Things I Should Say- A Book of Poems

I am Scared

I am scared to let anyone in.
The last person I gave shelter inside my body used my bones as kindling and burned this house down from the inside.

I am scared to love again.
So many people use the words I love you just to make it easier for you to unbutton your pants.
So many people use the words i love you as conversation filler, when if they said what they really meant you would run in the opposite direction.
Protection.
That is all I have ever wanted.
I wanted protection when I was a child being molested by my parents.
I wanted protection when I was a teen with self harm issues being called fat emo bitch in the hallways.
I wanted protection when that boy broke my heart.
And another one.
And another one.
Does it ever stop?
I wanted protection from myself when I carved words in my skin.
I needed protection from myself when I tried to see just how many pills a stomach can hold.
I lost count.

After being so broken,
One assumes there is a point you reach where your pain stops intensifying.
Yet pieces of myself keep breaking off and every time the person I love shatters me,
I am surprised there was something left there to break.

I am not a whole,
I am an empty shell and all I want is to be filled.
Fill me up with love. 
Fill me up with distraction.
Fill me up with anything but the emptiness I feel. 

I keep letting people inside me because being hollow is so cold and the wind makes howling noises when it chills you to your bones
And even if their body will be gone in the morning and I will be empty again tomorrow
Sometimes facing tonight alone is too scary to even try.

I am scared of myself because I don't want to get bad again.
I don't want to go back to the white walls and hospital gowns.
I don't want to live with ghosts
Hollow empty whitewashed people being force fed pills and potions
All of us wishing we were less empty.
All of us choking on their pity.

I am scared that this will always be my life.
I am scared that I am not cut out for life.