I am a haunted house, and I wonder how you can love me. I am a ghost of every part of me that has died. I am a chilling in your bones due to the warmth that left me long ago. I cannot escape my own home -- the one inside my mind. How can you love me, when you cannot hold me without falling through me? When you cannot see me without also seeing all the things that left me this way. Abandoned, again and again. Sliced open, studied, and thrown away, again and again. Yet you love me, and you remind me, again and again. You say that I so much more that the chill I leave in those I love. I am so much more than the pain and the ache and the faulty heart in my chest. I am so much more than fallen through, I am fallen in. I am a part of you the way no one else could be, and that is how you can love a haunted house. A haunting heart like mine. You have wrapped me in silk and colored me in high hopes. You have taken away the splinters of lost love and stitched me up with dreams and desire. You have shown me a future beyond what I thought possible. You have shown me how to fly without wings and move forward without leaving a trail of blood behind me. You have loved me, and I have stopped hurting so damn much! You have loved me and pushed through the struggle with me. You have not left me to birth my own joy. You have made me worthy of living again. You have taken me — a haunted house of a person — and you have made me the sun. Warm and inviting. Melting away any frost left from the burden of fighting alone. You have become my sky, my solar system — my heart of hope.

—AshleyAnne

I am silent. Standing here trying not to fall — or break. Trying to put the broken pieces of my life back together. It had been a while since I had been really bothered by something — too long, I suppose. Enough time had passed that the just a bit of bother broke me. I am trying to stay. I am not very good at staying — I am better at looking away, and running far. I would rather be free of any pain, free of any ... me. Reflections make me sick, I try to avoid them — and simultaneously, I avoid myself. The less of myself I see, the less of myself I am forced to save — over and over again. It is always something. I am always the damsel in distress and the hero who saves myself in the knick of time. What has this life come to that I would rather lose my lungs and heart than face myself? I would! I would lose everything all over again. This face I see is hideous. Always hiding the sins of a girl who never knew better — but I learned better and I was happy in paths I had traveled. I like the dark cold nights — the ones that leave you shivering in your sleep. They make me feel less alone and more understood. I am always running. Always fighting against my own skin and bones, trying to take the torn bits and make them into a whole person again. I may never be whole, but I will never allow myself to die for sins I did not commit. I will never be able to fully save myself — the monsters always come back, the pain never stays away for good. No matter how far I run — I am stuck with myself. And if I have ever run from you, I hope you know I was not running from you — I was running from who I was, who I am becoming — Who I see when I look inside of myself. Pain doe not make beauty, and darling, struggle doe not make a savior.

-AshleyAnne

It’s getting harder to put these feeling to words

I’m so angry it makes me sick

And this sadness has stolen nearly all of my spine

I feel everything but it’s not enough

There are echoes in my collarbones

I feel like I’m being crushed

Trying to build myself up one brittle bone at a time

And I cry

I clench my jaw

I hold a fist so tight that my finger nails rip through my palms

I’m afraid of myself - who is in control?

I try to throw up in hopes that the demons will come out of me,

But I’m still full

I’m still emptier than I ever thought I could be

I wanted to be at home with you, but it’s just one more hell and now I’m locked in

I cannot escape

I’ll never be free

You cannot protect me from yourself

You cannot help me help myself

You cannot fix what your hands have scarred

This does no justice to the feeling slicing through my skin,

But it’s something

It’s just not enough

-AshleyAnne

My mind always jumps to you. What if you are the one constantly calling only to hang up. What if you know where I am. What if you are watching me right now as I write something you will likely never read. Where are you? Are you within ear shot when I scream because I feel your hangs on my skin again. again. again. Are you close enough to fog up my windows with your breath? do you recall all the gruesome details of you and I and how you forced me into things I never could have imagined. Why do you torment me so? Why do you live in my unhappiness and paranoia. Why cant I get rid of you the same way I got rid of the clothes I wore that day? Why are you always just far enough that I cannot see you? Why can I feel you... watching, waiting, laughing at my pain? You are one sick person to have such a grand time inventing new and hideous ways to destroy the human soul. You are soulless. You are void of c compassion, void of anything that makes you human. I cut you, but you do not bleed. I cut you, and suddenly I am drowning in my own blood. I hit you, and I wake up with a black eye. I cannot escape you. You have poisoned me. You have taken over some intricate part of myself. I may ever recover, but I will continue you to cover you. -AshleyAnne

This world has never felt like home

But I have spent the entirety of my time here trying to make it feel that way

I pour my soul into words or canvas and I hang them up on the walls around me

I go searching - almost desperately - for someone who struggles in the same ways as I do

I am always coming up empty handed

Always grasping for the air I expel from my lungs

Always wanting something more - something different...

How am I supposed to live the life I know was made for me when every moment of the day and night - I am fighting to stay alive

My body - the only home I have here - fights against me.

I bleed on the inside. I scar on the outside.

Fresh bruises come from fighting my own ghost

But I am not dead yet..

Home is a bitter conquest

And perhaps home is something we never find,

Something we can never make...

Perhaps home is simply the treasure buried in our chest, and the subtle thumping of the heart that keeps us here.

I strive to be so much more than I am,

Yet I am only ever exactly this - precisely me.

I do not know how to tame the hunger in my belly or the thirst in my soul,

All I know is here and now

All I know is that home has never gotten more real, never been closer, never manifested in any place besides my dreams.

I am the builder and the demolitionist.

I am the hope and the sorrow.

I am the home and orphan.

I belong everywhere I am, and I belong nowhere.

I am a wanderess and a wonderer.

This world has never felt like home,

And my hands are tired of grasping for the air I've expelled.

Tonight I will rest, I will let my body know that she is loved, even if she never loves me back.

Tonight I will live as if life has never betrayed me.

-AshleyAnne

It slid off your tongue like honey

Dripping it's sticky mess everywhere

You knew the truth, and you denied it

You aborted the facts to give life to your own selfish gains

But I could see through you.

It melted in mouth like a frozen heart

Froze my brain

And demanded I speak as if I knew more than I did.

I omitted the facts of my flawed humanity

And I painted a picture so magnificent, you'd never be able to resist.

Someday, it will all come to light.

You will drown in your honey

And I will freeze with my heart.

We are both liars caught up in the freedom of fantasy.

-AshleyAnne

I would say that lilac is the of love. Picture fields of lavender plants and inhale.

Feel the crash of love, then the high, then the crash again.

Lilac is soft, but don't let it fool you,

It can change a painting into something dangerous.

It is strong. It is fierce like a lioness.

It is gentle like a mothers embrace

And terrifying like a fathers anger.

Lilac has it all.

Can you see it?

-AshleyAnne

The lady sang until her lungs turned into dragons tails

And you could hear the wolf crying to her swollen moon eyes

It was beautifully designed and devastatingly carried out.

A sight one could never forget,

The day a lady took her pains and forces a Phoenix from her rib cage

Sacrificing herself that she may live on

Shedding her skin to feed the wolves below.

-AshleyAnne

Sometimes I feel too tired to breathe

There's a heartbeat in my eardrums

One like I've never heard before

All I want to do is wrap myself in you

Surf on the waves of your breathing

Drown in the peace of knowing I am safe - with you

My eyes are heavy

My breathing is steady

And there are bags forming under my eyes

I cannot carry this baggage alone

I need your help - guide me to my dreams

Sometimes I am too tired for breathing - for living

I need to lay my head on your chest

And drift away before I am gone forever

I need to be wrapped in you

So that I do not break when I fall

So that I do not shatter when I fall.

-AshleyAnne