I miss the way it was

When 10:00 was late

When my parents

Carried me to my room

When harmless crushes were okay

When dancing to music

Was being a superstar…

Someone tell me why

I wanted to be this age.

Why, at such a young age,

I know less about being a child,

And more about being an adult

Than any “grown-up” I know?

Sitting in the back of the room

I can’t focus.

The inner child is crying again.

Crying for all the things it never

Held so dear until now.

The fingerpaints and Kool-Aid,

Juice boxes and crayons,

Starry nights and sunny days…

But we’ve replaced fingerpaints

With textbooks,

Kool-Aid with Coke,

Juice boxes with vodka,

Crayons with pens,

Starry nights with sleepless torture,

And sunny days with hours confined.

The inner child craves

The days when we ALL mattered,

When we could play

Cops and Robbers,

Cowboys and Indians,

Duck Duck Goose…

But now the games we play

Are nothing like before.

Spin the Bottle,

I Never.

We’ve become too much.

The inner child wishes

To never have felt a hangover

To not need makeup,

To be truly happy,

To understand all you need to know,

To never have had her heart

Torn apart by someone

Who never really cared.

The inner child is sad,

Lost in memories of

Iron words and fire hot beatings,

Years of getting drunk

Just to pretend again.

Because grown-ups

Play pretend with whiskey

As mascara streaks their faces.

Because I grew up too fast

And I’m tired of who I am,

Of having to remember

Counting ribs as a walking skeleton,

Pining away as I starved myself,

The reasons I can’t sleep at night,

Everything I have ever been.

There is a demon

Screaming in my head,

The demon of yesterday.

All monsters are human,

I’ve been a monster too…

I never want to be that

Monster again.

I am afraid of myself.

Looking in the mirror,

I see what I’ve done…

And I see myself

With hollow eyes

And sharp bones.

I see myself drunk as hell,

Lipstick smeared,

Eyes dim,

Choking down six more pills

Before stumbling into my bedroom

To sleep forever.

I see the bathtub,

Soaked in my own blood,

As I tried to find my way

Out of my own Hell.

I see wild, scarred eyes,

A ten year old girl silently

Sobbing wildly on the bathroom floor

All shreds of innocence gone

In an attempt to save her sister,

To protect her broken mind.

Seeing some THING so

Broken in the mirror,

I cannot be beautiful.

The inner child is fading,

Drifting back behind my

Adolescent adulthood.

For now I’m content

With class and work,

And I am ready to love

The little things.

I am sober once again,

And I have been awhile,

Barely recognizing the me of

Nine months ago.

The greatest love I’ve ever known

Is close to me right now.

He is the light of dawn

That’s broken through

The neverending dark

Of my entire life.

He is incredible, the kind

Of perfectly imperfect

I strive to be.

I love him with all that I am,

And I’m eternally grateful

For being in his life.

He makes my own a thousand times

More brilliant.

He is everything and nothing,

Constantly contradicting himself.

But in my eyes

He is one of the best things

Anyone could ask for.

And in and out of day and night

As I consulted the inner child for advice,

I have learned but one positive thing

After all this hell, but one bright

Point in her lamentations:

The inner child loves him as well.