If I Dreamed...

If I dreamed you didn't leave...
Would I wake up and find you here beside me?

If I dreamed you didn't go...
Would I no longer sit here alone?

In a house too big for a single human,
Yet much too small for a shattered being...
Am I still living in that house?

On that street?

In that neighborhood?

Please tell me it's all a...

Dream.

I'll wake up early tomorrow morning.

I'll brush my teeth, comb my hair,

And notice I stare longer than I need to at the mirror.

The bruises, the aches, all the visible signs of pain...

They've faded.

But you've never faded from my mind.

I think about you all the time

On the way to work,

To class,

To grab some boba before doing something

ANYTHING

To get my mind off of...

You.

Your sweet words,

Even sweeter lies.

You gave me a knife and told me it was a paintbrush.

You believed I could be an artist.

So I drew and I drew and I drew my own blood to satisfy your hunger for my art.

You told me to use more force,

To paint with more energy,

And so I bruised this skin, perhaps permenantly...

The art I gave you lasted only a moment.

The art I gave myself will last an eternity.

And I will be reminded, every time I look into the mirror, of those times.

Our cruel, beautiful moments together. 

The longer I stare...

The longer I wish you were still here.

Death's company is welcome when one has none.

Sometimes, I wish you would speak to me again,

But I know I can't give in anymore.

The first time,

The second time,

The third and the fourth time,

I gave in.

And each time I would walk out broken,

And tattered,

And feeling even worse than before.

I was so close

So very close

To going home with you those nights.

People tell me I'm lucky to have escaped sleeping with you.

People tell me I'm brave to have confronted you.

At the same time, people don't have the ability to piece me back together.

There's only so much the hands of a shattered mind can do.

People don't have the ability to treat me like a person, not a patient.

I may be broken, but that doesn't make me less human.

For the rest of my life, I'll be entertaining Death when he appears,

But what a shattered person needs isn't words of kindness,

Or the usual phrases said to "survivors";

For some of us, it isn't over yet.

I just no longer wish to be here alone.

I want to know,

Broken or shattered,

That my life matters to someone.

Truly.

Matters.

If I dreamed I would never wake up again,

Would someone be by my bedside crying?

If I dreamed I could be happy again,

Does it involve me dying?

If I dreamed I had a friend,

A constant warmth at my hand,

Could I make it through those dates again?

If I dreamed these scars disappeared,

Would someone love me for how I would appear?

If I dreamed about my torn up skin,

Would someone love each torn up bit?

If I dreamed that someone was here,

Would I no longer fear?

If I dreamed that someone was by my side,

Would I no longer feel the need to hide?