if i sent the messages i type out to the people i type them out to i think they would call the police or an ambulance, or maybe poison control

the only real relationship i have is with my depression

i would hit send but there is no point

i spend time crafting them, changing them, making them less sad, less needy

i read them aloud, correct punctuation, grammatical errors, they flow and sound like the things a normal person would sound like

i stare at them

hit delete

have a long talk with myself in the mirror, he thinks i should just fucking end it, i think he is an asshole

he has a point

when i see his logic i write a text to my friends, tell them i hear him and he has some pretty decent logic and maybe, maybe i could use some company

i press the back key and curl up on the couch, my throne, the only safe place in this empty home, not bed because bed is where i go to stare at the ceiling

i found my ex girlfriends allergy pills, a whole bottle she hated taking because they made her feel like a zombie, i have started taking five or six a night and laying in bed staring at the ceiling waiting for them to take effect

the other night i took four and when that didn’t work i took four more, and when that didn’t work i typed out a text with leaden fingers that said i took too many pills and now i am afraid if i fall asleep i won’t wake up

twelve hours later i woke up with the phone on my chest, the text unsent and a headache and that sleepy feeling you just can’t shake

seems eight it the magic number

sometimes i don’t delete the texts i just don’t hit send and then when i feel at my absolute lowest i read them aloud in a mocking tone, hating myself for being so fucking weak

my constant companion encourages this behavior

he thinks tonight i should try eight and if it doesn’t work in fifteen minutes might as well double it again

i hate that it is an idea

i hate knowing it is my idea and i put it on him, the invisible friend that hears my every thought, the aspect of me that hates me more than the real me because he is more honest with me than i ever could be

hmmm

i wrote a long text to this woman i was really falling for once and then when i read it and thought about how amazing she is and how me i am i realized it was like a shark proposing to a dolphin, yes they live in the same ocean but the similarities stop there, different species completely and my movement is so i dont die and hers is that of art and beauty

i am incapable of either so it went in the trash

it wasn’t the first and won’t be the last, and that just includes today

i harbor a hope that one day these frantic poems will be read and someone will think maybe he was a true tortured artist, but by thinking those thoughts i cheapen the entire experience and prove them to be as sophomoric as i believe them to be

it is why i write fifteen of these things a day and then trash them all

this one feels like it is trash worthy

or someone may think i am at my wits end, standing on a chair with a belly full of pills and rope looped up and over the support beam i bought a stud finder from the hardware store to find that would support me and not just leave me in a pile of drywall dust with a bruised neck and shattered ego

again

like all the deleted texts to the people who never knew i needed them, or wanted them, or missed them, or loved them

empty ones and zeros in the trash folder on my phone

love letters and empty pleas for help that only me and that guy in the mirror ever read

deleted and oft repeated but never ever sent