on this day.

trigger warning but mother needs to stop feeding me lies.

xcv. TRIGGER WARNING BUT MOTHER
NEEDS TO STOP FEEDING ME LIES.

i carry an empty body bag around like a purse wanting to fulfill but never overcoming the cowardliness that runs viciously through my veins, a trait i unfortunately got from my father. i stare down empty barrels that hold more light than my own eyes and i tie knots into the strings that hang loose from sweaters hoping one day i'll be good enough to untie my guts and swallow the burning liquor of what my mother calls peace. i scratch at my skin, wishing it wasn't as pale as it is because marks scream louder than my own voice, but even if i were to let my vocal chords shred themselves apart, no one would look to see if i was alright. i'm different when it comes to crowds, drowning away in the thoughts of what i'll be when the room i find most comfort in, but at the same time the most pain, closes in on me. this overtiming, longing for something more than just a dark mind, my old self trapped in the psych ward i have created within the depths of my chest. she wants to rip apart the straightjacket i made out of misery, barbed wire pricking her skin everytime she cries, winces - stop because i can feel this pain too. how selfish one can be, how i've become old friend's traits, how stubborn i can be, how suddenly i am screaming at the top of my lungs at the seam stitched into the sky the same way my mother did on the fourth of july. her back arched forward, her knees pressed into damp grass, she didn't even bother to catch the alcohol that slowly fell from each single finger. she cried out, she could feel it all collapsing in on her as the world stopped spinning. tell me how this isn't traumatizing to a young daughter, belittled to the size of an ant, a worthless, petty ant. tell me how this isn't meant to hurt when you are the reason your mother is waiting for lightning to stretch far enough to rip the cross stitch clouds apart, feel her soul release as she slits wrist to elbow, feel the weight of the world lift off her shoulders as she is sent to a better place. a place she wants to call peace, must be, it all must lead to happiness and exuberance and freedom and not whatever the fuck this hell place is that is so uncomfortably set in the balls of our feet yet cutting at our ankles won't do anything but mark how pathetic we are to believe it would work when this pain, demons and all that ever is to walk this planet with us, swims through our blood.

when this is who we really are.

the way we find road maps in our stretch marks, following the trails that leave us empty and worthless. yellow, rotting teeth - swallow them whole, feel them scratch themselves down your throat as you keep your mouth shut. the pressing of your dad's finger against your lips, the silence that envelops you so tightly that you feel like you are suffocating. the twitch of nostrils, wanting to break a thousand mirrors, watch them shatter the way your heart did the night he left you alone. find a broken reflection, pieces never matching the ones he forgot to sweep underneath the wooden planks of the floorboards. your mother, crying herself to sleep on the bathroom floor, cradling what used to be closer to her than the pills that she envies. the press of a wooden table pinning you against kitchen cupboards, your father growing louder at the other end, his hands slamming down, causing an echo that shoots through your temples and you are blindsided. the blinking of blue and red lights, it's all too familiar. after it all, why am i still sticking around? i mean, my god, don't you think i have better things to be doing? instead of finding happiness, i am stuck on a scratched record of jealousy, bitter that others are full of joy and i am drowning in trauma and all that there never was.

when summer comes around, i sit where my mother confessed to me how much she wanted to die, the fourth of july, where fireworks are meant to be enjoyed but instead trigger me. i hear his voice in every roar, every painful pop is one gunshot to the girl who once was strong enough to bare it all. i don't cry, but instead mourn over an invisible gravestone that reads peace,something quite unachievable,
something of make belief.