SugaredSloth

Counting the seconds: Six hundred ninety thousand from last sight to next.

Words pour from my hands. Chaos in the writer’s mind brings order in ink.

The tears in his eyes, even though they’re not for me, make it hard to smile

I know this place well Perfectionist prison cell My self-imposed hell

Manufactured happiness At the cost of identity How many times have I found That I am someone else entirely Only for today to maintain And tomorrow to be free again In whoever that day may find

How sensitive are these dopamine receptors Temporary joy

*Paint splattered teardrops on my shirt* I have love but I still get lonely Still feel the smallness of my body on a silent night Sitting alone on my patio staring at the stars *No I just wanna hold ya* Maybe I don’t want to hear the world I let my lungs take different breaths So my heart can strike a more chaotic beat *The taste that your lips allow* It doesn’t take much to make me want to yell out One sip, one hit, one kiss But there’s nothing stronger than memory To keep me up late *My my, give me love* I want to feel it How many times can I look at those pictures *It’s been a while but I still feel the same* And whisper a name into the darkness Only to stand up, close the door, climb into bed Alone *Maybe I should let you go*

Miss every inch of you, eyes to words and skin Come back soon, come back

New prescription meds Hate myself for needing them Sigh, sip, swallow, sleep

You want what you want, I get it. I do, too. But it takes a stable mind to dissect the reasons you want what you want, and you, my cherished friend, do not currently possess a stable mind. So let’s take a look. What do you want right now? You want to die. I know that is a given, because this thought has been sitting in your brain for so long that the world seems built around it. You can’t leave the house without thinking of it, can’t survive an hour in your dark bedroom without caressing it. It has become your pet, as it has mine. But here is what you don’t think about: You want to die, but you don’t really want to be dead. It is not the permanence of oblivion that you truly desire. It’s the unique experience that you can’t imagine without actually having felt it firsthand. Because it is knowledge whose cost you will never be able to afford. It’s a memory you will never get to relive and ponder and reminisce. And you also want to die because you crave the comfort of control. That is another given. Onto the second thing you want: Destruction. You want to ruin all the valuable points in your life. You want to hurt that friend and you want to ignore that opportunity. You want to start a fight with the one who feeds you the most love. But again, this is about your desire to be in control, because if you can make them hate you when you’re at your worst, then you don’t have to worry about disappointing them when you are trying your best. And you can convince yourself that you are exactly the kind of monster who doesn’t deserve their love or effort anyway. So what else do you want? You want to hurt yourself. Maybe not physically, maybe not in a way that will bleed or show bruises, but denying yourself sleep and food and exercise and love are forms of self abuse. You think you deserve to be punished, but no one else is willing to beat you up in quite the same way. You wish they would. But they won’t, because they have stability you do not have. They see you as a whole, imperfect human. And they love you anyway. Today is not a day to make big decisions. It is not a day to seek uncharted memories. It is not a day to worry about whether or not you deserve love, because you won’t listen to the people who will tell you that you absolutely do. No, today is a day to close the curtains and rest your unstable mind. Put the caffeine away; let your body feel tired. Sleep. Let your words out. Tell someone who loves you that your heart aches and you need a hand to hold in the impenetrable darkness. And damn it, let them do it. It’s okay to want what you want, I get it. But let your stable mind make the decisions.

I love this one, @evalynn

I wish I could sleep But I did that once this week ...won’t happen again

Arms brush as we pass You slide a little closer Secret oasis

The months drag like textbook pages So dry, I just keep flipping through Staring at the ink expecting a change But it doesn’t come You disappeared like music in the mind of a linguist I would know Not gradual, I went to sleep with you in my head Woke up and you were gone You once were the commanding percussion I marched to You were the emotional piano keys that unlocked me The subtle, moving strings that tied me to you I felt every piece of the arrangement While I was listening But I could only ever hold on to the lyrics Because they were mine I sang your song so often that I lost my own voice in your melody How times did you pry my heart open Just to pour yourself in How many times did I welcome you fully At the same time craving both more of you and less of me But I took it too far and you watched me slowly erase myself Until there was nothing left to love Now I flip through my own pages Even my poetry is textbook dry I keep staring at the ink expecting a change that never comes Every page the same Cold and closed, hardened No vulnerability, no fragments of my heart for you to find Only distance and dispassion Most lines left unfinished Because I’m still singing to you Without any of your music And it echoes off walls you’ve never touched I could never keep time on my own I could never stay in key So your song becomes little more than a collection of lyrics Verses and choruses that I wrote long ago That I can now speak only in whispers To no audience

I don’t like eggs and I hate cilantro. Honestly I’m fairly ambivalent when it comes to foods I like, but I actually have a long list of foods I don’t care for and why. I do enjoy spicy foods though.