Red

I stare at my wrists,

Seeing myself in the mirror.

All I see is...

Red,

Red,

Red,

Puffy red eyes too numb to cry,

Stained red scars that hurt to the touch,

A vulnerability deep inside me I can't shake.

I've fallen back into depression

This time it's harder to get out.

I'm a prisoner shaking inside the bars of my head,

Why couldn't I have been born right?

Hating every single crevice of my body

Putting my binder over my head

Wishing I was anything but a girl.

Nobody sees my struggle

Sprinting until my childhood trauma doesn't exist,

Doing every single thing right

But still thinking everything is wrong with me.

I've been fighting harder then anyone knows,

I'm running a race I can't beat like

A person trying to outrun a car.

The inner child in me is screaming for some rest,

Everything inside me shakes like an earthquake

Seeing my house disappear from my own eyes,

My spiderweb of trauma has been broken

With all the strings attached.

I reach for it but nothing feels the same.

I don't feel the same.

I can't handle it anymore

Sometimes I wish I was normal

With a dad that came back with food,

Wanting to play frisbee with me,

Laughing at my jokes that aren't funny at all,

Hoisting me over his shoulders like a little kid.

Or a mom that toke me to see pride parades,

Using my name making me feel proud

To have a mom that

I share all my secrets with like a best friend.

But most of all happy to have them together

When I graduate, when I get married to a girl,

When I experience everything I deserve.

But that is lost like the scrapbook

My mom never started.

Like the advice about life I was never given

Figuring out how to live with myself alone.

A fantasy started off great in the beginning

But loving is hard and it doesn't always work.

And because of that I'm a puzzle piece

With all the basic border pieces missing.

Still trying to find my way with my glass half empty.

Drinking monsters,

Crying writing poetry at 1:30AM,

Beginning to shake for no reason at all.

Continuing the same cycle of self-hatred,

With wrists stinging in the shower.