The words and opinions of others mean much more to me than my own. It’s why I write and write and write; so I can read about the kind of person I’m growing into. 

I stopped listening to the words on this page, so I can’t really tell when they started to betray me. A lifetime lost in pages, it’s insane to look back and not recognize the person that wrote all of those lines. It’s such a drawn out fall, so gradual a slope that nobody would ever notice what once was a walk has turned into a run down this hill to avoid the inevitable crash and burn. The hill never ends, but people have a limit to how fast and how long they can run, so I guess that just means I’m learning my body’s limits. It’s not an outright tragedy, but it is a little bit sad to see just how small all of those limits are…

A heart made of iron, it’s smaller than most yet weighs a ton, and it circulates life through me even during those nights I cut that life out of my flesh, carve scars onto my arms to match those placed on my soul. It sounds almost poetic, until I’m sober and left disinfecting the knife, rubbing away tears as I stare at my reflection, unable to come up with a valid reason why all of these marks are on my body. I have no memories of the individual moments, just an overarching theme to the cuts. Even the deep ones, I can’t recall anything about them.

~What day was it? How many slices did it take to break through the surface? Did I talk to my Mom that day? Was I thinking about the future, or dwelling on the past?

I can’t remember, but I also can’t erase these reminders, so I just keep adding blindly to my collection. These are my souvenirs, and nobody can erase them, not even me…