Stab your dagger in the heart of cancer

Invasive, threatening and not sparing many

Put on your armor and don’t back away

Defy its claws that grapple with loved ones

Kill the cells before they spread too far

Throw chemo on its wounds

and laugh in its face

eradicate it with no mercy

so it won’t show face later

if it regurgitates in the future

and spreads its tentacles

tell it “no” in insistent voice

dislodging and punching it

all the strength you have left

don’t allow it to take

the one you love best.

These, my handprints

on your tombstone.

This, my graveside speech.

My heart is no stranger

to your cemetery.

You're not gone yet,

but I'm trying to brace

for the imminent news,

of your stopped heart

and final strained breath.

So if I don't say much

these last few years,

don't think a problem lurks.

Just gone is thought, recording

memories and bracing self.

Goodbye.

This may be

the only way,

I'll have strength to say it.

Creak.

That dreaded sound again

This is not a museum

Why can’t they understand?

Sounds everywhere.

It’s too loud to bear.

I took a peak from the attic

and he is cleaning out the cobwebs.

From the corners of the ceilings

to the underside of the doormat.

Then he dusted the bookshelf

that held volumes of pain

one heartbreak per lane.

Alas, he would place them neatly again.

Coughs.

A-tish-oos.

Sniffs

and smacks.

And he makes his way to sweep the place.

Water, everywhere.

He’s flushing out the drain.

What are you doing to my Heart?

When really it’s just an abandoned hut,

a house of cards,

worn out and torn,

never to be used again?

I scoot from the attic,

and peeked at this work of art.

Another Soul in my Heart,

in a plain, stained t-shirt,

and pants rolled up.

He took this hut,

and made it a sanctuary.

What’s more, he made an apple tart.

Oh, sweet apple tart.

“There you are, Soul,

I made my way in,

to clean this up.

I hope you don’t mind.

I read some of your stories.

And learned them by heart.”

I ran back upstairs

in this mess that I am.

I am not ready for this

So I chose indifference.

But he did not waver.

He did not leave.

Unlike the others,

Everyday he came to me.

To feed my fire,

and create a velvet warmth.

A comforting noise in my silence.

My attic is still dirty though,

but today I shall open my doors.

He cleaned me up

as deja vu strikes.

I looked in the mirror

My hair is in spikes.

He cleaned me in a lathered bath

without changing the way that I am.

I asked, “why are you doing this?”

He said, “to see you here like this

so alive, so warm, so full of Possibilities.”

you said i tricked you

but i didn't.

i was just showing you

what you were capable of doing

on your own.

you see, you don't need me or anyone else for that matter.

stop underestimating the power you carry inside your soul.

i would have never

pushed you over the edge

if i wasn't sure that your wings had fully grown.

no,

i tell her,

extracting the words from her mouth,

carefully pulling knives up her throat

(because depression is some fucked-up magic),

spoon-feeding her my thoughts instead.

you matter.

you're worth it.

i need you here. 

curled bones 

against my aching body,

hair in my mouth—

i tell her to let it out.

i am fine,

i tell myself,

drawing her closer

for a temporary time.

for that moment, 

we are safe.

after she leaves,

i stretch

and try to think of different colors,

one for each way i could do it.

purple- sleeping pills.

blue- water.

silver- blades.

red- bullets.

yellow- don't do it. 

brown- rope.

yellow.

yellow, yellow, yellow.

i tie back the curtains 

and let the warmth spread 

over my cold fingers and toes.

i capture the sunshine

in a mason jar

and release it in my mind

so it leaks into the gray corners 

and reminds me why i'm still here.

flashback: 

you remind me of plath.

white- ledge.

pink- cough syrup.

yellow yellow yellow.

good thought: 

i don't want to remind him of plath.

i want to write light.

i want to pen the sun.

(one day.)

the next day

she wants to die,

i am angry—

not because she wants to die—

but because she might go before i get the chance to.

sick thought:

i want to kill myself first.

i want to be the first to go.

and when he said i reminded him of sylvia, some piece of my heart smirked and said

good

because part of me has always wanted to be a tragedy,

and i would love to see the ripple reactions:

the gathering in the gym where even the drunks are sober,

grieving for a girl they never knew;

ghosts sobbing for a haunted soul, 

closed casket at the showing, but some try to pry it open because that's all they can do—

out of my head.

i push it out of my head.

i stick to yellow for six days,

gold and amber and citron and flax and lemon and mustard.

organic.

van gogh would be proud.

on the seventh day,

i stumble

and drop my palettes 

and when i try to pick them up,

they feel heavy.

black- a combination of my favorites.

sick thought:

i can make this beautiful 

if i do it properly.

if i twist this enough,

i can convince them i'm doing what's best.

if i stretch this enough,

i can make myself a martyr.

(but who am i 

to think my death could change the world?)

two days of yellow,

#ffe931 and #ffdc4e.

#000000.

#000000.

#000001.

slowly i rise.

sick thought:

i like being this way.

i don't want to get better.

sick thought:

i am best when i am sad,

and depression is my only original material.

are these thoughts driving me

or am i driving them away?

the steering wheel submits to 

my ripped, raw fingertips. 

all this control.

i am in control. 

sick thought:

i should drive into the ditch right now

and crash into the telephone pole

but the sun in my eyes is yellow,

so i am staying for twenty-four hours.

#F9FA57.