Stale alcohol found
its way to my nose and
burned as it entered my lungs.

There are more empty liquor bottles
scattered around the apartment
than pollution in the ocean.

Eye watering cigarette smoke
invades my skin and clothing;
it’s something I cannot outrun.

My father is a
fire hazard as his head  hits
The couch's armrest
with a cigarette between his middle and pointer finger.

My mother though is like a fire extinguisher
as she takes it from him
and presses it against her lips.
She stumbles into
her room,
cigarette in hand
balancing it with her sixth bottle
of something hard
in a crumpled paper bag.

My brother snorts
something that looks like snow.
As it stains his skin below his lip
it also turns him into a monster.
Purple and blue bruises
form around my wrists as his bony fingers pop blood vessels while
he’s holding me down.

Handprints make it impossible
to sleep at night when they
are swollen on my backside.

But to my six year old
brain this was normality.
This was the only life I knew.
And that’s how I ended up here.

Here.
That can mean so many things.
Here as in this is my
mental state now,
or here as in where I stand.

Here is also a homophone of hear
which means people have the ability to listen, but
life consisted of people blocking me out
ignoring my screams as they
echoed throughout the world.

But here I stand,
in a mental institution,
staring at other teenagers
as they stare at me;
the new girl.

A part of me died
a long time ago
when the monster went to prison.
His grip around my neck was so tight
he took who I am with him.

The social worker sitting
before us asks me to explain my
“Situation”.

My situation?
What does that even mean?
My situation is sitting in these
uncomfortable chairs while inhaling
the smell of tasteless hospital food
and medicine that makes me cringe.

Medicine.
That’s what he called it.
In the darkness of an alley
that smelled like helplessness,
addicts lined the brick walls.
The atmosphere was stuffy and thick
as he tied a piece of cloth around my bicep and poked a hole in my forearm.
My heart was racing,
and I felt my body drift away.

In the midst of it all I still felt
the pain of my childhood.
He said it would take a few
injections of this medicine,
and then I would be able to forget.
Heroin.
It was definitely not medicine.

“You asked those who
hurt you to heal you, right?”
Says a boy with scruff trailing
along his jawline.
Freckles blanket his face,
and his skin is covered in
tiny white vein like scars that vanish
under his clothing.
“Excuse me?”

“Someone broke you, otherwise you
wouldn’t be here. People don’t
try to kill themselves for fun,”

Healing.
Skin cells replace themselves.
Blood cells replace themselves.
Even torn muscle tissue heals itself.
So why can’t emotions fix themselves?

My chest was ripped open
when the eyes of my father cut into me.
My ribs shattered at the voice of my mother
when she spoke about her lung cancer
as if it could have been prevented.

Even my lungs burst
when it became too hard to breathe
under the depression they had caused.
Why can’t the heaviness
in my chest heal itself?
Why can’t I forget the voice
of my dying mother,
and allow my anger to dissipate?
And how come depression isn’t
something that’ll go away in a few days
like a scratch on your leg?

I think it’s because, like that boy said,
I expected those who hurt me could
grab onto the pain they
created and throw it away.
But people are a disappointment.
Sometimes they applaud at the hurt,
and they leave you.

Sometimes you have to
walk this world alone
stitching your invisible wounds.

“It’s time to talk to the psychiatrist,”
a nurse with a soothing voice says.
Psychiatrist.
Don’t get it mixed up with a psychologist.
Psychiatrists are supposed to help
fix the broken parts inside
with a concoction of medication.
A psychologist evaluates someone’s
state of mind.

50 grams of Effexor.
250 grams of Wellbutrin.
Half a pill of Trazodone as a sleep aid.
This isn’t the way my life is supposed
to turn out.

When the social worker asks me
about where my “home” is,
I’m taken aback.

Home.
Living in the crumbled remains
of parents too drunk to
care for their children
is not a home.

Spending every day smelling cheap beer
and whisky is not a home.
She expected me to say
a city, or a hometown.
But instead I told her I am home.
My body is my home.

I stopped looking for home within
the people whose blood
runs through my body.

I lifted the foundations
of a home in my bones,
and although I tried to destroy it,
I’m determined to rebuild it.

The boy with freckles
and scruff speaks again while
we spend time expressing ourselves
or how we feel through drawing.
“You don’t talk much.”

I don’t look up from my paper.
“I mean, we all have our different
ways of dealing with things. You’re
scared to open to anyone but the social worker.”
I sigh, “Because by law she can’t tell people the things I say or feel.”

Vulnerable.
It’s what happens when you
allow people to dig out
and examine the backbone of
who you are.

Opening up to someone allows them
to have the chance to see the worst parts
of yourself, and sometimes they
hurt you with it as if you
didn’t hurt to begin with.

You cannot always trust people
with a smile on their face;
After all, the Devil was once an angel.

“Good, good. I’m glad that you’re
opening up to me.” the social worker
says after I finish telling her about
my ex-boyfriend whom had torn
me apart worse than my family
ever did.

He was captivating.
With a mouth full of white lies,
I dove head first into
his masquerading essence.

With fingertips like ice,
he touched my spine and
left me breathless;
I wanted more.

His sleepy eyes made
my heart ache for love.
The way he smiled at me
while we drove down the interstate
blaring music that made us feel alive
was the only thing that made me
forget things; I forgot he wasn’t
the masterpiece I so badly
wanted to believe he was.

I forgot that love isn’t shown
through bruises.

When you teach your daughter
at a young age that boys are mean
simply because they
think she’s pretty
she will confuse love with abuse.

She will grow up to trust men
who hurt her in all possible ways,
all because you’ve taught her
love is the equivalent to pain.

He had every piece of me,
but he threw me away as if
I was garbage when a girl
with prettier eyes than
me walked by him and winked.

I loved him, but he didn’t love me.
Nothing can hurt worse
than the feeling of being
unworthy.

The boy with freckles name is
Joshua.
He sits beside me while
we’re in group therapy.
We all express the triggers
that cause a panic attack,
suicidal thoughts,
homicidal urges,
or an eating disorder.

Answers range from abuse
to reading something in
a book that hits
too close to home.

We cry together,
and for once I feel as if
I’m being cared for.
It’s all I’ve ever wanted.

Joshua looks over at me,
“your existence is far greater
than the things that hold you back.”

I look at the other teary
eyed teenagers in the room,
and I’m beginning to realise
I do matter, and those who tore
me down can go to Hell.

Sirens and bright lights
illuminated our street.
It sounded like thunder
below us as men in uniforms
stomped up the creaky stairs.

Everything was so loud,
And men with guns kicked the
door down.

They were screaming uncomprehended
words at my brother as he
struggled to loosen their group
around his wrists and body.

My breath caught in my throat
as three men shoved him out
of the apartment.
I was frozen.

The men kept telling me
I was finally safe,
but fear was still
rooted in my spine.

I was still in the middle
of a war.

I was still held
hostage by his memories,
and I realised I would
never be safe from him.

He creeps around me
as a ghost;
I cannot outrun him.

“So, your brother is
who you fear?” the
social worker asks.
During group therapy,
we have begun talking
about the things that could
have caused us to end up here.

“I just wanted to get away
from him and the memories for good.”
I whisper.

A week ago I was found
by our landlord when he
barged into the apartment
to collect our late rent.

As he unlocked the door,
he saw me half dead
on the couch with pills
spilled around me.

“But isn’t he in prison?” a quiet girl
named Lily asks while staring at me.
“Yes. But I still feel him.”

Your skin cells will all
be replaced in seven years.
Until then I have a body
covered in fingertips
I can’t scrub off.

He is still touching me.

Your body's a temple
that should be praised.

But I have been torn down.
My structure has collapsed
into nothing but ruins.

I fidget in my chair.
Tears begun to roll
down my face before I
even realised.

I go to the bathroom.
My eyes are incredibly puffy,
and I feel like a stranger looking
at the girl in the mirror.

Her knotty fire red hair
has grown out past her shoulders.
Even more freckles dance on her nose,
and her collarbones protrude out.

Her dark blue eyes have sunken in a bit,
but they still glimmer.
It’s like I’m seeing her for the first time.

Skin is peeling on her lips
from a bad habit of biting her lower lip.
Her jawline is strong,
and her skin lacks blemishes.

She pouts at me.

Is it bad that I don’t even
recognize myself anymore?

But somethings don’t differ.

Hearts act like thunderstorms
in the midst of a blue sky.
They rage with great winds
that could topple buildings with ease.

Tree branches compose
rib cages.
Sometimes hollow,
yet sometimes undeniably strong.

Milk and honey rush through veins.
Blood is nothing more than
a sharp, sweet liquid
that flows with ease.

I am more complex
than anything imaginable.
My heart not only beats,
it thuds beneath my chest
within my ribs that refuse
to crack apart.
The essence of who you are
comes not from your beauty,
but from the strength you hold.

I don’t recognize myself
because there is nothing to recognize.
You don’t see the change from within;
you simply feel it.

And I do.
I feel it radiating through my body
as I wipe the tears off my face.

In the matter of three days,
I will be released back into society.
The lessons I’ve gained have begun
to heal the sores on my heart.

Darkness is only temporary.
The light appears when you heave
the tar off of yourself
and fill the gaps with,
fortitude
beauty
faith
strength
integrity
boldness
Independence.

I’ve made it this far.
Why quit now?