i’m here. not extinct. for now.
it was a meme, a cute tidbit from the net
now it lives inside my head forever too
i’m not extinct. see, i like that
to put it obviously: it implies i am endangered
but still alive!

what a joy. what a thing.
something, at least, to be alive still
i can’t talk about how badly i’m doing
without instinctively smiling because
i’m scared someone will put me back.
inside the hospital.

it’s not so much, so little, so anything
that these monsters need to be extinct
extinct unlike me. for now at least.
maybe my rapist needs to be fired from the local psych ward
but i already reported him twice
i remain alive.

i fought on out of spite. i did it.
for six months i swear i didn’t even want to die.
after the second time that i have in my memory
i guess it lasted too long, or i had too many injuries after
or maybe the second rape is just worse, but i didn’t want to die
prove he couldn’t do that to me

nobody can do that to me
i could go through worse. i almost always can.
the only person allowed to hurt me is myself
the only person i let touch my soft core
is the little demon that lives inside me
fills me with self hatred.

cuts me up. inside. where it hurts.
it doesn’t hurt outside like the knives in my stomach do
and brain and heart and being always ache
when i have taken razors or scissors or nail files or needles to my skin
it hasn’t hurt so much as bled. i sit here crying and writing
this is an alternative to the tiny weapons

it’s not uncommon to keep a kit
a little box full of self-harm tools
it’s been written about in comics and essays before
it’s been evident from the tiny metal boxes i hide in my room
i invite too many friends over for my loneliness to choke on
to be visibly this sick.

i haven’t even used the kit in months.
i thought my friend was dead, again, but this time more so
i considered it but honestly
what is the point of a wound when a death will do the job better
and though i stopped caring about living for revenge after some time passed
i still stay alive for my cat and

i guess, i suppose, my new antidepressant is working.
it’s hard to admit when you are attached to your sick girl identity,
but then when i think about attempting with these deadlier pills–
i think about how i’d feel if i survived and they were taken from me
it’d only be my own damn fault. not extinct.
if i died, would that be better?

the slow ache of the invisible prongs
of these ugly murky invisible starfish attaching themselves to my soft skin,
tugging at the edges and eating me from their middle
tearing away at my skin and my muscles
i cannot go there again. i would not, even for death
but death would be so sweet without the means to overdose

is the grass always greener, or whatever
in the sense that if i start to get better it will feel too uncomfortable
and if i start to breathe properly people will expect me to function
so i let myself starve instead. i let myself drown so, so slowly.
a drop of water in my mouth every week
eventually i will choke and drown

that’s the plan, right? that’s the method.
that’s how sometimes eating disorders are actually suicide.
how you can hurt your family less by giving them a disease to blame
rather than themselves
if it was accidental and just got too severe, it won’t hurt them much, right?
neither my mother or i want to outlive each other.

but i am moving tomorrow. today. it’s 2:46am as i write this.
i am not packed and i am running out of hours to keep surviving in a way
that keeps others happy…of course i can’t keep myself happy while not extinct.
but there’s only one me and if i died, i would be. extinct.
no more pink haired sick girl to listen to her friends and cuddle xena
and no chance at some kind of future like i want to want

the message is always positive at the last minute, the paragraph i write before i publish.
so that nobody reads this, calls the authorities on me & causes a panic attack or worse.
and also so that i learn to one day believe my own words. live on and write more of them.
each paragraph here is getting longer, maybe my life will be similar, maybe i’m not so bad
not so doomed, not so destructive. maybe i can get better.
i have to remind myself, but it’s not just words, it’s the truth.

a chance may not be much.
but i am still lucky to have that.
i am still thankful to have that. i think.
i will still keep fighting because truly what else is there to do
besides the obvious. isn’t it too obvious?
wouldn’t it be amazing if i died of old age rather than suicide?

maybe i can