"

(Give yourself to the pain.
Name it so that you may know it.)

Name this lost purpose.
Name it unmet expectations.

Name it what it is.
Name it untreated illness.
Sickness.
Disease I cannot spit out.
Name it too afraid to see the doctor.
Name it a problem that is under control.
Name it stubbornness that might kill me.

Name this my craziness winning.
Name this no satisfying answers online
on how to stop myself from crying.
Name this faking the flu to have
good reason for staying in bed for weeks.
Name this an illness that will be respected.

Name this something softer, something prettier.
Name this feminine troubles.
Name it over-emotional.
Name this the way I’ve always been.

Name this after my mother.
Name it after the house I grew up in.
Name it after being sixteen.
Name it after the first time I hurt myself.
Name it after my nights of lost sleep.

Name it the thing we do not talk about at dinner.
Name it a good show for my friends to watch.
Name this a cause of the circumstances.

Name this trying everyday.
Name this fighting back, hard.
Name this my stubbornness keeping me alive.
Name this healing.
Name this still alive.
Name this still here.
Name this soft wounded thing helping itself back up.
Name this not giving up.

"

"

this month has not been easy. that’s it. it has been hard. there is no poem in that yet.

but maybe there is a poem in getting up each morning, despite a family of worries sleeping on my chest. maybe there is a poem in still being here. maybe my daily survival of myself is a poem. or the way the bruises always heal. or how no matter how many times i’m crying in a parking lot, i still know that it’s going to get better. that it has been better.

maybe my being alive is a poem. maybe writing myself into healing is more than poem-it’s a battle cry. it’s getting the shit kicked out of me by my own head and still forgiving it in the morning. it’s still seeing my hands as hands and not weapons belonging to someone else, or traitors. it’s an up-and-down process. it’s trying the best i can. it’s working with what i’ve got. it’s having a hard month, but being alive. still.

"

"Maybe it’s weird. Maybe it’s scary. Maybe it seems downright impossible to just be—to just let people know you want them, need them, feel like, in this very moment, you will die if you do not see them, hold them, touch them in some way whether its your feet on their thighs on the couch or your tongue in their mouth or your heart in their hands.
But there is nothing more beautiful than being desperate.
And there is nothing more risky than pretending not to care.
We are young and we are human and we are beautiful and we are not as in control as we think we are."