After long hours of longer days, stretched out upon an unending week, she's filthy and tired and weak from being strong, stripped of excitement, stripped of strength.

She hides behind her bathroom door and greets her reflection, a shadow with baggy eyes and tired bones. She gazes into her mirror to see herself the way she really felt, stripped of clothes, stripped of dignity.

She turns on the water and steps in, letting it rain over her body, washing away the dirt and ink and troubles of her life. She washes her hair and shaves her skin, stripped of filth, stripped of shame.

She falls to the floor and sits against the wall, allowing the water to cascade over her shoulders and warm her entire body. She didn't fall in shame or sickness, but in surrender, to let the water wash all of her troubles away. She closes her eyes, and finally smiles, stripped of troubles, stripped of pain.

Words used to simply bloom on your paper. They flowed out like your breath, rising and falling in a perfect rhythm. Your words were meticulous and orderly, and they sang hymns about the trials and simple pleasures of your perfectly ordinary life.

Your words left you in an instant when you stopped breathing steadily, when tortured thoughts pricked at the back of your head, begging you to listen to them. You thought you were strong enough to ignore them. You probably should've stopped thinking altogether.

But life moved on and 'your' became 'her' and she lost those words she used to breathe as simply as air. She would write a word, and then a clause, and then a verse, but it was stuttered and broken and most sadly of all, she wasn't breathing her words anymore, rather just scribbling aimlessly on a piece of paper that would have been more beautiful if it had stayed unblemished by her hand.

She stopped. It was the only thing she could do. She didn't have the drive to keep writing. It couldn't be worth it to spend so much time trying to regrow a love for something she didn't enjoy anymore.

But then a strange thought occurred to her in the strangest of moments. The day was completely ordinary, but a relentless stress seized her heart and the pressure of every single painful thought bubbled inside of her and threatened to explode. There was no way she'd survive it, so she needed to let it all out before it became the death of her.

She only knew one way how.

She reluctantly grabbed an old friend- a tattered notebook now used for numbers and figures and the most horrifyingly objective of matters. She opened it to a blank page, and placed this strange little idea right in the middle, and she told it to run.

The first thing it did was throw away 'she' in favor of 'I,' and it danced on the page in such a different way than I had experienced previously. I wasn't breathing my words anymore, I was living them. My lungs left my words, replaced my by heart and my soul.

And I wrote, and I wrote, and I wrote, and my words weren't orderly anymore. My words didn't flow step after step like they used to, they just lived and breathed on their own in the most beautiful chaos I had ever managed to create, and inside of my heart was a tremendous fire fueled by my thoughts, and every word that cascaded out of my chest made the inferno stronger, and I only craved for more.

Maybe my sentences weren't stable anymore, but my words were stronger than they had ever been. And maybe everyone on this earth would think that I was just insane for crying over these words that only I would ever understand, but I didn't care.

I don't care.

My words feel different now, and maybe to everyone else, they'll only feel like helpless blabbering. But I don't care, because to me, they feel like life.

I don't know if I'll ever explain to anyone why I titled those words the way I did. The page glowed with green ink,

But those words were bright red.

Sorry, I’ve been busy

I think I forgot where I was

My words fell out from under me

That’s just what living does.

I know I go by rain and ink

But I got caught up in the clouds

Of life, of death, of sick, of pain

The rain fell far too loud.

So I left my ink, I left my pen

And maybe I got worse

But I’ll build back up; get there again

I’ll take it verse by verse.

I haven’t written for half a year

But it’s time to rise, not sink

I’ll sit at my desk and sing it out

It just takes rain and ink.

Sorry I took so long.

Oops I didn't post

Sorry I have been in pain

I broke my ankle

*sorry guys I was telling my friend about how I haven't posted here in forever and I was planning on doing something really deep but due to today's events (see last line of "beautiful" haiku) she told me to do ^that^

Today, my brother comes back home.

Today, my brother and I go to a party.

Today, my brother is surrounded by everyone I care about.

Today, my brother sits with our friends; he doesn't realize that they'd leave me behind in an instant to see him any day.

Today, my brother laughs and plays games with our friends who didn't even realize I had left.

Today, my brother is the cause of the fits of laughter I hear behind the bushes I hid into.

Today, my brother is being cheered for as I call my mom to take me home.

Today, my brother asks where I am, not even realizing that I had been driven home.

I left in tears.

I can't go on

I've hit a wall

I hear their laughter

As they watch me fall

I shut my doors

I forgot to write

Anxiety took over

I forgot to fight

And now all I can do

Is count my tears

Till I have to go back

And face the year

This is my last attempt

Of staying sane

My words are my microphone

And my song is of pain

I lost my friends, and my words, and my hope

I lost my drive

And cannot cope

I don't have to travel very far

To get where I want to go

I'm going to introverted heaven

The best of places I know.

With familiar walls and familiar colors

My brothers by my side

This is one of the only places that I really feel alive.

It's a place that I will never get lost

On any day or year

I know this place better than anywhere else;

In fact, I'm already here.

If we could not compare to others,

The world would reach a beautiful place

Where people could learn to love themselves

And be confident in every case

Angry scarred wrists would not exist

For the boy across the street

And breakfast, lunch, and dinner would be happy

For the girl who doesn't eat.

But while we'd all be happy in our skin

It's but a silver lining to a massive cloud

The world would be thrown out of balance

Yes, we might feel beautiful but how could we feel proud?

There would not have any competition

No elections, promotions, or teams

The world would certainly come to a halt

And rip apart at the seams.

We need to compete to push our lives forward

To see what we need to improve

We need to compare to what others do best

So we can get ourselves on the move.

If we don't compare, what makes the valedictorian any more worthy than the one that slacks?

People who deserve the very best

Might end up at the back.

The gorgeous peace of deadly nothing,

The chaos behind the calm

Is this a world in which we will rise

Or a world in which we will fall?