Scream

Trust-Age 26
It builds up inside of me until I can't control it any more and it comes out in one prolonged explosion of sound. I try to hold it in as long as I can. All of my life I've been told no one wants to hear it. It's my problem. Deal with it. Your voice doesn't matter. Your voice isn't as loud as mine. I didn't hear your voice when you said no. You didn't really mean it when you said no.
You took my voice away from me. Pressed it down inside of me as if you didn't hear it, didn't see it. You pressed until it hurt so bad I couldn't hold it in any more.
You took away my voice. You took away everything that was precious and good about me. You had no right to what I had, but you took it any way. You covered my mouth and choked away my screams. You took away the moments I was saving for my love and poisoned the joy I would share with the only one who mattered to me.
I'm not talking about my virginity. I don't even know if that word has any meaning any more. I'm talking about my ability to ever trust another human being. I'm talking about being able to accept the touch of someone who loves me without flinching. Without suppressing the tiny scream that wants to escape every time some one tries to hug me. I save up the screams until I'm alone and can let them escape when there is no one there staring at me as I yell out my pain.
I was alone as I crossed in front of the protesters who screamed at me when I went for treatment for all the things you left behind. I wanted to shout back that they couldn't understand why I needed help, why I needed to cleanse my soul of the filth you left inside. I squeezed my lips together and swallowed the sobs back as they looked for disease and took what rooted in place from inside me. Leaving a void where I had covenanted to keep sacred. I wanted to fill that void, but every time I remember what happened the scream builds again.
Sometimes I can't hold back the sounds and they escape to race my pain around the room. Circling and echoing and building until the pain is too much and I need to bury into myself and hide away from everything. I wait there until the silence becomes too much and then I begin to build up the screams again. Tucking them away until I need them again.  

My Slow Suicide

Marissa-Age 15
My death drips from me
Slowly fading into my existence
I see its face
Mocking me from deep within my soul
My death is near
And yet so far
Why should it take me so long to decide
I don't want this moment
To end
Is to begin
The way back
Fade away
Bring myself near
Embrace me
Surround me
Swaddle me
Comfort me
Let it tighten its grip around my soul
Let it drip out of my heart and fade away into the nothingness
But is there really nothing there
Bring me around to your way of thinking
Let me see what there is for me
Do I want the nothing
Or do I want the reality
And is the reality really worth living for
Or is it the nothing that is real
Let me see how your words matter
Let me hear how the world can live for me
By me
Through me
Let me taste the sound the wind makes
As it touches my face
I can smell your faith
Bringing me hope
And pain
And love
And life
And death

Take Cover

Dave-Age 42
Take cover
Duck
Cover your head
Bury your head in the sand
Don’t see
I can’t unsee
No
I can’t do it
Hide
Run
No
Don’t go right
Go left
Duck and cover
Fire in the hole
No
See
No don’t look
Fight
Run
Hide
Go! Go! Go!
Burn!
It hurts
Run
Hide
Duck
Cover
No
Don’t
Go!
Go!
Go!

I Can't Afford Him

Carol-Age 57
I can't afford him any more
I know I said for richer and poorer
But when you are rich it's hard to go back to being poor
I want to keep my promises
But it's hard to love and to hold when there is so little to hold on to any more
You will never understand
You have never been where I have been
You approach the world with one eye closed and the other eye towards the future
How can you see me if that is how you view the world
How can you judge me if you can't see me
I can't afford to pay for what he needs
I can't afford to pay for what I need
I can't even afford to breathe
I can't afford to live
I'm pinned down
Pulled underwater
Drowning
Fighting
Dying
Dead

My Words

Jordan-Age 22
Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, go fuck yourself. What? You asked me how I feel. This is what I feel. Stupid Bitch. Fuck you.
They are my words. You have no right to take them away from me. You're offended, fine. Fuck you anyway.
You strip me down to nothing. You push me into a tiny hole, tell me my feelings don't matter and then expect me to sit quietly. Well, fuck you. I matter, my words matter, my feelings matter. You're the one that doesn't matter.
I have value. I matter. Fuck you.
To you they are words. To me they are feelings. This is how I feel. Stop making it something it isn't. go fuck yourself you stupid Bitch!

Useless

Matt-Age 17
This is completely useless. I don't see how this is doing anything and I hate everything about it. You sit there so sanctimonious, judging me, judging everyone. Can't you see you are the problem, not me.
It's not my fault I'm this way. You’re the one who made me what I am. Your words built me up and tore me down. Your drugs calmed me down and kept me up all night. Yeah, I won all the time but now I've lost my mind.
You think I'm joking, but I'm not. I'm dead serious. I'm deadly serious.
Your words don't do anything for me any more. Man, for a smart person you sure are stupid.
My head is spinning so fast I can't even keep the world straight.
Keep still. I can't see you. I have you in my sights, sites, cites. I don't know the right word. The words drill into me, cutting deep.
What can words do anyway? They can't cut, they can't hurt, they don't mean anything.
I mean they mean something. They mean whatever we think they mean, but they aren't mean unless we mean them to be.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. They're just words.

From the Inside

Marisa-Age 15
Everything is quite in my room. I can see the leaves on the trees flittering as the wind catches them and spins them to first show me the dull green side and then the bright, dark green, blood filled viens. I know trees don't have blood, at least they don't have red blood like mine. Did you know trees don't show their real colors until Fall? I didn't know that either, until I came here. The green is from the chlorophyll in the leaves. Chlorophyll fills the veins and reacts to the sunlight and trees continue to flash their silky green underside and shiny green surfaces as if they are something special. I’d like to flash the trees something. Stupid trees. Stupid me. It’s only when they are dead that they are really pretty anyway. I like the bright orange and golden-yellows of of Fall. It’s only then that you can see the true nature of the trees.
I wish I could be like the leaves on the trees. Maybe if I take out everything making me all pink and pretty I will be able to see my own true colors. Maybe if I take away everything that makes you so pink and pretty it will make you see your true colors too.
I tried digging into the bark of the tree to see what was on the inside, to see the blood spreading through the branches and flooding into the leaves. I wanted to see if trees bleed green too. Humans bleed red. We don't bleed pink, like the outside of our skin reveals. I guess humans are as deceptive as trees.
I hate being on the inside. I hate hiding my secrets away and not letting the world see who I am. Why can't we show the world what we really are? We can't even reveal what we are like when we are dead. They cover our skin with makeup and our body with clothes and then make up lies about us to speak at each other at funerals. No one believes the lies we tell, even though we smile behind our red mouths and pink skin and say how much we loved him and how he was the perfect father. I wish we were liked the trees and our true colors would show when we died. Then we would see what we were really like.
I can't hear anything from the inside. I mean, I hear things. I’m not deaf. But, I can't hear anything real. I can't hear the trees or the wind or the squirrel running through the leaves. Oh, look. There's a squirrel. I wonder what he's up to now. I don't think a squirrel thinks about the nature of trees when he's searching for nuts to squirrel away for winter. Hey, I just got that. All a squirrel ever thinks about is nuts. How many he has, what they are good for, how to make more baby squirrels. Man, now I'm thinking dirty. I need to clean up my act.
I hear someone in the hall. I always hear someone in the hall, unless I'm the person in the hall and then all I hear is me. I’m good at screaming. Not as good as some people here, but I'm pretty good.
They are coming to tell me it's time to go. I’m always going somewhere. I think it's time for dinner now. At least I won't have to talk to anyone during dinner. I might have to listen to someone scream, but maybe they'll give me a real fork this time and I can see if she bleeds green too.

Ghosts

Bill-Age 35
I’m followed everywhere. They shadow me as if I can give them the answers they could never find in life. I see them out of the corner of my eye, no matter how hard they try to hide.
Don't you see them. There is one right there in the corner. I don't think he realizes he is dead. He should, I killed him. I didn’t want to kill him. I didn't want to kill any of them.
The give us a gun and teach us to point and shoot. I can take out the black dot on a piece of paper from miles away. But paper doesn't bleed and a black dot doesn't call out for his mommy as he tries to hold his insides together. They don't teach us how to unsee that.
I tried to make them go away. Drugs, alcohol, sex. None of it worked to burn away the memories. How can you wipe away the memory of digging through body parts looking for tags so you have something to send back to the wives and mothers waiting for something to connect them to their ghosts?
Don't look directly at them. They will drive you crazy. Try to scrub them from your mind. If you don't think about it too hard you might be able to go whole minutes without seeing them.
I tried to leave the ghosts behind. I really did. But they followed me home. They followed me through the walls of my house and into the rooms of my children. I saw them behind the eyes of my wife and heard them in the sound of her breath when I was sleeping. Maybe that's why I woke with my hands around her throat.
Now all I have of my wife and children are ghosts of their memories.
I don't want to see all the ghosts, but once I let one of them in they all come flooding through. Shut the doors. Don't let them in. I want to see and not see at the same time. Can't you see. They are everywhere and nowhere. And so am I.

Help

Matt - Age 17
Can anyone help me?
I need help.
I’m here waiting.
Please help.
Ha!
I fooled you!
Does it look like I need help?
Look at me!
I’m strong
I’m young
I’m good looking
Yeah, I’m better looking than you.
Wait!
Don’t go.
Look, I’m only kidding
Can’t you take a joke.
Man, I don’t get you, dude.
Come on
Let’s go hang
Like literally
Here come my friends
We’re going to hang you from the flag pole
What?
You don’t want to hang with me?
I thought we were friends
No, don’t go.
I need your help.

See Me!

Dave-Age 42
See me
Just look at me
Don’t turn your head and pretend I don't exist
I saw the look in your eye before you pretended to talk to your husband
Like I didn't see you read my sign
I heard the whispered comments
The way you said you have too much pride
But you feel like you should be standing beside me
With your own sign and desperate plea
What disgusts you more
My dirty clothes?
My tangled hair?
My smell?
My scars?
Do you want to see all of my scars?
No, I know you don't
You don't want to even see the reality of me
Pull myself up by my bootstraps?
Ha!
You, who have two feet to put on your boots
Do you even see what I am
What I was
What I could be
No, you don't even see me when you walk two feet away
And throw your left overs in the trash
That is two days worth of food to me
You who say you don't have anything
Just gave me everything I need
See me!
Just see me!

Half Full

Carol-Age 53
I live my life half-full
All the time.
It’s all I have to give any more
So much of who I am has been taken from me and now there is just a little bit left over
I don’t know what people mean when they say they are running on empty
Or they are just so full of energy they don’t know what to do with themselves
I’m just stuck here, half-full
Half-empty
Halfway in-between
I don’t know if I should go forward or if I should go back
There’s nowhere else to go
I look like I’m stuck
Like I don’t know where to find myself
But that’s not true
I’m somewhere
Inside here
I’m living my life like this
Because I don’t know how else to be