope when you find me, you’ll find me full, because we can only drag our feet for so long, despite their callused state and eventually there will be no choice but to accept the truth for what it really is. I’m just hoping day by day that it never gets to that point. You brought me in from the cold, but you left me here to rot. But I still love you for what you did. Breathe easy tonight, because we’ll never know what tomorrow may bring. Or if the night will bring tomorrow. So pick yourself up and press on, because there is no other choice. There is no other choice tonight.

Flashback to December, 2012. I lie awake at night because I have no other choice. My chest aches, it hurts. And I don’t know why. So I find myself making up reasons to justify the fact, but I know deep down that it’s because there’s something wrong with my brain. It’s broken. And soon as I close my eyes, those demons open theirs and I don’t stand a chance. I have never stood a chance. Those pills can be so tempting sometimes, knowing that a small bottle that lies a few feet away from me has the capability of taking me to place that I so desperately want to go to. There are too many sharp objects in this room. I might just “slip” and do something I don’t want to do like maybe that blood flow could more accurately represent the thoughts flowing in my head. Maybe they wouldn’t. Hell, they probably wouldn’t, but when you hurt so much inside, it almost feels unnatural to not hurt on the outside as well. I still have the privilege of having stayed free of physical scars. Something deep inside always prevented me from giving into those urges that I felt so often for so long. And to be honest, I still get those sometimes, but unlike scars on the outside, I believe that scars on the inside can diminish with time. I have seen this happen; it might take time, it might take a lot of time, but it can happen. And it will, as long as you let it. Past the misconceptions and the skewed view of this world, when you’ve been down that road, it actually makes sense. I used to have that same ignorant view of the matter, like why would anyone fall victim to self-harm? But I understand it now. I never thought I would hear my mother’s voice on phone, shaking from the tears, begging me to not harm myself; making sure that she would see me again soon, making sure that she would see me again at all. How do you explain something like that to someone who cares for and loves you so much? The person who brought you into this world? How do you explain something like this to them? I try to live without regret because in this life, there is no time for regrets and I know that everything I’ve done, I did because I thought it was the right thing at the time. There is no point in regretting something that you can’t fix or change. The past is dead. Let it stay that way. The past is dead let it stay that way. You should never be a front row spectator of your past, but rather look at it as if you’re on a ship sailing away from an island. In a way, it’s like you’re looking at it through a telescope. The farther away you get, the harder it is to see. And although you can still see it, an ocean separates you from it now. It can’t reach you or hurt you anymore, not like it used to. That ocean is the foundation that you built in order to move on, the effort you poured in to that dedication of truly moving on and getting past this. You remember the days in which you walked upon that shore; when you were too afraid to wade out any further than where the water reached your knees. You had a taste of what might eventually come, but you weren’t ready to go out any further, but look at you now. You’re on a ship that has embarked on a journey to an unknown, yet beautiful, regardless, place. And you know what? I’m just glad to say I’ll meet you there, I’m just glad to say I’ll see you there.

I want this to be a message to all of those that have come before me and those that will follow after. I love you, and I’m sorry for anything I’ve done to hurt you. I’m sorry I could never give you what you deserved. I’m just another soul, wandering through this cruel world, searching for a place to call home. I’m just like you. I’m just scraping for a hand to hold, for something to cling to when the demons cling to me and sometimes desperation is all I have. And yet, there’s nothing about this that I would change. Because we are all so beautifully broken, like a poem with no structure. Our dissonances pair together to form unique harmonies, our souls blend together and it’s almost as if the stories we’ve written together are ones that I’ve heard before. Somewhere in time, in a place that I can recall but can’t quite remember. Because maybe I’ve been here before, or maybe I haven’t. But I know someone out there has. And this, my friend, is for you. Whoever you are. I’d like to think I’ve changed for the better, but my reflection tells me differently, and I’m tired of lying to myself. So here I am: alive and living, dead and dying, breathing and suffocating; my darkest and lightest hour. What a wonderful place for you to finally find me. No regrets, no time for regrets. So when you have nothing left, when you have nowhere left to turn, and that cold wind calls you home, I’ll be here. I promise. I promise.