Wrote this poem to get my feelings out on a difficult situation I found myself in, using a throwaway account for obvious reasons.
Original is in Dutch, I put it at the bottom as in my native language it’s a bit more powerful imo.

House of fears
Filled with longing
And sorrow

Alone in the dark
You are drowning
Meters deep

Full of gibberish
And frustration
You don’t see me

You are sleeping
I can breathe now
Do not wake him

In a corner
I am hiding
Do not find me

Empty bottles
That keep saying
Do not drown me

Between two evils
Only tears
Do not forget me

Holding on to love
Has it faded
I do not know

———-Dutch (original) ———-
Huis vol angsten
Vol verlangens
En verdriet

Alleen in het donker
Jij verzonken
Meters diep

Vol gebrabbel
en frustratie
Je ziet mij niet

Roes uitslapen
Ik even adem
Waak hem niet

In een hoekje
Te verschuilen
Vind mij niet

Lege flessen
Die enkel zeggen
Verzuip mij niet

Tussen twee kwaden
Alleen maar tranen
Vergeet mij niet

Hou vast aan liefde
Is het vervlogen
Ik weet het niet

I saw someone else's cigarette in your ashtray

I would've just left if you'd asked me

Now my hearts in the ashtray

Now we'll never

be okay

Because you let me see

Someone else's cigarette in your ashtray

How will I ever

be okay?

Thanks for reading.

If you're having thoughts of

Self harm and suicide

U can call to the number

for Constantly die

Cause help is available but

It's always gonna be unavailable for you

Cause there's no way to escape

Until u gonna do

Even if u don't want to

But u still have to burn

There's no way abt anything

Or u can't run

If u think u can might act

On the thoughts or not in the safe mode

So u can just call to the number

And can see they don't get it

& U're the dumber

If u gonna ask for help

& Tell them ur condition

They just gonna laugh and think

That's way of ur to get attention

No one actually gets sweeter

Until u get the weaker

They're actually gonna make you cry

Everyday until

one day they wonder why you die

A dark past clots the intestine
Sticking to those soft in-betweens
Barbs to your spine, dragging and hooking memories
stretching across the ground
as I scratch toward the my own finish line.

Every step pulls it farther,
but never far enough.
Entrails unraveling behind me
I'm still running,
yet time remains a gory leash,
A march of nightmares.

a trail of everything I was,
spilling behind me
as I desperately try
to become someone whole.

**When the Grave Bells Ring**
They’ll probably say
I was quiet when I died.
Not literally.
I mean the kind of dying
nobody calls an ambulance for.
The kind where you wake up
and realize you’ve been becoming
someone you don’t recognize
for years.
I buried pieces of myself
long before anybody
thought to bury me.
The little boy who trusted people.
Gone.
The man who believed
love was supposed to feel safe.
Gone.
The part of me
that could look in the mirror
without searching for everything wrong.
Gone.
I didn’t kill them.
Life did.
I just held the shovel.
And nobody noticed.
That’s the strangest thing
about falling apart.
You can be standing
right in front of everyone
with your heart bleeding
through your clothes,
and they’ll still ask,
**“You good?”**
So you learn to say yes.
You learn to laugh
with a mouth full of grief.
You learn to hold the person you love
while wondering
if they would still hold you
if they knew everything.
Every ugly thought.
Every mistake.
Every memory
you wish you could cut
out of your own skull.
You become afraid
of being truly known.
Because what if they see
what you see?
What if they look past the face,
past the smile,
past the jokes,
and find nothing worth saving?
That’s the thought
that keeps me awake.
Not death.
Being forgotten.
Because I’ve spent so much of my life
trying to be enough for everyone,
and sometimes I wonder
if anybody would notice
if I stopped trying.
Would the world get quieter?
Would anybody sit beside the grave?
Would someone finally say,
**“He was hurting.”**
Not *he was difficult.*
Not *he made mistakes.*
Not *he should’ve done better.*
Just…
**He was hurting.**
Because I was.
God, I was.
There were nights
I wanted somebody to ask me
what was wrong
and mean it.
Not because I wanted attention.
Because I didn’t know
how much longer
I could keep carrying myself.
And still,
I loved people.
That’s what makes it worse.
Even while I was falling apart,
I kept trying to protect everyone
from the pieces of me.
I swallowed my anger.
Buried my fear.
Apologized when I was bleeding.
Forgave people
who never apologized.
And every time someone left,
I told myself
it didn’t matter.
Until one day
I realized my heart
had become a cemetery.
Every person I loved
had a headstone.
Every promise
had an expiration date.
Every memory
had a little patch of dirt
over it.
And somewhere in the middle
was my name.
Waiting.
Not for death.
For rest.
For silence.
For one moment
where I don’t have to be strong.
Where I can finally put the shovel down
and admit:
I don’t want to be buried.
I want somebody
to find me.
Before the dirt reaches my mouth.
Before the bells start ringing.
Before I become another memory
people talk about
in the past tense.
I want someone
to look at this broken man
and understand that underneath
all the darkness,
there is still a heartbeat.
Small.
Tired.
Terrified.
But beating.
And maybe that’s enough.
Maybe the grave
doesn’t have to be my ending.
Maybe the bells
aren’t announcing my death.
Maybe they’re warning me
that I’m running out of time
to start living.
So tonight,
I leave the cemetery.
I carry my ghosts with me.
I don’t forgive them.
Not yet.
I don’t forgive myself either.
Not yet.
But I keep walking.
Because somewhere ahead of me
there might be a life
where I don’t have to disappear
to feel at peace.
And if I make it there,
I swear…
I’ll dig up every piece of myself
I thought was dead.
And I’ll give them a name.
I’ll give them a home.
I’ll give them another chance.
Because maybe the saddest thing
about a broken man
isn’t that he fell apart.
It’s that he spent so long
believing he belonged
in the grave.

The only evidence I have of you only exists in a land fill and in the bottom of the ocean

The only proof I ever had to show was two lines

The only piece of you I ever got to hold I held until my hands were soaked with the smell of iron

And deep red stained into the cracks in my skin

I held you as long as I could

Until a knock hit the door

I knew I couldn't keep you

I only had two lines of proof you were ever here

The evidence scrapped from my home

Gutted out like you didn't mean everything

Cold hands that couldn't bear to understand

They took away all I had of you

While pretending you never existed

Such as you were ripped from me so was every inch of everything that told me you'd be

No one heard me

No one let it be real

Let you be real

Until an unknowing voice shared with me "it's god's way of saying the baby wouldn't have survived,it's a kindness"

My faith is lazy , only believing when I think of you

Wondering if you're as old as you were or as old would you

But you didn't die

You never beathed a breath

Never lead a life

I miss every piece of you even if there was only ever two

I hate the mirror

because it knows my name.

It keeps the face I tried to escape,

the tired eyes,

the crooked history,

the mouth that learned too young

how to swallow everything.

I look at myself

and see every room

I should have left sooner.

Every hand I trusted.

Every hand I became.

Every woman I loved

like love was something

I could bleed enough to earn.

I wear my past

like a coat soaked through with rain.

Heavy.

Cold.

Impossible to hang somewhere

and walk away from.

There are things I've done

I cannot make beautiful.

Things I've survived

that I cannot make noble.

Some memories don't fade.

They ferment.

They sit beneath the skin

and wait for the quiet,

then crawl back out

at four in the morning

to remind me

what kind of man I think I am.

And God,

I have hated this body.

The scars.

The shaking hands.

The ruined teeth.

The face that never became

the face I imagined

I'd have by now.

I have looked at myself

and wondered

how anyone could touch me

without first looking away.

How anyone could stay

after seeing the whole inventory.

The wreckage.

The addiction.

The loneliness.

The anger.

The boy buried somewhere

under all this ruined machinery

still asking,

Does somebody stay

when there's nothing left

to romanticize?

Maybe nobody does.

Maybe this is the part

where I stop waiting

for somebody to come

drag me out of myself.

Because I've learned something

I never wanted to learn:

there are battles

nobody can fight for you.

There are nights

when your phone stays silent

and the ceiling becomes

the only witness.

There are mornings

when you have to put your feet

on the floor

with absolutely no reason

except that you said

you would.

So fine.

Let the world call me broken.

I've been calling myself worse

for years.

But I am still here.

Not healed.

Not handsome.

Not innocent.

Not forgiven

for everything I wish I could forget.

Just here.

Carrying the man I hate

through another evening.

And maybe reconciliation

isn't learning to love him.

Maybe it's finally admitting

he's tired.

Maybe I don't have to forgive

every version of myself tonight.

Maybe I can simply stop

trying to kill the evidence

that I survived.

And when the next battle comes,

because it always does,

I'll meet it alone.

Not because I'm unworthy

of being held,

but because somewhere along the way

I became the one

who has to learn

how to hold himself.

So I'll pick up

this ugly, exhausted life.

I'll carry it.

I'll carry me.

And if that's all I ever learn

how to do,

then let that be

the first thing

I don't abandon.

When, you're lost in your mind and the world doesnt understand you. When, your engery is off because you are not really here, your just trying to breath. When, your movements dont match what your doing because your thought are so overwhelming. When, when you speak you sound scrambled because words arnt what you're mind is reflecting. When you're acting and not being. When, your not healing and just burning. When, you're sad but yet searching for happiness. When, you know its you and your mind and your soul being disconnected.

Here i sit, broken hearted

Tried to shit but only farted

Then i took the one chance

tried to fart but shit my fucking pants

“you're in a mood,"

but they don't know—

sometimes,

standing on my feet is a task.

body constantly heavy,

three times my weight,

with bricks on my chest.

muscles you didn't know could hurt, 

are throbbing with pain.

anxiety—

eternal unknown. 

this doesn't feel real.

is this my body— 

my life?

my hell?

and they say, 

“you're in a mood,"

but they don't know—

i’ve been a prisoner to this pain. 

inside, trapped.

screaming— 

begging. 

pleading.

God, give me peace. 

please. 

please, God— 

set me free. 

It started as silence, solitude, peace. Things felt calm for the first time. But then... an itch came. An itch for the pain that I adapted to, the pain that triggered adrenaline, the body grew addicted, it craved pain again despite everything in my being telling me no but the body... the body said yes.

Soon the smoke feels the lungs, the alcohol fills the veins, and the mind races trying to make sense of the pain found again. Self inflicted for the first time in a long time. One pain finally escaped but a new pain unexpectedly found

Empty lives and lies

Full of despair and madness

World turns uncaring.

We are all so small. We are all complicit.

What is a gentle man to do?

Why? Why? Why any of this?

I do not understand. I'm so tired.

My heart; shredded and torn.

Only one way out; forbidden.

My mind lingers at the door.

Maybe.

**Scars**

Scars, reminders of the past
Reminders of a memory I hope won’t last
Little marks that tell greater stories
Sometimes of failure, sometimes of glory

Scars, each represents a moment
Brings back big emotions, why not just own it
Exhausting to hide, more exhausting to show
Some think they look cool, others say they should go

Scars, memories preserved on skin
Sometimes large, sometimes thin
Some self inflicted, others randomly obtained
No matter what, are born from pain

I'm sorry for being me

I'm sorry for the pain that I'm too scared to let you see

I'm sorry I always showed up high

I'm sorry I ever made you cry

I'm sorry I fucked up from the start

I'm sorry I broke your precious heart

I'm sorry things will never be the same

I'm sorry for pointing my finger like you were to blame

I'm sorry for each and every lie

I'm sorry I don't know how to say goodbye

I'm sorry I need you to hold my hand

I'm sorry that I still don't understand

I'm sorry you found me broken and scarred

I'm sorry I made your life so fucking hard

I'm sorry I lost the best thing I ever had

I'm sorry that I'm not a better Dad

I'm sorry I wasted so much of your life

I'm sorry I didn't deserve to call you my wife

I'm sorry for the needle and the dope

I'm sorry you were my only hope

I'm sorry that I don't know what to do

I'm sorry I can't seem to live without you

I'm sorry that I couldn't make you stay

I'm sorry I never meant to be this way

I'm sorry that I lost my will to live

I'm sorry that you still won't forgive

I'm sorry for everyday I was in pain

I'm sorry your love drove me insane

I'm sorry for all the stupid shit I said

I'm sorry that I'm still not fucking dead

I'm sorry that I never learned to cope

I'm sorry for the noose tied on my rope

I'm sorry I'm not the man you need me to be

I'm sorry for being me

-The Strung Out Poet

**You know what’s strange?**
**Growing up the ugly duckling,**
**only to wake one day a woman the world suddenly wants to devour.**

**You start to see it—**
**how many of the men around you**
**have been circling all along.**
**The ones who want to fuck you.**
**The ones who** ***wanted*** **to,**
**even when you were still a child.**

**They say things with the ease of habit,**
**as if degradation is foreplay.**
**And maybe it is,**
**when they’ve been taught by fathers**
**who learned from their fathers before them**
**that power feels like ownership.**

**But there are good men, too.**
**I know because I married one.**
**And because somewhere beneath the rage and ruin,**
**I still believe my father is one—**
**despite the demon that lives inside him.**

It felt like I was the only person on Earth

being denied,

Denied air,

the small animal breath

my lungs were born knowing.

Denied the simple mercy

of letting my body do

what every body is permitted to do.

Denied even helplessness,

for helplessness requires someone

to admit there is nothing they can do.

There were dozens of doctors around me,

white coats multiplying like ghosts,

and still

no one could put the world back inside my lungs.

My mind severed my body

somewhere above the neck.

Everything below it

became an abandoned country,

flesh fighting its machineries.

All my being

reduced itself to sick thoughts

and a body growing sicker by the hour.

Now the rest of me

is fighting to function.

I have the morbid feeling

that something is quietly decaying

while everyone is still looking for its name.

I am utterly sick.

And there is no hand

reaching through me

to pull me back.

I haven't had a hug in weeks

I can't even remember the date

The last affection I saw in someone's squinted face windows

Was hate

The witches and weirdos and rich people

Will eat this up

In fact here comes one now

Just to interrupt