The lies you tell yourself 

Spread around the crevasses of your brain

The ones that say you’re not enough

It’s ridiculous to expect everyone to love you

Ridiculous to expect everyone to like you even

Crumpled up inside my ears are lists of things I know to be false

But somehow these post-it notes demand that they’re real

I’m not enough

I’ll never be enough

I just need to get outside my head

Squish my skull with my fists 

Throw it in the trash

The warranty is up

Did I even get one?

I thought it was never going to break

Too many scratches on the flesh of my scalp

Too many cracks in my brittle bones

Wash the grime away

Scrubbing my skin with steel wool and bleach

Stop

It’s not outside 

It’s inside

Coat my lungs with Lysol

Powder my heart with nostalgia

Rinse my bones 

Place each one in the dishwasher

Unzip my skin 

Put it in a zip lock

Drycleaners special

And my brain…

Fuck my brain 

I felt okay the last few weeks, but today I feel a bit weird. I know it will go away, but why do I feel like crying when everything in my life is great? I have two amazing jobs, and an amazing guy who loves me, and I can’t shake this empty feeling. There’s a pit in the very bottom of my stomach that always seems to cave in once I had thought it was full. Dirt crumbles in and out of it as I relax, then struggle to breathe. I’m kneeling down on the bathroom floor at work just waiting for it to pass by, closing my eyes until it’s over. Sometimes it passes, but sometimes it lingers on like a foul odour grasping at the back of my throat. ‘Daisies, daisies, you fill me up with daisies,’ but I keep plucking each petal until there are only grey stems that remain. Why can’t I stop peeling away the flowers and let things be? I’m pinned down by the weaknesses of myself, when I know for damn sure all this thinking is pointless. All these drawn-out feelings and sunken eyes dripping salt water. I am better than this, and I know that I felt fine yesterday. Today is just an off day, and we can just accept that. I’ll ball today up in my fists and move on, breathe.

It’s 12 am and I can’t sleep. It’s not that late, but this medication makes me sleepy all day and awake all night. I want a hug, I want to cry, I want to move everything out into the yard and hose down this house, hose down myself. I have a job interview tomorrow, which is pretty exciting. The start of something new. Hopefully, I get the job. I think I’d fit in well over there. Maybe I can be happy. My eyes are sleepy, but my brain is always working, always twisting. Stop…just…stop. This headache is pounding in my ears, pounding. Tiny woodpeckers are pecking at my eardrums. Teeth clenched like I’m about to attack, but the only thing I’m attacking is myself. I wonder if these thoughts will ever matter to anyone but myself. In that case, they seem pretty pointless and temporary. There’s no material value in this…why not just go to sleep? This is all an illusion. You just think your heart is broken, but it’s beating. It has to be beating. Sometimes I check my pulse just to make sure it’s there.