and if I told you I loved you, could that be enough?

If this is what they call dying, I don't care much for living.
There's a silhouette in the sky made up of grey clouds and a black sky spotted with white stars.
An old habit of mine is staring beyond something into nothing. So here I am, soaked with rain water, smeared with makeup, marked up with grass and dirt, lying in a dismantled football field, staring up into the sky, behind the clouds, beyond the stars, searching for where the darkness ends.
Where does it end? Is there an end?
The sky is only beginning where my vision ends. A northern downpour falls heavily. Thunder pounds on my ears. The flashes of lightning force my eyes close.
Sinking in wet grass, I claw my way up. I am cross-legged at the center mark of a football field. The broken lights shine flickered on me. From some of these broken lights, wires hang, creating sparks.
Spark my heart and hope to die.
I collapse onto my back, my mouth open wide, filling with water.
I am drained, I am full, I am drowning. With every few seconds, I gulp down the water that has overflown my mouth.
Above me, the moon is hanging on puppet strings.
Fall, damn it, fall.
I zone in, I zone out, I am choking on the water filling to the back of my mouth, down my throat, engulfing my lungs. In a moment I am thrown forward. Water spills from the sides of my mouth onto my already soaked clothing. I'm coughing, hacking, spitting up water and oxygen. I turn, my hair whipping him in the face.
Above me the moon is dangling on a string.
This is the end of the world as we know it.
A smile slides across his face. Normally, I could melt, blending in with the water being tossed about this field. My forehead wrinkles, my breathing grows heavy. The muscles in my body grow tense, contracting me forward. My jaw quivers. I reach my dirt matted hand up and force it towards his face. He catches it before it smacks straight across his cheekbone. My breathing skips and like rain, tears are pouring down my face, streaking more and more makeup. With his other hand he reaches up toward my face, I turn away. My top teeth rolling over my bottom lip. I pull my arm, attempting to lose his grip. It backfires and I am pulled into him.
This is the end of the world as we know it.
Above me the string is lengthening, thinning out, bringing the moon closer and closer towards the surface.
I pound on his back, on his chest. I try to push myself away. I am beating on his chest, as his arms crawl to my big, holding me close, crushing my body against his.
In angst, I give up, collapsing into his arms. Together we fall back onto the soft, wet earth. Fifty yards of this turf in both direction is staring at us in our misery, our happiness.
Some find the happiness in misery.
I'm burning, I'm burning. The rain crashing down on my chest isn't enough to put out the fire in my heart. And for the first time, I don't think I want it to.
The moon crashes down into the earth.
A whirlwind flies over us, the rain turns to hail, pounding harder, crashing faster. An echo of disaster and destruction in the form of thunder travels faster than the sound wave. I can only hear a heartbeat. Broken tree branches are thrown around in the wind, puddles of water turn to lakes of mud and rain and spread, as quickly as the fire in my heart engulfs my entire body. The tightness of my body releases.
The sky breaks away from my silhouette as stars fall towards the earth, crashing down with the moon.
This is the end of the world as we know it.
And through all this, my eyes have never left his. The sparking, swinging, wires of these broken lights are shining on us, together, lying in the middle of a dismantled football field, as the world crashes apart around us.
And as long as I'm in your arms, nothing matters, nothing hurts, there is nothing to feel, nothing to feel but you, you and this fire engulfing my heart, my body. And for this moment, I would hate for this downpour to extinguish the fire you've set on my heart.
If this is what they call dying, don't bother me with living.

baby, you wouldn't last a minute on the creek.

I am breathing, I am burning.
I am knee deep in black icy water with darkness swallowing up my legs.
I reach down into what looks like nothing and pull my hand out, soaking, dripping. I twist my hair beneath these cold fingertips and allow the water to freeze upon its strands.
With a step farther from the shore, I fall deeper, my thighs engulfed by a frozen black abyss. Waist down, I am frozen, I am numb. I reach my hand down to my thight and pinch myself. But nothing. I am frozen, I am numb. A soft wave rises to my chest and falls, crashing at the coastline. For a moment, my chest stings with the impact. Then it is gone. I am frozen, I am numb.
With another step, I am taken under.
The water is cold against my lips. My eyes are wide, stinging with the salty concentration in the water. I am staring into nothing. I force the remaining energy in my body to bring me above the water lining. My arms flail about, searching for something to grab onto, but instead they continue to collapse through to the water. Waves ripple out from where I pound for stability.
Give me stability, I say.
But nothing. With numb legs, I'm kicking about the water looking for stability.
Give me shelter, I say.
Icy water runs swiftly into my mouth as I fall back under. I am breathing, I am burning. A wave pushes me back. I cannot feel the grains of sand beneath my numb feet, but I know it is there. I know it is there.
Give me hope, give me hope.
I feel a shadow's stare stab me in the shoulders. I whip my head toward the shore, my hair, strands of it covered in ice, lashes at my face. I reach to push it from my line of sight.
The shore, where is the shore.
I am stepping toward nothing, waves pushing me from behind. With numb feet, numb legs, numb chest, I collapse into the water. In shallow icy water I am sinking. I tumble beneath waves burying my body in the sand.
This is not my grave, this is not my grave.
I stumble onto sand. I am coughing up ice and a shadow hovers over me, watching. The waves are tugging at my feet. My hand reaches into the air.
Nothing is an illusion, save me from this imagination.
A hand intertwines in mine. I gasp. I am weak, I am strong.
Pull me from these depths, I scream.
I am nothing, I scream.
The warmth of a hand returns the color to this grey decaying corpse. I am drained, I am full. I am pulled from the water.
I am a corpse, I tell him.
I am nothing, I tell him.
An arm wraps around to my back, pulling me up, straightening me out. The warmth on my spine triggers adrenaline throughout my body. I am alert, I am alert.
I am cold against his overwhelming warmth. My cheeks are flushed with color. I am drained, I am full.
Make me something, I tell him, you can make me something.
You make me something I scream, make something out of me.
He does not respond.
Hear my speaking, hear me screaming.
I watch as my hand crawls up to his face, searching for meaning, craving definition. As a forced action, I tilt my head up towards his. Arms are wrapped tightly around me, gesturing my safety.
The waves pound against the shore. My head presses cold against the warmth of his chest. Against the crashing, ruthless waves, a heartbeat rings in my ears.
You are my stability, I scream.
You are my shelter, I scream.
You are my hope, Iscream, you are my hope.
I am breathing, I am burning.

with a show of hearts on the floor.

I'm sitting cross-legged, tugging at my fingertips, eyes straining, staring, into a computer screen.
Hello my name is twenty-first century technology.
It's three demonsional, obviously. But where's the depth. Where's the depth in this.
Strands of hair are intertwined between my fingers. Textbooks and notebooks are heavy in my lap. I stare past them, past my legs, past the chair, the floor. What's beyond this. Where's the meaning. I'm dying for meaning. I'm striving for meaning.
My heart is sitting on the floor next to me, burning, yearning. It's beating, we hope. My hands reach for the keyboard, pounding and pressing in letters. I'm creating sentences that make sense to me.
Where is the depth. Give me the depth.
My front teeth roll over my bottom lip to press enter.
Just give me some dept. I'm dying for depth.
How "gay" do I sound to you. Today, on a regular basis, my whole life. Am I making myself sound less "gay" if I tell you I agree with your critiques and disagreements. My heart is doused in gasoline, burried under matchsticks, beating in time with your bomb.
Are you capable of depth. Tell me you are. Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me you know.
I'm sick, I'm tired, I'm irratated, I'm lost, I'm searching. Still searching. All I want is your depth.
A fire ignites.
I'm screaming for your depth. Extinguish these flames with your depth. Kill these typed out words with your depth.
I'm screaming. I'm screaming. I'm screaming.
A fire alarm is sounding in the other room.
With tired eyes, I'm watching my heart burn to ash.
Give me your depth, Isay.

nine lives are for cats.

It's 4:56 AM and I'm under anesthesia.
I'm dead, I'm sleeping, I'm daydreaming, I'm lying, I'm lost.
I fall alseep; I wake up.
It's 5:03 AM and I'm positive it is a bright white light I'm staring into.
I'm blind, I'm deaf, I'm paralyzed, I'm brain dead, I'm spinning.
I'm lying in an unfamiliar room with the familiar sound of nothing ringing in my ears. I wake up; I fall alseep.
It's 6:07 AM and my eyes are open wide staring into darkness. I am unaware of when my line of sight ends and the ceiling begins. I'm positive it's a ceiling that would be ending this line of sight. For a moment, I am alert.
Hello, my name is borderline narcoleptic.
My heart is drowning in adrenaline; thumping in and out of some crazily named fluid being spread through by body by a tiny IV. I'm drained; I'm full.
Hello, my name is cardiac arrest.
Morphine gives up. My stomach burns, plastic blankets wrinkle, stictches itch, my throat is dry, my body is weak.
Hello, my name is stomach pump.
My sense align but my vision remains blurred. A beeping rings from behind this bed. I'm lying in the middle of a colorless white room with beeping machine with numbers and heart rates and measurements. Cold sweat races down my forehead in anxiety. My hand reaches to wash the apprehension away; an IV tugs at my hand. An IV bag is dripping rythmically.
"Hello, my name is Dr. Cadwell."
I whip my neck towards the sound of another human voice. My thorat burns with the inability to speak. He puts his finger to his lips, gesturing for me to remain quiet; not that I could speak. I would love to ask him why the feeling of this IV up my forearm is so familiar.
I do not remember him, but the sound of his name screams that I should.
Hello, my name is jamais vu.
He hands me paperword to read. The sensation of feeling is returning to my numb fingertips. The stack of papers feels cold and heavy in my grasp.
Hello, my name is the truth.
I read the medical records in my hands; my eighth stomach pump in this year alone. It is only May. That fact are circled in red ink. My therapy programs circled in purple; all ten of them- all ten of them stating how I stopped showing up after a "fourth step".
Hello, my name is alcoholism.
He is concerned and irratated. I'm not going to die, but it feels like the only option. The shock of the situation and the stinging of the words on these papers feel routine to me. They state that I have obviously been here before, that I know him, and that I know this situation all too well. My memory feels blank. Unfortunatly as my doctor, he knows all of this and to be frank, he knows more about me than I know about myself.
Hello, my name is Anna Leigh. To the nurses I'm Anna Alcoholism. To my friends I'm Anna. To my disapointed father I'm Anna Leigh (insert sarcastic tone here). I have been drinking since I was sixteen. Before that I was straightedge. Before that I didn't know the difference between a martini and a really nice Italian sports car. I'm twenty-four now. I have been to three therapists and ten therapy programs. It is all clearly written out for me under the "description" section. My doctor knows me, my nurses know me, my friends know me, and my paperwork knows me. I know myself- I just refuse to accept it.
I fall asleep. I wake up. The burning sensation in my throat is gone. I'm sitting up straight. The IV is still dripping into my arm. The doctor is leaning against the wall patiently.
It's 8:47 AM and I tell the doctor to kill me or fix me.
He tells me death is an escape now an option.
I sigh, call me crazy, but that paperwork says I have been here eight times. I must be sleeping. I must be dreaming. This must be a nightmare. I must be sleepwalking. I'm dreaming a lie. I'm living the truth. I tell the doctor to kill me.
He tells me we've tried that seven times.
I do not remember dying.
"Do you remember falling asleep?"
I do not remember waking up.
"Wake up Anna."
I zone in; I zone out. I fall asleep; I wake up. I die; I am brought back to life. I am broken; I am fixed. I am living a cycle. I don't remember falling asleep. I don't remember waking up. I pull the IV from my arm.
I remember the familiar feeling of nothing.
Hello, my name is coma.