8 times in March 2024. I stood near the edge. Not the kind people talk about over coffee, but the real one. The kind you walk to barefoot in the middle of the night when the world is so quiet it sounds like screams in your head. I didn’t leave a note. I didn’t plan a goodbye. I just didn’t want to keep breathing. That was all. The sky was the same every time. Grey. Still. Nothing changed.

11 times in April. I got used to the routine. Morning coffee. Pretending. Smiling when people spoke. Nodding as if the words reached me. And then, when the world wasn’t looking, my hands would ache to let go, like they weren’t even mine.

May had 29. That was the month my heart was torn out in the messiest but cleanest way. Not with a knife, but with silence. With the way someone I had loved looked at me like I was dirt and was already fading. I think that month I stopped trying to pretend. I stopped eating, sleeping, hoping. Just numbers on the wall. Just breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, stop.

June had 3. I don’t remember them clearly. They didn’t burn like May. Just flickers. Like matches that wouldn’t catch a flame.

2 in July. One was at the bottom of a swimming pool. The other was in the middle of a Walmart aisle next to the milk. I remember thinking: Is this what it’s come to? Thinking about vanishing between 2% and whole milk?

August held 2. Quieter ones. Gentle, strangely polite. Just the idea of disappearing like smoke through a cracked window. Not angry. Just done.

1 in September. I was proud of that. A low number. I still felt hollow, but I was walking more. Breathing more. Lying less.

October had 2. That month was colder. I kept staring at the trees, thinking about how leaves don’t scream when they let go.

2 in November. I sat in church both times, ironically enough. One during the sermon. One while singing on stage during worship. I wondered if God noticed when I stopped singing and just reached my hands out to Him. If He knew I was somewhere else entirely.

5 in December. The holidays are a knife dressed in ribbons. I smiled in every photo. Every single one.

January had 9. That month is always heavy. The world starts over, but I never do. I just carry all the months before.

February had 9 too. And I hated myself for it. I had made it this far, hadn’t I? Why wasn’t it easier yet?

March again. 11 times. Full circle. I started keeping score in my head. Not to glorify it—just to remember that I was still here. Still fighting. Still aching.

April had 5.

And then suddenly on a random Thursday night—there was you.

You didn’t rescue me. Don’t flatter yourself. You didn’t say the right thing or shine light into the dark. You just stayed. You just didn’t leave. You asked questions no one else dared to. You listened without turning away. You didn’t try to paint over the cracks—you looked straight through them.

And the ache

didn’t disappear

but it loosened its grip.

So I stayed.

Ninety-nine times I almost didn’t.

But you were the reason I never made it to one hundred.

are you chasing your dream

so intensely

because deep down

you want it to

slip away

faster?

It started out as adoration, as most things do

"You're so pretty," he'd tell me

I believed him every time, but found myself

wishing he'd compliment something

just beyond the physical

I eventually grew to despise that phrase

because almost every time he'd say it

it only meant something darker

Another night, gone too far for my liking

and another, and another, and another

I began to pull away,

but his young, intense, passionate mind

wouldn't hear of it

His eyes always open, watching me

I never understood why

the adoring look in his eyes quickly turned to lust

a look I had never seen before

but will never forget again

forever burned into my mind

as he yanks the last straw and the cops drive by.

I'm sitting in my bed

this terrible, comfy warm trap of a bed.

My mind is saying I should sleep.

I've been trying to for the past 5 hours.

I look over at my pillowcase

(my phone flashlight is on

because I just went to the bathroom

to wipe off my tear soaked face)

and feel ashamed that I have cried so much.

I can't even sleep on that side of the pillow.

I flip the pillow over.

Let's try this again.

I know you've heard before about being scared of what's under your bed, but have you ever been scared of the bed itself?

That moment when you realize you've cried yourself to sleep so many times in that bed, so many late nights turned into early mornings, so many tears shed, so many thoughts of leaving forever, so many anxiety and panic attacks—all in that bed.

So you walk downstairs to calm yourself down at 12:13am. When the tears stop flowing, you walk back upstairs to try to go to sleep now.

But when you see the bed, all you can do is uncontrollably cry and fear getting back under the covers. There is nothing comforting about it at all. It's only ever been cleaned and washed in tears.

Most people use the covers to hide from monsters in the dark, but my mind's dark monsters make their home in my covers, so where am I to go?

I try to speak life into your body

but it stays dead and motionless.

When I speak, you cover your ears,

running away from words that would heal you.

You vent to me—oh how you vent—about being trapped,

but have you ever considered that maybe, just maybe,

you are the one that built the wall you're stuck behind?

Brick by brick, stone and cement combine to create a barrier

in which you have settled into and called your home.

You live life in an itchy but pretty sweater,

easily taken off, but too mesmerizing

and addictive to even try to take it off.

I only pray that one day, somehow, some way

that at least one of the seeds I've tried to give you

has settled into your heart's soil and will spread someday,

even if I don't get to see the fruit of it.

I hope you will find joy again.

My signature scent is vanilla,

soft and warm like morning light.

It clings to my skin, my hair,

whispers of sweetness in the air.

It's the first thing you notice about me,

soft, familiar.

But scratch beneath and it's not so clean,

a bitterness lingers, sharp and unseen.

If you stay, if you get to close, you'll see

I'm like too much sugar in a cup,

Sweet at first, but never enough.

I wear the scent of kindness,

but underneath, there's something raw.

A contradiction that no one expects.

A sweetness that leaves a strange aftertaste

You'll remember the vanilla,

but it won't be what you wanted

not in the end.

in the quiet dawn of a new day

where shadows of the past softly sway

through the cracks of a weathered heart

learning the art of a fresh start

like a flower in a storm's embrace

finding solace in a hopeful place

with each step, a promise to mend

a love reborn, a heart to lend

he might love you, he might really love you.

How can I move on?

The question haunts me with its very existence—

Like a melodic dissonance

refusing to find a resolution

Like a sunset that lingers

rejecting the idea of nightfall

Like a puzzle missing its final piece

always and forever unsolved

Like a river that won't stop flowing

defying the banks that wish to contain it

Like a dream that clings to the edge of wakefulness

yet ever-present in the dawn

Like a star that pierces the night sky

unfathomably distant.

How can I move on?

I know every chapter woven into your heart's strings,

Strings of all colors and feelings and sizes—

The thick string of blue that contains every tear your eye has shed

every time you shut that door in anguish and attempted to drown it all away

The still-growing string of gold that sprouted when we met

when I showed you that your feelings were beautiful, like treasures

The heavy string of brown that is barely hanging on for dear life

bearing down with self-doubt and anxieties, yet important in its own way

The string of pink in which I have forever made my mark

just as you have made your lovely mark in my own heart.

How can I move on?

Your story has become a part of the melody that plays in my heart—

Moving on is not a matter of lessening my past love,

of retracting the love that was given

It is a matter of reconciling with the fact that

hearts change and minds remember

I must learn to chart a new course to embrace a new horizon

hope lying ahead

My young heart did not anticipate how much a seed of love can grow

in such a short period of time.

the thief is breaking in & stealing

I'm at gunpoint

he wants one thing that used to be yours

I had already thrown away everything

trying to rid myself of you—it did not work

but my heart!

my heart used to be yours!

so I rip my heart out (like you did months ago)

and give it to the thief, dripping