Help

Help.
Such a simple word.
Four letters and a breath.
That’s all it takes.
Help.

But then, why can’t I say it?
I try and I try and I try
But the word is stuck in my throat.
It doesn’t want to go past my lips.
Sometimes, I manage to whisper it
The shell of the word burning
As it struggles to get free.
But it’s too late,
It’s always too late.
The moment’s gone.
No one sees it, no one hears it,
and I’m back at the beginning.

One word.
It’s only one word
And yet I feel it weighting on me
As rocks tied to my feet,
Ready to drown me.
I need to get it out.
I need to say it before it’s too late;
Before I’m dragged to the bottom of the sea
And I don’t have any breath left.

One year.
That’s what it takes
For the word to pass my lips.
One year,
of struggles and pains.
One year,
of fighting the urge to let go
and drown.
One year,
of angry blades and sleepless nights
of voicelessness.

I was breathless and speechless.
I was at the bottom and
I almost gave in.

But then, I remembered
those four simple yet powerful letters.
They echoed endlessly in my mind
Silencing all other thoughts
Taking over my body,
until I knew this was the only way out.

I felt weak and worn out
But it wouldn’t leave me alone
And it took all the strength left in me
to finally let it out.

Help.
Such a simple word.
Four letters and a breath.
That’s all it takes
To spell help and
make me breathe again.

Who knew that such a simple word
could be so powerful?

10 Months

The first time I self-harmed, I was 13 years old.

It was a summer day like any other. I was strolling in the flowers and trees. I could hear my mother’s laugh in the distance. Everything was so peaceful.

Except me.

Every cell in my body was boiling. My mind was screaming. I could feel this incontrollable rage slowly take over me. The pain was unbearable. Something was building and I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t hold it anymore.

I couldn’t.

So, I grabbed the sharpest stone I could find and I scratched it against my skin until I saw blood.

Bright red blood rolling down my pale arm.

I stopped.

I stared down at my bruised arm for a few minutes. The pain was gone. It was over.

The stone dropped and I ran inside.

What have I done?

Without being seen, I washed my arm vigorously. The red disappeared. It would be okay. I just fell, right?

Nothing happened if I make it disappear.

I just fell.

—

I was 16 when it became a habit.

I thought the pain would go away and I would never have to relive it. But it didn’t go away. It only grew stronger and stronger. I tried to bury it away.

I was okay, right?

Nothing worked. The pain took over my body little by little until I felt like I was drowning. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I was slowly dying.

But I knew how to make the pain go away.

So, when I saw pieces of a broken frame in my living room that my mom had probably forgotten to throw away, it felt like a sign. It was calling for me.

I was alone. It was perfect.

I grabbed a piece and locked myself in the bathroom.

Glass was sharper than stones, it would cut deeper. The pain was stronger than before. It would help.

Once the blade touched my skin, I knew there would be no going back.

Red against white.

It felt so liberating.

The pain disappeared like last time. I knew there would be a price to pay but I was willing to pay it.

I heard the door opened. I had to go. The blade would wait.

—

At 17, the blade couldn’t wait.

I quickly replaced the broken glass with a box cutter. It was neater and stronger. The pain grew and grew and this was the only thing capable of keeping up with it.

The more pressure, the more blood, the more the pain would go away.

But the pain was never truly gone. Only relieved a little for a few hours. And I would be drowning again.

The noise in my head never stopped. The rage and helplessness in my veins were still burning, become stronger every day. I was like a ticking bomb. The blade helped. It became my lifeline, my deliverance, my prison.

Cutting was like a drug. It was intoxicating. I always needed more. It was never enough.

Deeper and deeper.

I couldn’t stop.

My arms were a battlefield. More red than white. There was no time for healing, a new cut would always appear.

Long-sleeves, bracelets and band-aids became essential.

In time, my hips were marked too.

As the summer approached, my fear grew. As did the pain.

It got unbearable. The blood wasn’t enough. I needed more.

I was suffocating.

I was drowning.

I was lost.

It was too much.

I knew I had to do something before there would be no way out.

—

The day of my 18^th birthday, my sister took a picture of me. I’m sitting in the grass, smiling; and I’m wearing a sleeveless dress.

The marks are still here but they’re not a bright red. They’re healing.

—

The blade was put away. But never too far.

I am 23 years old and it’s been a long, long road. I have relapsed more times than I could count.

The pain always came back and it still does, but I have learned how to deal with it in healthier ways. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. The blade is always here.

One day, it will be completely gone. I am getting stronger and stronger. In time, I will beat this.

—

Today, I am 10 months clean from self-harm.

It’s been 11 years since I first put a blade to my skin. I’ve come a long way.

I can’t promise that this time it will be okay.

But I’m fighting. I’ve made it this far.

I’m not going to give up now.

Silence

A short poem I wrote on what anxiety means to me

Silence. Silence everywhere.

That’s all you can hear outside. Silence.

There is a war inside your head, but the only thing people hear is silence.

You try to speak but nothing comes out.

Your mind is a battlefield: one thought contradicts another. A chaos uninterrupted and unlimited.

Voices are yelling. They are telling you that you are not good enough, that you are no one, that the world would be better off without you. you are nothing.

The voices are whispering, yelling, shouting. Everywhere. Weariless.

You cannot think, you cannot speak. All you can do is stay there with a smile on your face and no words in your mouth.

Because no one is going to hear what is going on in your head. How could they, if you can’t speak?

And in that silence, how are you going to let them know that you are not okay? That the smile on your face is only a façade and your mind is a mess?

They cannot hear and you cannot speak. And it never ends.

Dreaming

I wish I could go somewhere

Where girls wear flowers in their hair

And boys have stars in their eyes

I wish I could find a place

Where sparks illuminate the sky

And it’s never really dark

A place where rivers never stops flowing

And the flowers never stop blooming.

I dream of a beach at sundown

With fire lights warming our veins

I dream of a million books to read

And a million songs to listen.

I wish I could warm my hands

With a nice cup of coffee

Hearing the soft noise of people talking

And closing my eyes without fear.

I wish I could sleep.

Sleep without dreaming

Of a life I’ll never live.

I dream with my eyes open

And everything around me changes.

I am trapped into a world that is not mine.

I tried to stop

But I always come back there.

Here, I dream of a better life

And it helps me get through mine.

So I dream.

I Love You

A poem I wrote for all my friends

The most beautiful kind of love

Is the one that comes from friendship

Because friends will always be there for you

No matter what;

Meanwhile ‘lover’, as we call them

Can at any moment leave you behind

With a broken heart and an empty soul

But your friends are the ones

Who are going to pick up the pieces

And make you feel whole again.

You usually take their love for granted

But you can’t imagine your life without them.

They are there for the best and the worst moments of your life

And when you shut them out

They will be knocking on your door until you let them back in;

They never give up on you

That’s when you realize

That they are going to do everything in their power to make you smile

And make you forget the pain you felt.

We should be calling them our ‘lovers’

Because their love is the real love that matters

It is the real love that lasts till the end of your days

So I think that our friends deserve all of our love

And we should never forget to tell them

That we love them.

This love is the most important thing in our life

So I want to say to all of my friends:

“I Love You”