They call me a dreamer,

But I don't have any dreams.

They call me an acheiver,

But what have I acheived?

They pick at my misdeamor,

Making me dig deeper,

To find the hope that struggles to breath.

I've been stuck here, strangled,

For too long.

I guess I should just be thankful

That I'm not dead yet.

I am a lost girl,

trying to find her way.

I am a broken girl,

living in a broken world.

I am a stressed girl,

a depressed girl.

Lost in my own mind, even though it's the last place I want to be.

Heartbroken

shattered

lost

confused.

Unwanted and unloved.

What am I to do?

Just Me...

Broken, lonly, and addicted dipped in ADHD washed down with Bi-polar is just the beginning of me... Please don’t judge as I continue to type, this is the rawest words I have put down for others eyes.. I feel I’m part pixie from the underground, the hidden world beneth our streets, I have been punished for swimmng with Greed only knowing lonliness and melancoloy... I seek a connection, an effortless bond, ride or die companion, my missing piece...

Don’t get me wrong I have let people in but they always disappoint in the end... I have plenty of people who call themselves friends but have endless excuses in the end... I love to hard and that’s on me, I have no clue any other way to be... I wish I could be cold like some, I wish i could do what others have done...

I am at the point of letting go & saying fuck it with this human life, it has to be much easier on the other side... Spirtually I know not to take ones life, tears of sadness puddle my eyes...

I also often wonder how many times I’ve walked full of evil to deserve this life... i’ve always been lonely, dashed with a little glad, topped with isolation... every once in a while I get lucky and Mania erupts...

I love Mania, it is what my heaven will be, full of happiness, hope, and all things in harmony... Confident, stronger , ready to take on the world, with a pinch of sadness cause the bliss won’t last long... I will start to crash and long for my melancoly warmth.. I am confortable in melancoly, it really feels like home.. I long for it nightly to calm my mental storm..

-KJ

#challenge #justme #bekind

I tear the fleshy center off with my teeth as I read, feeling the blood start to fill the wound. I have always done this, biting my lips until they were bleeding, licking them until a white ash forms on their surface. There were three times I can count when I sucked the inside of my lip until a painful blood blister appeared and I had to put ice on it and try my damnedest to not bite it or pick at it. That was always what I heard as a kid. “Stop picking at it before it scars.” I was not a good listener back then.

If I had to pee now, I would have to see the various scars that climb my thighs like rungs on a ladder. Depression, anxiety, random unexplainable cuts, and accidents are ghosted into my skin, never to leave. Like the thigh hair that is barely long enough to pull but still so visible when I look at them. I like to cover them with my Codewords books until i can hide them with my sweatpants. Then I’d get my Curex soap from under the sink (the only non-edible thing from my trip to England) And glance for a brief second before turning the hot water on. In an instant, I’d pick up everything. I would see the scars on my face of pimples that refused to go away and were continually popped until the dark scab never lightened. Yellowish patches of actinic keratosis weaved into my dark roots. Bags under my eyes, the pimple that lives in my eyebrow, my gunked pores, my torn lips...

I would focus on the water and rub my hands vigorously with the moisturizing soap until the bubbles appear. I have always loved bubbles. They make me smile, and this time would be no different. I would let the water get scalding for a moment out of instinct then chicken out and turn the water off. Rubbing a hard brown towel on my hands, I’d inspect them. Two months ago, the soap was helping. My hands were softer than ever, and I had to share it with a hallway of other people. Yet, with my own bottle, I could still see the eczema patch starting on the back of my right wrist and a patch curving around my left thumb. It was still soft like the rest of my skin that I haven’t lotioned in years, yet I could see the crocodile skin and ceaseless itching coming.

When I return to my room, I’d have to roll the sleeves of my black New Orleans hoodie down, covering the randomly placed small clusters of keratosis pilaris and resume my work. The work that I’m currently doing. Rereading what I wrote as I nibble at the flesh around my long fingernails and adding commas and taking out unnecessary adjectives. My mind likes to wander into other things. Why the word “biblically” exists but “Torahly” and “Qu’ranically” don’t, whether CSI was actually the present, how in the world I thought Bert and Ernie were siblings and not partners, why there haven’t been blended families in mainstream cartoons, what actually happens when someone is speaking to the dead, why socks are always getting separated from their partners. The tornado in my head swirls though my fingers are now constantly moving, flowing from some deep part of my mind that I don’t think I’m fully aware of.

I think a part of me knew I wanted to be a writer when I was a kid. Of course, my head was clouded by Barbies and Playboy magazines and saving whales from the Japanese, but I stood out from the time I was born. Whether it was when I was a newborn figuring out how to get out from under the bright light or when I was constantly told I was such a pretty boy despite the beads in my hair and pink shorts or when I was constantly getting awards in elementary school when my classmates could barely read, I could tell I thought differently. I did trapezoids while everyone else was doing donuts. Over the years, my interests varied and changed, but my inquisitiveness and curiosity never did. It’s just been pulling me forward, like a horse that just would not die.

Lately, though, I’ve spent more time blindly chasing paper than stopping and looking at the squirrels that live in the trees along the less-traveled path. Drowning in a biology major that I like the idea of, instead of chasing the creative writing major that just tags along for the ride. Working myself to the bone at a dead-end janitor job was a good idea since I could see the animals’ behavior, even though most weren’t in their natural habitat. I could explore what I loved. Ask questions. Think when I wasn’t being asked where to find the koalas we don’t have or how to get to a building we’re standing ten feet from. But the need for green pushed me to get two more jobs, both in foodservice where I can get acquainted with the French fries. There was no time to think anymore. I had to go to work, then get in bed, then wake up for a class that I haven’t attended all week. I eked by and inched to the finish line and was forced to re-evaluate everything.

So I went to England for a while. As a kid, I'd loved England and always wanted to go, not knowing the terrible awfuls they do to food. Fat Europeans are a juxtaposition. I stayed, I traveled, I learned that I was living like T. S. Eliot and Percy Shelley and other writers that I skimmed through five minutes before every class. I learned of Mont Blanc, the darkness of 1915, the time the world was ending, and the other time the world was ending. Breathing the fresh air in a non-Ohio “fall”, I could remember who I was for a time. I could be myself again. But, it was at a price. I learned two negative things about me: I hate eating and I enjoy drinking. Spending hours walking into walls and talking to headphones (there was almost always a person in them), I remembered things in my life that I didn’t think were big at the time, learned that I am against institutionalized religion, learned that I can have a romantical connection to a like-minded male person, and realized that I may be the only person (aside from him; weird minds connect apparently) that enjoys racing through an airport and finds the ear-popping interesting, and found out just why Americans can't drink until we're twenty-one.

Now that I’m home, I realize now that I’m at another crossroads, counting and sorting pebbles because I’m terrified of what’s to come. Deep down, my inner Dora the Explorer says that I can conquer whatever comes my way (without singing... loudly) but outside, I know that I have more to deal with. My money is gone to European liquor stores and airlines, and I decided against going back to work cleaning the zoo bathrooms, fearing that I wouldn’t have enough time to see a single paycheck. I stalled for packing for school because I know how my semester has gone the last four times. I know that I may not graduate on time if I do what I want, and even if I do, I still need a place to stay and a (few) better paying job(s) to float in the Republican economy. I need theses, I need credits, I need money, I need to focus but I just want to turn into one of those weirdos that are surgically attached to the internet constantly talking about “treat yoself” and drinking water. I haven’t drunk enough water since I was in England, chugging from two-litres before bed. And every time I look up, that path has become a mouth with shark teeth waiting to devour me.

I just hope it knows that I’m going to taste dry.

"Me" is the only person in the wrold who I understand- but also the person I understand the least.

I can read all my thoughts like a book, yet I don't really know why I do anything.

Is that normal?

Above all else I value faith, faith in God.

Second, kindness, loyalty... the definition of a good freind.

At least, that's what I like to think I value. I now I'm selfish- and when it came down to it, I'd probably value myself more than anything else. Yep. I just said that. Wow.

I also value emories. memories, books, my baby blanket, and a small stuffed rabbit. Again, I just said that.

While I'm admiting all this juicy stuff, why not admit my adictions? I am adicted to writing, Harry Potter, and the little pink watch around my wrist.

I am adicted to coming up with comebacks that I will never use. Why will I never use them?

Some comebacks would only work in the world of Harry Potter.

The others would go against my perfect strategy of avoiding rude comments (pretend not to care and take everything as a complement.)

"Me" is a person who used to write poetry, then stopped for no reason. I'm going to fix that right after I finsih writing this.

Also, I think Harry Potter isn't an arrogant fool. Don't tell the Slytherins at my school that, though.

Even though I don't hate harry, I don'y hate Draco either. He may have acted like a dungbomb in Filche's office in most of the books, but after reading The Cursed Child he actauly seems like a decent person. Don't tell ANYONE that, though.

I think I've let enough cats out of bags to comfort an old lady who never married.

I still have a few more who are dieing to get out, though.

Like, how even when I seem sympathetic, I'm not. I'm just saying nice things. I'm noy very sympathetic, no matter how kind I seem.

Also, my favorite T.V. show was made for little girls. But, hey, most My Little Pony fans are adult men anyways, so who cares?

That's all I can think of now, so I'm gonna stop rambling about my secrets.

*has to fight with her self to stop revealing after she revealed so much*

Welll... bye everyone! Oh did you know- Ehem. I mean, have a nice day.

my soul is an accumulation of things.

i am the girl who curls into a ball at 2 am, one so tight that

even she believes she’s holding herself together

i am the girl who holds photographs like memories that will slip

between her fingers

i am the carefree laugh, jumping from moment to moment

you will see me in the split second of eye contact

in the warm smile you give to stangers

i am your favorite song during all the parts you know by heart

i am the warm, stagnant summer air

as it calmly fills all the spaces you don’t inhabit

i am as familiar as the weeds that pop up in spring

my soul is a mirror of all the things you do not want to acknowledge

and it will make you see yourself, too.

I don’t have answers to any of those questions, not good ones, sure ones, or sensical ones. I just have a terrifying gnawing emptyness to make an identity out of, while sitting in this stupid empty uncertainty that is my life right now. I’ve tried thinking back to some answer I had before. I think back to my childhood and find myself unable to see a moment where I had an answer to who I was and who I might be now. But I didn’t have this feeling I have now, the emptiness where I think my identity is supposed to be. I was an incomplete child and I was ok with that. I think forward to highschool. My junior and senior years. I didn’t have an answer then either. I had the ability to pretend I was special when I was cooking dinner. The ability to say that every step I took forward was another that I would never have to take again. That I could just get through it. I had my dad to tell me that it ain’t no sin to be glad your alive. I had my writing, and could use it to pretend I was wise or smart. I made peace with not knowing who I was or what I was doing, told myself that doubt was important and moral. I hated the people at school who were loudly confident, always putting on a certainty in their path forward. I sang along to “Mystery” driving home, hating them for the million things they would die for. I can think of more than two things to die for now, but I’m helplesssly yearning for a good thing to live for, that same certain path forward. I’m ok with not knowing what I want, what my future will bring, but I’ve run out of prelaid track. I need to start laying it myself, setting out for... something. I still have no idea what.

I’m in college not caring about the things I’m learning, not knowing what I might actually care about, failing to be social and make conections that might last into my future. I don’t cook, I don’t dare walk to my dorm floor’s kitchen all the way down the hallway. I can’t bear knowing they're all closing in around me, having built them up as confident assholes who know exactly what they’re doing, while thinking that they wouldn’t understand the things I’ve been through and that they’re young and stupid. I don’t see an end to this, besides death which I am dead set on avoiding. I’m an adult now, with fifty plus years stretched infront of me to do something with. My dad is gone, unable to comfort me, and I have to mind the edges of the gaping whole he left in my family. I try to remember his precense and the comfort it gave, but that comfort came from being able to lean on him, having those solid shoulders that I could put my head or arm on. Those shoulders are buried ash now, and I realise everytime that I think of them that there is no one else I can lean on like that. There are the hugs I get at church, but no one I can trust to take from selfishly without being ready to give in return. My writing no longer convinces me of my wisdom or inteligence. Instead it’s a reminder of how stupidly self absorbed I am in my helplessness. I write out my angst over and over again, thinking it’s theraputic that I’m proccessing, getting over it, changing. I’ve changed my mind but nothing changes. Nothing I change changes anything. I just come back with the same self important angst again and again. I write creatively too, but I know that it’s going nowhere, that it’ll never be seen by other eyes, that it isn’t worth being seen, and the joy of the craft is rarely enough to drive me anymore.

It’s last year that really gets me though. My “gap year”/“service year” whatever. I was miserable then, but not like I am now. There was a sense in that life I found. It was one school year of hurting constantly from being helpless to help the kids I cared so much about. I could imagine the end date always and just keep foing knowing it would end one day. Now it has been ended for six months and I hate it. I’ve been listening to the songs that got me through the toughest days, felt the pain differently, missed it in a way. I listen to “I Miss the Misery” and don’t like how well it fits. I miss the people too, the people I bonded to in that suffering, but didn’t dare keep the conection past the year. I think about them, think about him. I want to see him again, talk to him, find out if we can have conversation when not forced together in car rides or meetings. I wonder why he could bear to stay, wonder if I would be happier if I had. I hate the organization for having so efectivelly gotten in my head and destroyed me.

I saw a car that was the same model as his today. It was driving around campus while I hid in the stillness of a winter park. I could feel myself hoping at the sight, wishing for some text saying he was in the area, asking if he could visit. It didn’t come. I was just staring at some stranger who had gotten lost. I wanted to get close enough to see the license plate to see if it matched the one I pretend I didn’t memorize. I didn’t though, lacking the energy and the courage to do so. I hate myself for the hope, I know it’s stupid, that I need to move on, talk to people here, or if I can’t do that, reach out to him myself, but I don’t dare, can’t bring myself to do it, do anything worthwhile. It's a stupid dream that I need to get over. But I only think that because last year has stripped me of hope, I think that to end my hopeless misery, I have to stop hoping for things I imagine would make me happy. It's all just another layer of miserable stupid hypocrasy. Last year I was proud of not being an idealist, proud of my cynicism. I was able to do the work without hoping for good things from it, but now that I've left the work I need that hope to be able to move on or go back. I need to have faith in my kids and there ability to survive to let the ache in my heart rest or I need to commit myself to helping them and people like them, decide that I'm here at this school that costs way too much to learn and grow so I can go back. I need to hope that I could survive years of that life, that I could lay it in front of me as a path and see something of worth beyond a way to justify my mysery to the world. That's what I'll end up doing probably, but I don't have the courage to think that yet. That person who would go back would have to be strong, strong enough to love children he knows are hurting constantly in ways he can't help, strong enough to hope for their futures, strong enough to be honest and kind to them whatever happens. Right now I don't even have the capacity to hope to be that someday. I just sit in the emptiness uselessly, fill it with sad music that seems to understand for a little while. I grasp at lyrics to explain anything. I think that I fell in love with a war and nobody told me that it ended. Or that I’m Mr. November and I haven’t already fucked us over. Or that someday somebody will come and find me and remind me who I am. Or that I just have emotional motion sickness and that I just need to stay clean and live without. Or that I’ll talk it out with him inside a car with rain falling around us. I think I'm hitting a wall and ask again and again, where the fuck is my head?

You are a lover, sister, friend, daughter.

To everyone, you are someone, but the essence of you is not the same to everyone.

If you think you know yourself, look through the mirror. What makes you more you, the way I see you or the way you see you? No matter how hard you look, you will find a knot. A twist of thoughts. Unravelable. Who is the judge of the character of you?

You, you are intelligent, wise, compassionate, reasonable, and beautiful. We pray the rest of the world can see the truest you.

How did I end up here? Broken and rotten

I watched it just all slip away

I once was an Oak who stood alone

With no way to re-grow the breaks

I took it for granted, my might and my worth

so excuses I can’t seem to make

I once was the Oak who stood alone

One the wind could not even shake.

I knew I would grow big and knew I would grow strong!

I was the reason the Gods sent the rain!

I once was an Oak who stood alone

but now Im just compost in pain.

My leaves have all fallen; my braches have broken

Ive lost all my fortune and fame

I once was an Oak who stood alone

But now Im a log full of shame

I hadn’t expected that I would uproot

I thought I’d be the last one to stand

I once was an Oak who stood alone

But now I’m just mulch for the land

OH, Mighty, OH, Mighty! OH, I was the king

But the mighty fell out of my name.

I once was an Oak who stood alone

til I fell before the end of my reign

So, be thankful for sunshine and stand tall every day

Be proud; try not to complain

Because one day you might be that Oak that has fallen

and end up just a log full of shame.