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28/28 | February Writing Challenge 28. Write about the middle of something. I am no longer at the end, I am beginning my middle. A bookmark in between my personal pages, an endless amount of words to flow, a conclusion I fear, with enough of a rise building up to it. There are ridges here and there, dog-eared pages I frequently flip to, until I come back to my current page, and remember to keep on writing. I'll keep on going, and it is all I look forward to.

27/28 | February Writing Challenge 27. How do you relieve tension? A stretch of my muscles, a pulse in my veins, a breath of relief, an ignored piece of dangerous silver. I have made it. 

26/28 | February Writing Challenge 26. Write about a song and the memories or feelings it evokes in you. There is an entire playlist dedicated to the feelings you gave me. And after our downfall, it remains untouched. 

"It's interesting how you could make it work this way, but not like that." I never thought of it like this, never even considered it, but once you said it I began to. And then I realized that it wasn't interesting to me, it was just sad. from lovers to friends 

25/28 | February Writing Challenge 25. Where would you like to go on a day trip? You must drive there and back in one day but you have unlimited funds for gas, food, and activities. I could say I'd go anywhere; anywhere close enough, anywhere interesting enough to break me from this mountainous palace I'm happy to call home. I like to think I'd drive, and continue driving, and hope to make it to a destination I see fit for myself. I also like to think I'd travel out west, five hours southwest, back to the city I fell in love with so many years ago. He thought he'd call this city home and a piece of me wishes he would've. I also could've claimed this city as my own, with three places willing to take me in. I'd love to wander the streets once more, a lost soul looking for a place to tie my heartstrings, for a city as alive as I desire to be. I long for one more day trip, out west, a prelude to the western ways that call me and reverberate my mind w...

24/28 | February Writing Challenge 24. Write about a memorable experience you have had staying at a hotel. A hotel room exclusive to us.  I'd later attribute a song to this night, one of the many in the infinite playlist of memorable nights I've confined to myself, hidden in the corners of my brain, rarely listened to ever again.  I think we were twelve floors up, and together we'd travel up and down the elevator, padding across the marble lobby's floors, little kitten-like feet, and disguised naivety. Here we were, thinking we were adults. We were nothing more than children with innocence comprising our bloodstream and skin that had never been touched.  Our hearts were still beating back then; bloody and plump and beautiful and alive. I remember feeling so alive that night, walking outside, no longer afraid, and seeing myself in the city's skyline. The lights danced off the water with their own syncopation, red and white and yellow and all the colors ...

23/28 | February Writing Challenge 23. "You are what you ____." You are what you write. So tear open my pages, and look at my spilled ink. Here is where you will find me.

"I'm starting to believe," he says as I lean closer to the wall, curling my legs to my chest, arms outstretched and his face on my phone screen, "that it's not worth loving anyone at all, because all they're going to do is stab you in the back and the heart - the sword pierces both." I didn't expect to hear this from him, but more surprising than that, I didn't expect it to resonate with me so much. He says that he fought for her, he did so much, he tried so hard, yet, it still ended like this - unexpected and painful and oh so bloody. Too much blood to clean up alone, as she left him. I did the same, I did it all, I tried so hard and some parts of me are still trying, but I'm also still bleeding. The sword's still in me and I twist it often.

22/28 | February Writing Challenge 22. Write about the last time you felt guilty. I want to help, but I just don't know how I could possibly help; I'm in the bathroom stall next to her doing the exact same thing, desperately hoping my coughs and heaves aren't mistaken as hers. I compare the teeth marks on my hands to the ones that align with hers. I count the seconds as they tick by every time she excuses herself.  I'm so sorry I cannot help, but I'm a hypocrite and nothing more. I wish I could help, but I'm no better and I'm not recovered; I am guilty. 

21/28 | February Writing Challenge 21. Write about a time you said no. My mouth couldn't find the word -- it had escaped my brain by that point. I dug through files and files, dictionaries and thesauruses, desperately trying to find the word I needed. My mouth just couldn't say it -- that two-letter word, that word that could've helped or could've not, that word that I needed the most and still need to this very day.  I said it in other ways -- "I want to go home" or "It's getting late." Pushing my shirt down wasn't enough of a sign, neither was getting up to leave. But both of these actions were met with his own version of the two-letter word -- pulling my shirt back up and wrapping his arm down around me, leaving me unable to get up.  It doesn't matter that moans slipped out of my lips while words couldn't, while my eyes stared out the window, dead and afraid. My body was working against me and my brain wasn't coop...

20/28 | February Writing Challenge I'm really behind because midterms were a thing, but now they're not a thing, so cheers to that. 20. When was the last time you pulled an all-nighter? Why did you do it? How did you feel afterward? The morning sun casting light onto the trees outside had become a comforting sight. The second I saw the glow piercing the lace of my curtains, I knew I had survived the night. It was only then that I could sleep with comfort, with protection, with certainty.  The clicking of keys was better than the sound of my deep breaths, a heavy sigh every time I turned over as sleep refused to encapsulate my brain. The lonely hour on social media revived me, and I found myself alone with my thoughts - such a terrifying and beautiful place to be. I pushed myself into the corner, letting my thoughts attack me and flow out of my fingertips, ink onto the lined pages. I found my solace in the night; I found myself in the night.

Leaving them would break my heart, my heart is bound to this place and cannot afford to be broken anymore.

I make the conscious decision every day to choose everyone, except for myself. I wish I could change.

I become overcome with a nostalgia that tip-toes in, like a ghost that doesn't know how to float or how to leave me alone or how to be quiet and not disturbing. It haunts me. It sends me into a specific mode, a setting I didn't choose to be wired with. If I close my eyes long enough I could still feel the air on my bare arms and the leaves crunching beneath my feet, soft and proud, decaying yet beautiful. The shackles tied to my feet send me out to the lake out on the dock to drown out the reminders all around. Miles and miles of scrolling brings me back to it. Frozen, numbed fingertips unable to delete the remnants. Like a rubber band always able to bounce back, I think we've finally snapped.

19/28 | February Writing Challenge 19. How do you strive to be similar to, or different from, your parents? There will be no yelling; no screams echoing off high ceilings, sending small children cuddled under covers, tears streaming down their face as they are told to pack a suitcase. There will be happiness and kisses and a love that inspires hearts that will never feel cold. There will be an open door, a forever friendship built on trust and unconditional love.  There will not be distrust, or fear, or resentment, or selfishness. I will put them first. I will be exactly what I never had.

A list of places I'll hopefully get to visit this year... maybe... maybe not. 1. Montréal, Quebec, Canada - Mount Royal, Montréal Botanical Garden, Montréal Biodome, Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, downtown, bars 2. Ricketts Glen State Park - I need to see those waterfalls 3. Cherry Springs State Park - I just want to see those skies in person 4. Eastern State Penitentiary - Preferably sometime in the fall when it's spooky 5. Salem, Massachusetts - Salem Witch Museum, tarot card readings, different tours 6. Boston, Massachusetts - Museum of Fine Arts, New England Aquarium, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Skywalk Observatory 7. Canadian side of Niagra Falls 8. San Francisco, California - This is really pushing it, but I want to make it happen

18/28 | February Writing Challenge 18. Describe your favorite article of clothing. Grey and soft and threaded with memories I didn't expect to attach to it.  Long and oversized, it hangs off of my collarbones the same way it did twenty pounds ago.  Basic and easily replaceable, but the memories I have from wearing it are ones that cannot be replicated. It was worn on so many good days, I can't help but want to reserve it for the best in hopes of good luck following me. "It's our shirt now." It has a hole in it and I should really just toss it, but I still can't bring myself to throw it away despite the fact that you threw me away a long time ago. 

We bounce from building to building, floor to floor. From hallways where they stand carelessly with cups of jungle juice, to floors upstairs where they chat with us casually despite our intoxication. Finally, we end up next door, a foreign building with a living room and prison-cell like white brick walls. "Do you want to make out?" Goddamn, I do, I just do and I can't explain it, I don't want to answer questions, I just want to be a hoe in that moment and do whatever I want without consequence or conscience. I don't want communication or connection, I just want someone's lips on mine and he's right here next to me and goddamn I would... but he has a girlfriend. Instead, she drunkenly kisses me, once more, once again and I savor every ounce of her lips even though she's here and gone in a flash and I forget there are people all around us, seeing us do this so casually and my heart aches a little bit at our lightning bolt-like kiss that I wish was a...

17/28 | February Writing Challenge 17. If you were a book, in which section of the bookshop would you be shelved? My binding is constantly breaking, my pages are falling out, my cover is too worn for anyone else to want to open me up and see my contents.  There are so many words written in me, etched in places unseen, too many words and strings of sentences for anyone to spend time reading. I'm easier to just be placed on a shelf, untouched and unread and unopened and unnoticed.  I could be found circulating every shelf, for no genre is my one true home- I bounce between classic myths and romance and young adult fiction and poetry. I encompass too much and regularly overflow, the words float off the page like a boat in a storm, lost forever to the world. Take me off the shelf, unearth my poems, study my words, highlight your favorite sentences, and never put me back again.

16/28 | February Writing Challenge 16. What takes too long? I have spent far too long loving someone who claims to love me but will not be mine. I spent so long that I now don't even know if they love me at all, or if they ever have, even a little bit. Love takes too long; far too long for my patient heart.

15/28 | February Writing Challenge 15. Write briefly about one thing in your life that is simple and one thing that is complex. My feelings for you are the simplest and most complex part of me; simultaneously the single flower in my garden and the dense forest of my thoughts. 

14/28 | February Writing Challenge 14. Write about a messy area in your home, workplace, or life. It's Valentine's Day and once again, I'm reminded that my heart is candy-coated, easily crushed, sweet on your tongue before its aftertaste.  With the help of a neverending train of social media posts and an assortment of flowers on every office's desk I pass by, I'm reminded that I'm chewed up and spit out, never anyone's warm and cozy cup of tea, or burning shot of vodka, or thirst-quenching elixir.  Some hearts are pure candy, nothing but sugar straight into your bloodstream and melt on your tongue effortlessly, crafted by Aphrodite herself; mine just isn't like that. My heart will forever be easily shattered, like a broken lollipop smashed into crystalline, limpid pieces; always sweet, but never strong.

As I finally sit down to write this, beneath red Christmas lights that are still oddly fitting, it is 10:31 PM, meaning that Valentine's Day will officially wash over us and drown us in under two hours. I honestly hate this fucking holiday, way more than the others that I loathe (don't even talk to me on Mother's Day), but it genuinely isn't for the cliché reason that makes it easy to hate on Valentine's Day AKA I do not hate Valentine's Day because I am single. I've been in a relationship on this holiday before (wild, right? I can't believe it either) and even then, my sixteen-year-old-self hated this disgusting, boujee, excessive overt display of affection and romance. My first girlfriend left a stuffed bear for me on top of my locker and I vividly remember cringing and eagerly shoving it into my locker, afraid of anyone else seeing it (partially because I was closeted and didn't want anyone asking questions, but also partially because it was ju...

13/28 | February Writing Challenge 13. When have you experienced "heaven on earth?" Heaven on earth wasn't hard for me to find. I often found it while not even looking for it at all, actually. Like Persephone wandered into the Underworld unknowingly, I was somehow able to locate my own personal heaven without trying. Heaven was present in the most unsuspected places. It was as simple as falling asleep next to someone I loved after a long day in our own personal hell and then waking up to find them still by my side with no intention of leaving.  Heaven was apparent in the soft tone of voice used to calm me down out of my frantic mania while my white knuckles gripped a steering wheel, and the grazing fingertips aglow in the luminescence of a summer storm. I used to find heaven so easily, but I think the gates have closed on me now. I haven't been to heaven in a very long time. Persephone wandered into the Underworld and found the love of her life, but I...

I don't know what I'm doing in life - genuinely, in all aspects, in complete and total fucking honesty . I just have no clue what the fuck is going on in my life anymore , and I don't know what's happening, or how to change anything, or how to regain any sort of small inkling of the control I once cherished. The future terrifies me, but the present scares me even more. There is no comfort in the past anymore, because now, the greatness of what once was just makes me the saddest I could ever be. It seems like I'm just existing, taking up space, using up valuable oxygen, inhabiting a body that's past its due date. I'm tired all the time, I'm confused all the time, I'm lonely all the time, and everything hurts all the time. Emotional and physical pain have become synonymous because one cannot exist without the other. Anxiety has sent me into sweating, crying, throbbing sickness, illness spirals me into a sadness I feel so deeply in my lungs and hea...

12/28 | February Writing Challenge I don't know why I'm still doing this. 12. In what way are you selfish? I wish I were more selfish.  Others are always on my mind far more than myself is, and maybe that's where the problem stems. Everyone else is a forethought and myself, an afterthought - everyone else comes first, and I come last. So I land myself in hot water, breaking my back for everyone until my skin is scalding and I'm physically stuck. But it's okay, because it's all for them, right?  Loving everyone else is all fun until you realize you have no more love to give yourself. 

I never thought I would be Googling this question - desperate for the most desirable answer to pop up as I answer questions I never thought to ask myself. They say there's a problem, there's a worry, there's a concern. But, the only problem, the only worry, the only concern - should be the sadness, not the alcohol.

I want to be heartless, but I have too much of one to destroy it myself. Someone, please do it for me - I am so tired of caring so deeply.

I spent a little too much time south and I was feeling really burnt out, a different kind of tired than the one that glows in the snow here at home. I clicked my heels, once, twice, maybe three times, and I ended up back here, staring at my reflection in the fog settling across a stretch of land and a very tall building looming in the distance. The cobblestone streets welcomed my feet, and for a second, I regret having not explored the array of options. Nine choices, I could've chosen anywhere. I could be two hours away in a city belonging to my dreams, I could be five and a half in a new realm, maybe if I tried harder, I could be farther in a location I never deemed possible. Instead, I'm here - close, but not too close, yet not far enough away for my soul that yearns to wander. Still, this is home. Or so, I thought. I thought making a home out of this place would be easier for those I love to share it with - they could pop in, she said she would come every weekend to ...

My stomach hurts. But why does it hurt? It shouldn't hurt. This shouldn't hurt. She excuses herself, makes up an excuse, one that isn't plausible for the time frame she's gone. It doesn't take twenty minutes to put grapes in a freezer. Putting grapes in a freezer doesn't sound the way making yourself vomit does. I watch her do this, and oddly enough, I envy her. It's sick, it's horrible, but maybe it's a testament to just how downhill my mind is going and exactly how my body is following carelessly. I express my concern in all the ways I can - I want to help, but really, what help can I give if I'm hurting just the same? I see so much of myself in her it's enough to make me cry - sniffles and chewing gum, the smell of vomit lingering every so slightly, the red marks of teeth on knuckles, the jokes that slip past her lips and curl around my ears, sending me into a flashback each time. Her roommate is losing sleep over it, she's wor...

11/28 | February Writing Challenge 11. What do you think is the most important question in life? I've been told I ask "why" too much. Yet whenever someone asks me the same, I struggle to answer. I don't know why I always expect an answer when I can barely give one myself. I'm sorry for my infinite curiosity, it's just that everything is so fascinating and I'd rather search for answers in anywhere but myself. 

10/28 | February Writing Challenge 10. What traffic sign reflects your life right now? We went through green lights and slowed through yellow lights, I even slammed my breaks before the white line of a red light.  I paused at stop signs, looked both ways, ensured the safety - not for myself, but for them. Nothing is ever safe for me; nothing is ever for me, in general, it's just always for someone else.  I wish I could just stop forever and never have to look both ways again; never stuck at this crossroad. I see the word "stop" and I think of how badly I want to say it, to scream it, to something, to someone, to anyone - I want everything to stop. The words never come when I need them most; the words will never come now.

9/28 | February Writing Challenge 9. What is a memory you would like to erase? Your hands on me in deathlike darkness, corpselike stillness, held down with an unfightable force, visible yet invisible, sheer disbelief and imaginary duct tape guarding my only way out.  This memory sends me into screams in the middle of the night, muffled by my own fist in my mouth,  sometimes excused into the solace of the handicap stall. The artificial light drew moths in, but kept me in the shadows, hidden from the outside world.  We were always good at keeping each other hidden, for entirely different reasons.  But on this night, more than ever, I wanted to be in the light. There was a thin line of trust, always crossed, dusted off, constantly erased.  It was finally broken that night, but the sickest part was that I let it get that far in the first place; that I drew lines when I should've built fences - close to touching but not close enough...

8/28 | February Writing Challenge 8. Write about a memory you have related to a campfire. We gathered around the campfire, as everyone typically does. I wish I could lie and say I enjoyed it, that it was pleasant, but instead, it was just a constant stream of smoke and ask stinging my eyes and blurring my vision with tears I didn't expect. Together we talked and talked and talked, and then we talked some more. I revealed the things I had seen, the curiosity that was brimming the edge of my cup, threatening to overflow and drown me once again, much like it repeatedly did over the last few years. I used to think we glowed with the brightest embers of every campfire ever lit; that we flowed better together than any possible story told beneath a scintillating sky. But tears blew out every ounce of flame, diminishing us until there was nothing left but smoke to fly back into my face, reminding me that maybe, the warmth wasn't worth it after all. 

You say you want snow and at one time, I did too. But there's a weather advisory for this wintery mix in my heart and I'm tired of the accidents it has caused. Please, bring some sunshine soon.

I searched through my computer, desperately trying to find something. Instead, as always, I found something else; something I wasn't looking for. It was a conversation I didn't remember having until all of a sudden, it was there on my screen for myself to scroll through and slip myself into that space. Junior year- simultaneously the best and worst time of my life; I thought this sentiment then and I still strongly agree with it now, after two years have passed. I was in a weird time in my life, shifting between half-dead and half-alive, floating between these two states of being, unsure of which I truly belonged. Within this transition laid the potential of a relationship, another serious, soul-sucking relationship to sip me slowly until I was dry. By then, I had learned I didn't want anything serious- I wanted fun and careless and free and wild and happy . The happiness was what I craved most of all. We were talking and talking and talking, all about this leech who...

7/28 | February Writing Challenge 7. Write a quick love story. The story must end badly. I meet someone cute, someone interesting, someone with depths and waves and eyes that hold more promises than I've ever kept.  But that someone meet someone else; someone with more personality, with a prettier face, a smaller body, always something better than I could ever have. My someone chooses their someone, and they never choose me. This is how the story always ends.

6/28 | February Writing Challenge 6. What have you been able to accomplish this year that you are really proud of? One full month without complete and total destruction,  just another collection of days lost to time and space, I'm eager to rinse my memory clean.  There are many more months to battle; many more accomplishments to be made and lost.  This year is just getting started, and I'm not sure whether to be hopeful or scared.   

My numb lips erase his name in a split, striking, intoxicated second. He's gone from my mouth's long history, forever a forgotten piece of that horrible November night. Arms loop around me, some familiar, some not. I don't know what I'm doing and the thoughts just won't stop coming, but then again, does this ever stop? Is there ever any salvation from this hell? Salvation didn't come in the form of a pretty girl's drunken lips because the second they were gone I immediately began to miss them.

5/28 | February Writing Challenge 5. What is the best road trip or vacation you have ever taken? Who was there? Where did you go? What did you see along the way? I remember standing on the edge of the water, looking north, and thinking that if I walked and walked, and kept walking due to some super-inspired, superhuman strength, I could make it all the way back home; all the way back to you. Approximately 674 miles away, 11 hours away and my thoughts still traveled all the way back to you with zero hesitation. We stood together along the shoreline; together yet apart. So close, but too far. 674 miles felt like galaxies at the time, but little did I know that under a month later, 37 miles would feel like the farthest galaxy possible. 

4/28 | February Writing Challenge 4. What do you think is the most important thing for today's kids to learn in school? We endured multiple trials of standardized tests, each one even worse than the next, plummeting self-esteem, increasing anxiety, but the magic number on paper mattered more than yourself ever did, maybe ever will. We learned what GPA was necessary to get into the school of your dreams, and how your class rank and superlatives said more about you than you could ever say about yourself. I learned how to survive my first semester of college, hanging on by my teeth, leaving bite marks once I finally let go of the girl I was trying to be. I never learned how to find myself, how to walk away from people that caused more harm than good, how to not allow insecurity to crush my insides and eat me up, how to say "no" and that it is okay to do so, how to take care of myself and listen to what I need, how to set boundaries for those who en...

3/28 | February Writing Challenge 3. What was the last thing you read, heard, or saw that inspired you? I sat in a chair for seven hours today, listening to my hair stylist vent to a co-worker about her boyfriend who cheated on her. "I just get angry about it sometimes. It just comes in huge waves and suddenly, I'm angry about it." And I understood-- more than anything, I understood. For once, I heard someone say what I felt whenever I was hurt; the recognition that the seas could be calm once again, that things could be "normal," but sometimes storms still happened, regardless of the clear skies minutes before. Sometimes things are fine, things feel so fine and I could go days, weeks, maybe months without thinking about it (whatever "it" even is), and in the snap of a finger, in the downward swipe of my phone screen, in the split second their name graces the presence of my ears-- it all comes back. Maybe it's not anger exclusively....

I'm a writer, I tell myself. It's no wonder I fall so easily in love with words instead of actions. So just like a fly to a venus flytrap, I fell in love every time you opened your mouth, even though I was devoured whole.

The neon lights of the club dripped down fluorescent liquid, landing in splotches on the black floor. Aside from this, everything was dark through the various flashes casting spotlights on the black leather couches and those who occupied them. Still, stumbling through the dark I headed to the bathroom. The doors of the stalls were mirrored, but two-ways. Blue fluid, like melted candy, yet tasteless, sticky and slow poured out of me, falling slowly into the porcelain thrown my head hung in. She waltzed into the bathroom, I could hear the door slam shut. Despite the mirrors, I could still see her while still seeing my reflection. My reflection... I saw it perfectly. That was the first thing that made it hard to recognize it as a dream -- my reflection was the same as real life, none of it was off, all of it made sense. "I still hate you," she said. I came out of the stall, the bathroom was brightly lit, perfectly lit, actually, unlike the main club that took place outs...

"If I die a sudden, spontaneous death, the kind that I could've been saved from, I wouldn't be surprised," I said. "Wouldn't you rather be saved? Can't everyone be saved from something?" "You can't be saved from death," I looked up at the sky, "The only thing you could do is postpone it until you can't anymore." "What if you kill yourself, or something like that?" "Maybe that's all we do-- hold off killing ourselves with the ignorant hope that we'll survive."

I am a ghost, haunting my past life and the lives of those I love(d). I remain unseen and unheard; my screams weren't heard while on earth, so why would they echo on in the afterlife? I've been forgotten completely, erased from the memory of those I love(d) - an afterthought, never worthy of being thought about as a priority. I'm not important enough. This grave is getting a little lonelier with each snowflake remaining, never dusted off.

2/28 | February Writing Challenge 2. What color do you feel like today? My English teacher junior year taught us that colors are always significant. This was supposed to apply to literature, but it applies to everything for me; especially myself. Sometimes red is my permanent state and someone comes along and pours blue into me. Suddenly I'm a purple mess, an unexplainable color, a disaster that can't be described accurately. Purple-me is everything I don't want to be, a middle area between anger and sadness dripping over me, submerging every ounce of myself and filtering my vision to the colors of the real world. Then my days are shades of purple, going through aubergine and amethyst and lavender and soft pastels until I fade away again to a blank slate, waiting to be colored once more. Sometimes blue overcomes me; the light sea aqua is as tranquil as I was months ago and the cobalt is in-between, drifting back and forth between sky-highs and Mariana's trench ...

You carried my heart along gently, by the scruff of its neck, barely brushing along the rough ground. You proved to me that love is a soft creature, despite its swordlike fangs so threateningly close to my lifeline. Like a lioness, the regal queen of her pride, I was your cub desperate and dependent on your trust. My heart never touched the ground throughout the miles carried. Perhaps my transparent faith was my most important lifeline of all. I long to bow to the one who saved me, forever tied to an invisible lifeline, the most tangible one of all. I never want to leave this pride; never want to leave your side.

February Writing Challenge | 1/28 1. What do you need right now? My skin is craving some type of touch- something, anything. Almost anything. But "almost" means next to nothing in this situations because my feelings are itching and scratching at a glass door, patiently waiting to be released, for a lock to be broken. They're more desperate than any physicality I could possibly want. My sights are set so high, so unreachable, like trying to grasp the moon simply by sitting on a rooftop; just because you could see something you want, doesn't mean you can ever have it. I'm ravenous for desires completely untouchable, a constant wanting, wanting, wanting for an opportunity. They come and go, they always do, surely I should be accustomed to it by now, right? You'd think so. I've been loved and left so often I've learned to appreciate the beauty of feelings in the moment, in the present- not the past, not the future, both of those concepts are too i...