Writing is a scandalous psychologist.

It leaves me slightly better each time I leave his office,

but he keeps prescribing more and more drugs.

And even worse,

more and more visits.

I've become dependent.

Instead of teaching me to live on my own,

he teaches me that I need him.

He sits there and watches me cry

telling me that rain can wash away everything if I let it

but I still leave with mascara stains dribbling down my cheeks.

I need to stop holding in my emotions,

be honest with myself for once,

he tells me.

So I do my homework,

sitting in a mirror with a knife in my hand,

demonstrating, quite honestly, how much I hate my weakness,

telling myself over and over

that once I'm lined with tiger stripes

I will finally be strong enough to run away.

I told him about the heart I broke last night.

I told him about the heart I shattered last month.

And the many before that.

He told me to be honest with myself for once

and see that it was the same heart I was breaking

over and over.

Mine.

He told me that no one else was my responsibility

that I could only choose my actions and my responses to others actions.

What wise advice.

So I took a sharp edge from my shattered heart

and held it to another's throat screaming

"I have nothing left to give any more!"

And watched as my pain created pain in him.

Watched what Id sown grow into black roses,

Lining his bed.

The bed we shared on forbidden nights,

A long long time ago.

Yes, I watched him die.

His last breath the blossom of the most beautiful rose Id ever seen.

Darker than any other Id seen.

I'm awake in the middle of the night right now.

Remembering.

Calling my therapist over and over,

but he must be sleeping.

You see, I think a shard from my shattered heart

fell through the bottom of my lung

and I am gasping for air.

Dying.

Alone.

Without garnishes.

My head bare of a crown of thorns like his.

Floating.

In the sky.

My eyelids already lined with stars.

I can't wait to shine among them.

To look children in the face for an eternity and tell them that there's hope.

That their wishes will come true.

That there's something beyond this world.

And only half believe any of it.

Because now I've seen the rest of space

and know its a bunch of nothing.

Stars like adults.

All liars.

But it's all for the best right?

My therapist tells me that growing up is hard,

but important.

Like outgrowing every layer of skin you have,

One at a time,

molting,

until there is nothing to protect you from the truth.

Sometimes the truth is a gentle wind in a a forest.

Making songs.

Soothing you.

Sometimes the truth is a sandstorm.

Leaving you holding yourself in an ocean of tears that hurts almost as much as the sand

because saltwater on wounds doesn't go over too well.

Sometimes the truth is like the sun.

Relentless.

Beating down on you,

like your father used to,

like your mothers words used to,

like bullies used to,

like everyone that peeled a layer of skin off you before you were ready in the first place.

Sometimes, even as an adult, you'll wrap yourself in blankets,

in other people,

in coffee addictions,

and tell yourself you have skin again.

That you're invincible.

But unfortunately everyone sees past all of that.

They can see each one of your muscle as it works.

They can see your tendons stretching and bending.

Contorting around  your bones.

Around my bones.

I still have a few layers of skin left to lose.

But what I have left has already become translucent.

Almost there.

Begrudgingly looking forward to the day I've outgrown every last layer.

Ready to be what my parents have always hoped for.

An adult.

But also knowing I can't handle it.

Like my cousin.

Who,

as soon as he stepped out of his last layer of skin,

jumped from continent to continent

being chased by the harassing wind of truth.

Too cold sometimes.

Cowering from the burning sun of truth.

Too hot sometimes.

I'll end up in a mental institution beside him.

Wrapped in straight jacket for protection.

And that's when my therapist will tell me,

Chuckling softly,

that his work was all just an act,

a scam.

That he knew the first day he saw me that I was hopeless

and decided he could at least make some money

as he watched my demise.