i’m not afraid of the dark anymore except when i’m alone. i’m not afraid of people anymore except when they get too close. i’m less afraid of an open window than a closed door. i’m not afraid of death anymore except yours. i’m growing back the limbs you removed, one at a time. reverse suicide. i’m not dissuaded by the smoke that fills my lungs. i’m now so hated that it doesn’t matter what falls off my tongue. i’m not a faded-out textbook. i won’t copy down these rules. i’m now displayed on screen once again for all to ridicule. i’m growing back the limbs you removed, one at a time. reverse suicide. i’m singing a song to soothe our blistered minds. reverse suicide.

yesterday I went to Luke's house and picked up your few earthly possessions. your GameCube controller, your PlayStation 2 with Tony Hawk's Underground 2. (you were the best in the world at that game.) your tattered stuffed animal, a pig. i shoved these weird, ethereal fragments of you into a red canvas grocery bag, and walked half an hour back to my place. plopped the bag down in the doorway of my room. and it's still there. i can't touch it, i just stare at it while sitting on the edge of my bed in the morning. i keep sending you links to funny articles I find on the internet. i know you won't get them but i guess it's worth it just in case. i can't stop talking to you. i talk to you more now than i did in the weeks before you died. i started to take your friendship for granted, and i'm sorry. first my grandpa, then my cousin, then Marissa, then my dad, then Mara. now you. i don't want to know who's next. i don't want anyone to be next. i am sick of dealing with this. i am afraid that i am getting used to this. i don't want to write a thousand songs about this. i am sick of making art about death. i am sick of consuming art about death. it's cannibalistic, it's voyeuristic, but sometimes it's the only thing that helps. so i guess it's okay to be a cannibal voyeur for a while if it's what gets me through the night. at your memorial service, i knew i had to try my best to be strong. but despite that, i didn't try, and I wasn't strong. i cried, i couldn't stop. i was drained, i was a void. there was nothing in me I could use to support your other friends, or to stand up to the people who were most of the reason you were even lifeless in that box to begin with. i remember before i got there how badly i was burning with resentment for them, filled to the brim with the urge to confront them. but I didn't. i sat surrounded by friends, sobbing like a widow, knowing that your mother thought she had lost a son. she could never be convinced she had lost a daughter, but god, i wanted to try. i didn't even stand up to your abusive ex. i am a coward. i am sheepish. i avoid hard conversations. i am not sure if these people will ever know the monolithic role they played in your death, because i did not tell them. for years to come, this spectre will continue to subtly place its hands on my shoulders and whisper in my ear when i'm least expecting it. but one thing I do know is that the people who abused you saw me praying at your casket and speaking to you as if you could hear me. and I know they saw me screaming, wailing into Emile's shoulder, going fucking insane, as Emile did their absolute best to console the inconsolable wreck of a human being that I was in that moment. i know you would have hated to see it, it was what you dreaded most. and I hope your abusers hated it even half as much as you would have. and I hope, i hope to goddess that these people largely responsible for your death saw these scenes unfold and felt some pang of guilt, some resonant note of shame echoing around in the hulking hollow steel containers that pump blood through their chests. it's not that i want them to suffer for what they did to you. i mean, sometimes i do. but not right now. right now i just want them to know what they did, so that maybe they can achieve some shred of personal growth, and maybe someday heal the way we're all supposed to. but at the moment. i don't think they even feel the thorns in their sides, so they can't pluck them out. so if they do heal, the skin will grow over the thorns and it'll still hurt them forever. i want to shake them and tell them: "please recognize what's really hurting you. please pluck it out before your skin envelops it. you owe it to yourself, and you owe it to the people you've hurt." i wrote this song until my hand got so cold i couldn't move it. so i wrapped it in my scarf and i shoved it in my pocket, and eventually it got warm again so i kept writing. i came home and i got that tattered stuffed pig out of the bag, and i put it on my mantelpiece. and i promise it's going to sit in a prominent spot in every place i ever call my home for the rest of my life. i promise.

woke up from another trauma dream and tried not to scream. it’s like a flashback, but worse, because it feels more real than ever. the internet’s a place humanity goes to die, and so do i. all my old friends just piled on me and made sure that i’d try to end my own life. it wasn’t pretty, i was the last light in my city. in my dream, i bled for hours-- it was just like i remembered. but then the violence kept escalating and filling me further with fear. then i had people at my door and they were stabbing me with spears. and they were calling me a tranny, and they were clawing at my skin, and they quickly bound and gagged me and punished me for all my sins. and i always hate the part where the dream ends and i crumple in. i find no comfort in the waking world, it’s all the same to me. you win, you win. oh god, oh god, oh god i keep hoping i can find a place where i truly feel safe, where i can wrap up in a blanket of good times and just exist, where i can be autonomous and not be constantly opening my wrists. this wish is unrealistic. and i always fear i’m dangerous, even after all this progress. like people don’t feel OK around me, like i’m a big corrosive mess. like anyone who is my friend will soon be leaving me for dead once the weight of threats and capital proves too great in the end. but i’m trying, i’m moving forward, i’m accepting my circumstances. they won’t all be duck-and-covers, but they won’t always be dances. and i’ve finally started to strengthen the walls of this little shelter, where i can help myself get better and wait out all this bad weather. and Ariana told me i make a lot of folks feel safe when i’m around, like an emotional support animal, but a person. and that was profound. ‘cause even now it’s so difficult to believe that about myself, but it’s all i’ve ever wanted to be for anyone else. and when i told Gabe i hate my brain, they told me “brains can suck, it’s true, but sometimes yours helps you to do some good things, too. it helps you to write these songs to fix the bad parts of itself.” and i remembered why my notebook is never on the shelf. it’s me i have forever, for better and for worse. i’m stuck inside this body and it’s often just a curse. but sometimes i find the beauty and i know why i’m still here. there are some things i can’t get rid of, and one of them may be fear... but another one is love, and another one is hope. it shines on me from above, and i learn how to cope. with every destructive nightmare, i get closer to the light. i just hope i get it right. i hope i get it right this time.

i want to kill myself tonight. i want to, but i won’t make that leap. i’ll just think about it 'til i fall asleep. this doesn’t happen as much as it used to, but it still happens too much. and i can cope with it pretty well, but i don’t want to have to anymore. i can’t change the past, but i’ll dream of a day when i can. in the movies, it always makes things worse when they do that, but in this case it wouldn’t. i just know it would work out fine. there are just a couple of things i need to fix. please, just a few things. i’ll be quick. two dear friends squirming around in the grass for a while, all giggles and smiles. flash forward a bit and i’m crying on your shoulder, 'cause i just want that back. 'cause the winter gets colder and colder, and suddenly i’m buried under a pile of snow. i can’t change the past, but i’ll dream of a day when i can. i just need a chance to un-hurt everyone. maybe get a few diagnoses i know that i needed, maybe start hormone therapy sooner. yeah, there are just a couple things i need to fix. please, just a few things. i’ll be quick.

i hold on to your rose, and i think of you often. i always hug the thorns tight until their points soften. i find a certain tenderness inside the hardest shells. i find a certain kind of grace inside the hottest hells. a setting sun feels different on your skin than a rising one. a setting sun feels different on your skin than a rising one. leave no lotto ticket unscratched, leave no egg of kindness unhatched, a setting sun feels different on your skin than a rising one. i feel the cosmos brand me with its logo. i feel her presence throw me out and pull me in like a yo-yo. oooooooooooooooooooooo i shake, but i can’t shake her. why does she see me as a creature worthy of her mercy? mercy is a luxury afforded only to the cruel and powerful, and i promise, i am not powerful. not yet. i miss everyone i knew and i hate everyone i know. proverbial tortoise travels too slow. i hate me and i hate PTSD, and how it holds me back from stability. PTSD!!!!!!!! on your front porch i was staring at the window. i could only see my own face and i couldn’t look away. for once, it didn’t distort, and i was completely overwhelmed. there’s no conclusion to be made here. that’s just what i wanted to say. that’s all i wanted to say.

next to you at night, warm for a long time. i feel like i died and came back to life. i come home fucked on wine. chills fall down my spine. you pull me in tight and tell me it’s fine. and i believe you, and i believe in you. i feel the wetness on my face when you’re cryin’. i feel the wind in my hair when you’re high flyin’. these places you’ve been, i’ve spent time there too. you tell me all the gory details and i believe you. and i believe in you. feel a little fuller every day. haven’t loved another in quite the same way. born a little broken, grew up in a haze. we’re wrong sometimes, that’s okay. grow around the holes in the fence, i pray. i believe in you.

my old university downtown. it's 9:48PM. these young waves crash across the crosswalks. i'll never see them again. well i think i could go back to school if I wanted to go back to school, but i don't wanna go back to school. 'cause what happens then? i blow the next three years fretting over nothing, graduate, and try to pretend that i'm something, but end up stuck and staring at the useless scrap of paper on my wall? but then I wonder what's the difference? because that's my life now, always fretting over nothing, while all my friends start to find their way towards something. and i feel left out and staring at the blank wall, because i don't even have a scrap of paper to show off the fact that i committed to something for longer than a few weeks. and i know it means nothing in the long run, but sometimes it feels like nothing means anything in the long run, so why not waste my time when literally all my time is a waste? select, copy, and paste. taking notes in the ledger but I can't read between the lines, and these kids are all around me, and they've all got thicker spines. they have their own worries and fears, but they haven't been chewed up by strife, and some of them never will be. how do you get that lucky? how do you get that fucking lucky? every time i turn around i expect to see a wireframe of the world i'm passing through, strings of hexadecimal scrolling too, generating the environment in front of me, and deleting it as i leave. i don't know what to believe. i know my goddess won't ditch suddenly, but i feel like now she's waiting to see if i can really prove my faith to thee, or if waking life really is a dream and I'm caught in between, terrified of the horrors I know but even more scared of the ones i've not yet seen. fuck me. baby, fuck me. fuck me, baby, fuck me. make me forget this body. make me forget this soul. not forever, just a minute. all this praying takes its toll. so choke me with my rosary, fill up every hole. slam my face into the wall, make me remember my role. i know i'm coping better than ever before, but I'm still hoping for death at my very core. and i cover it up with sand, and the waves make the sand all wet, and i pack it so far down that sometimes i really do forget. but even when i do, i still fret over nothing. but i'll be something. i swear to thee, someday i'll be something. it burns my feet to keep walking this path, but there isn't another one in sight. and like the storm, it always passes, and i'll stand up ready for the next fight. 'cause my goddess will not let me stay weeping on the ground... she sets me as high as a kite! and despair as i might, in the arms of the night, i nurse my wounds and take flight.

been waking up better lately, but i still have those days. i have to remind myself recovery isn’t linear. it’s not pretty or presentable. i can’t believe i’m thriving in this hell. you’ve got an iron hide where i hold my weakness. you’re taking advantage of my sweetness. and i can’t say i mind, i’ll let it play out for a while. your hand under my skirt, let me be your muse. i think this was supposed to hurt but i’m used to being used. i’m a hand grenade with the pin pulled. i’m the reddened skin when the wind’s cold. neurotic to the bone, no doubt about it. i have this weapons-grade stockpile of remorseful feelings that plague me daily. they stick in my back like knives. but it’s not a bad thing that i’m alive. everybody wants me to apologize, but i’m not sorry that i survived. i keep a paper and pen in the pocket of my shirt. i am more than everyone i’ve ever helped. i am more than everyone i’ve ever hurt.