bitter bitch (ocd i)

obsessions and/or compulsions and i'm suddenly more disordered
well, not officially, until i get the test at least
but i'm not sure why i think about suicide 3 times an hour without wanting to or
why damp food on hard ceramic plates under cold water feels like it burns or
why i can't stop physically removing parts of myself in calculated ways

i got to know parts of my body that i never was supposed to,
searching to become clean
for a long time i obsessively thought about setting myself on fire
my username some places is still immolation
but i only wanted to burn the impure out, not die

and the compulsions to...i can't tell you, because my brain just shut off
but as soon as i've restarted i'm forced to know again how
the door handle has to be turned right; to check that it was locked
i know i put the key in and turned it but i'd sooner die than leave without
turning that damned handle one more damned time and oh i don't know letting my cats die

i obsess over suicide, i obsess over weight, i self-hate like i'm paid to do it
at a good rate, and i do the things, the things i don't talk about much,
and i do them until it hurts and i'm sort of kind of almost clean
then i don't talk about them of course because i feel guilty
i guess i can say i'm so fucking ocd now because i can't stop obsessively thinking about having ocd

before you come for me with the pitchforks and fire, or the wrong size bandaids,
remember how i blinked at every pole we drove past and didn't stop when we passed a fence and i
gave myself a headache blinking so fast so much (or whatever)
i intricately research suicide methods because i can't imagine not knowing everything about it
i document moments because i can't imagine living without memories, and ones were taken from me

so here i am, self-made victim and so "poor me", except maybe i actually
was built wrong then abused and raped and bullied and made so broken, pushed down smaller
my arthritic bones were ground down and my muscles eaten away for sustenance
and here i am, creative and once-brilliant, even, but then again not really here any more
so i guess it's both good and bad that i'm feeling incredibly bitter

cake ingredients

i am not sure when exactly i started to evolve

into a newer, worse monster

more like my dad, i guess.

in words that aren't mine: dna, like cake ingredients

out of order just makes a mess

or it can be in order. that's from my mom, and it's true

how do controlling people find time for

each other's interests when they barely have time for their own?

i'm not sure they ever should have met to begin with

i truly want to kill the beast inside me

but the only way i know how

is by taking myself out, too. and that, is not allowed?

not by my standards, just by others'

i care most about my xena, who meows incessantly

when i go to the hospital or the doctor for a single half hour

i pushed someone important away once or ten people maybe for misinterpreting a gesture

who's to say i won't do it again

i'm quite likely to, especially if it comes free with self-sabotage

and who am i? besides that saccharine mess on the floor

of flour and eggs and rainbow sprinkles

but also blood and broken glass from breaking the mixing bowl

i'm no cake, but i suppose i'm not a monster either,

at least not on the outside.

still, who would know better than myself whether i exist only to depart

out of the ash box

i am more, so much more than just a plath wannabe in life
you are here, fighting for every second with my body and my being
i want them with you too but i don't think you understand me or my strife
i came out of the ash box, i came out of somewhere that left me screaming

started something trivial, now i'd be crying if my body would allow
let me for months past over anything other than a stung eye like an onion
i remember years ago, sitting by the ash, i don't really know how
but i remember the sketches and burning them in the fire that burned running

i remember the princess and how her love was tortured and then how i was scarred
i remember scoffing because what else can you do when your fairytale is the old kind
the kind that teaches you a lesson! the kind that disney had in their future but so far
i reject love because then you never hurt when you are hurt, when you are left behind

is it normal to tell your child you will leave them? is it normal to do it?
i don't remember much but i remember enough to be sad
and i remember sketching torture like i'd seen, like you'd showed me, like i knew fit
my life in the ash box when i crawled back in with my skinny short limbs, bad

i am less, so much less than you taught me i am, which is nothing
i am free, never free, because i have complex damn ptsd...well who cares
another victim is just another victim even when their martyr complex is strong
and i am here, but i don't know if i want to be, but i don't dare

i remember burning up, watching the flames lick my fingertips as i numbed myself to heat
i remember throwing the evidence of my thoughts and anything i dared be away
i remember keeping the rest in notebooks too miniature to read
i don't remember much but i sure remember hurt, even as the edges fray

oh! how dare you train me to be so afraid of being critical even to this day
even after my brain has finished developing and my body has hurt for many years
oh! how dare i be critical of you after all you have done for me, after all i have stayed
i suppose i'm awful and i should be punished for my ways and for my tears

am i a demon? no. yes. no. you used to love me, i think. i don't remember very well.
how could someone do so much damage to family, i thought
and then, ten years ago to the month, i went into the psych ward and learned their spell
they pretend to listen but their words show they never learned anything they didn't want

i'm okay but i am also never and i am also holding onto the knife's edge with my fingertips
as they bleed i continue because how else could i behave in this almost 2019 moment
i'm dying and i am feverish and i tell lies because feelings are real monsters made out of shit
hallucinations that were never there become real distressing excuses for being spent

what do you do when your brain falls apart and they threaten to take everything you want away
when do you give in when you know that you need to be sliced open soon
for your own good of course, take the teeth out, remove the rot, let the others stay
a little bit rotten and drilled and filled and buffed and obviously not a boon

that is me, i am my own teeth, and every cell in my body! they fight, except when they don't
i wonder often if that is your fault, it would help if i had my memories
so i cling to the ones i have: in the ash box again, burning paper just to stay warm, i can't
holding fingers to moments to see if i turn to ash too, of this i will never be free

only more so

i used to be brave enough to put my thoughts online
now every time i speak it comes out as a cry for help
it's loud; it disturbs; i hate cleaning up after i spill words;
so i keep my mouth closed and hit backspace repeatedly,
i stay silent out of fear, much like when i spoke out of fear,
only more so

coping not coping

light has warped
and perception's distorted
i have hallucinated
visually seeing things
so naturally i
imbibe more caffeine
up the intake
screech into my ears,
i like it
it distracts from the world

twenty eighteen

i am so so so scared
and i can't cut/snip/bleach my hair
cause i did that to cope too many damn years in a row
(and i cried the next day every time)
i am so so so tired
caffeine as a food substitute
but i can't let this or anything worse truly show
(because the hospital doesn't let me see my cat)
my best reason to live
i feel hopeless and sad
i'm taking it minute by minute
(but this world is unfair and i've become far too bitter)
i see everything fall
how to help when i'm not standing myself
i try to fight but my face is streaked
(with tears and my blood)
i can't move or talk at times but then who knows why i sure don't
everyone would rather question my poor memory than trust i could do a thing right
and perhaps i could even survive all by myself one day
(i don't know i don't know)
what circumstance could possibly allow for such a thing to happen
i try not to die and i do that each and every day
most days i do sort of well but i'm still not okay

a poem i wrote in february 2016

hahaha! it’s so funny
how you’re rising in my now weary throat
how i no longer feel pain without convulsing
or how i eat sour candy lately to cope

“survivor” was not a title i wanted to claim
i only took it, i only made it my own
when the two syllable word “victim” made me choke
because it was all i could feel like i know

you texted me after to let me know you missed me,
but not before i decided against the rape kit
(what good would it do?)
not before i spent an hour-long therapy session entirely dissociated

it was weeks after before i remembered
i had to eat, even if i felt like i’d vomit
and i stopped sleeping 16 hours a day shortly after
but i still curl into myself without thinking whenever i sit

funny how i see myself as a bug now
i’m no longer a girl or a person or entirely alive
it’s so funny how i wish i really had my hard shell: cancer the crab
or the shiny beetle, but never protected like i desperately crave

it’s funny, so funny, bruises on my body, can’t trust anyone again funny
one of my ribs was cracked after - are you laughing yet?
stop looking at me like that, get that look off your face
this is like when i joked about my overdoses and people didn’t get it

i’ve saved the best part for last
trauma fosters trauma, and this wasn’t my first
i’ve already been abused, i’ve been raped, and oh boy! have i been hurt
so don’t think you took anything new, you weren’t even my worst

the entire newspaper except the obituaries

the thing about black and white
hard print no greyscale
all winter no summer and especially vice versa
maybe not especially,
maybe not for plath, maybe not for me, historically,
but this sticky summer is calling my too-long name
the trees are whispering to me like they
never really ever did before

every single sap-filled sweaty bad odor no-saying-goodbyes moment
every summer second is a
second too long, and painful
i go to sleep and awaken on my matted hair
convince myself to shower every so often
only because the alternative is worse
maybe i'm not crazy just a
little too decompensated for a brain this traumatized
i wake up to a new day and pretend again

i'm winning every second i'm alive
and losing every second i'm asleep, not sober
drunk on vodka and/or my own racing thoughts
kept still behind my eyes with yellow flecks
that i was always told to call "golden"
"because it sounds better,"
i can't really keep track of the day to day, the second to second,
the what is real and what is not,

i can't talk to myself to soothe any more
i won't breathe in and feel calm,
my heart races. it is unfair. like so much else.
this world placed a burden upon each and every human
and some of us are given so much, some of us so little
it seems bizarre but not everyone
even keeps the weight on their back.... some of us
hide it in our pockets until we are dead

i hide a piece of hot metal under my tongue
it burns like the solder when i was eleven years old
it stays like the illnesses that won't leave
it stays longer than the people that constantly grow weary
i am a force to be reckoned with. but water, and fire,
and summer, and heat, they do not mix
so take my body far from here
lock it up in a place which is cool and safe
i may never leave

thinking about self harm without actually self harming

i am full, i feel full
of bitterness and maggot-like creatures
i am rotting from the inside out
my organs are foul with the stench of fear
i wish to shine like gold
i watch myself in a mirror
dull instead of shiny yet in pain

is there anything more ugly than me
is there anything more beautiful
than some perfect tragedy executed excellently
i wish to feel okay
safe and secure in the knowledge that
i will be okay (i might)
but i wait and continue to rot

a mp3 file sings sweet promises
mainlined to my ears
to get to my brain, to my heart
i listen but do i believe?
doubt is a terrible monster
i know with time i will be
rotting but healing too

it doesn't matter if you lie to me
(except the world depends on it)
(my world) (the one that i live in)
watch me take hurt seriously, watch
as i make my skin bleed
solemn but unwise, my attempts only
make me rot faster. nothing else

my pills can't stop me from accelerating this time
your words can't pull things off my skin
like invisible leeches and visible blades
my skin can pull apart and away and
i don't want you to know how cold
i can be when i am scared
how cold i have been to other people

i am so very, very, very, very
that and afraid
does it matter that i am afraid?
will you be here later to pull off my invisible leeches
to pry them from my skin like
i once watched a man pry a tick
but i never called him or saw him after that day

you, i feel, are different
even if only in the sense that i had a feeling
a hope that you were something i never
hoped for or wished for
it felt too selfish.
i suppose i did it anyway subconsciously
but today i am rotting for you

i want to live and heal and breathe
so marvelously; with such strength!
i want to conquer my fears and become
better faster stronger
more mentally agile and less mentally unstable
but i rot, rot, rot
i might lose what's left of my mind before you're here

citrus

i'm the blood orange.
i am citrus, short and sharp tasting
perhaps i am sweet at times
why else would someone justify spending time
in my life as a person
i'm the tangerine.
i am citrus, you bit into a lemon
but like lemons, my flesh is easy to tear
i am easily destroyed