“They who think me hostile, obstinate, or misanthropic… how unjust they are to me. For they do not know the secret reason I appear that way.” ~Immortal Beloved

One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.

One. One of my best childhood friends.
Brain cancer.
Gone.
Room is spinning faster than we used to twirl around the kitchen together.
I have work in an hour.
Shit…
I put on a smile like the one she used to wear every day.
I wish I could say I do the same.
I smiled and laughed for six hours with my customers.
The drive home was silent like her heart.
I hid in my room and cried,
The most beautiful waterfalls I’ve ever seen
On display for no one but the reflection in the mirror
Across the room staring back at me with a blank expression.

Two. Two very influential adults in my life.
My cousin.
My soccer coach.
Suicide.
Gone.
Room is spinning faster than
The wheels of the car.
The wheels of the train.
I have to go to school in the morning.
Shit…
My glasses hide the bags under my eyes
After sleepless nights,
Spent counting the bricks of my fireplace
Through blurred vision,
And starting over
Every time
I lost sight.
They say you dress how you feel…
How do you dress “helpless”?
But still I smiled,
Every
Damn
Day.
Yet hardly any words escaped through my clenched teeth.
I hate the world.
“You can’t hate the world.”
Watch me.
It’s the only thing I have to blame
For ripping out my heart
Every time
I set it back in place.

Three. Three agonizing years.
Names.
Pointed fingers.
Laughing.
All at me.
Nowhere to hide out in the open
So I hide within myself.
Find the hardest metal known to man,
My walls were harder.
Find the highest building known to man,
My walls were higher.
“Chronic bitch face.”
More like protection,
My very own internal armed guard
Prepared to close all gates
And point all weapons
Towards the object of my
Possible destruction,
Out of crippling fear
That one day
I may wake up,
Go to school,
And never want to laugh again,
And never want to smile again,
And never want to live again.

Four. Four walls slowly crumble down.
I do not deserve to be loved
If those I love
Are gone,
If those I love
Are in pain around me,
If I’m so fucked up.
But suddenly,
My trembling fingers
Are stilled.

Five. Five fingers.
Intertwined
With my own,
Holding strong enough
To keep me from slipping
Into a place of no return.
The white flag of my
Subliminal war.

I was always a little afraid of the dark
And the thought inside my head
And the fact that I was
Unfit for being loved
Due to the slightly noticeable habit
Of full-force shoving people
Out of my life.
But how do you love
When you were born to hurt?
How do you open your heart
To anyone at all
When it could be
Silenced
In the blink of an eye?
I never knew the answer
Until He graced my life
With his presence.
No type of God but my own kind of savior,
Reminding me how to
Drink the sunlight
And to hell with the shadows.
For one can only hate the world
For so long
Before it bites you in the ass
For shutting out the only means
Of survival.

I am not
My “chronic bitch face”
Or forced smiles,
But a well filled deep
With passion and love
And the hope for better days.
And as this completely mediocre sunset
Steals my final ray of light,
I hope I will wake up tomorrow to a mediocre sunrise
Until it hits me how fucking lucky I am
To even be looking at one
At all.