Linguistics tells us that

The first color humans name

Is always black;

Last to be named is blue

I have never felt fully real

Never more than a character

An actor in my life's play

Except for when I cry

So perhaps my tears

Would have been black

When I was young and whole

Fading with time to blue

Never clear, never wholly gone

But with time and trauma

The pigment is diluted until

It turned pastel, milky-blue

Studies show the second-to-last

Color to be named is orange

A vibrancy humans see clearly

But steadfastly refuse to acknowledge

Would my blue tears glisten orange

In the fading light of a matching sunset

Both of us natural yet ignored

Both of us fading to nothing

I won't fight for you anymore

You've let anger eat away at you

Rust corroding your long-forgotten heart

Hate lives in all you say and do

You come ready to start wars

Venom laced through every word

Hurting those who love you most

Leaving their thoughts deliberately unheard

Every day is a battle you create yourself

If there isn't a conflict you make one

Throwing out slurs and curses

Everyone's happiness coming undone

I am not angry; I'm too tired for that

Whoever it is you used to be

When you go off and it all breaks loose

I know you don't even see me

You haven't seen anyone for so long

Constructing conflicts in your head

Brick by brick, building jagged walls

A cathedral whose windows tint it all red

Consumed by your own rage, I know

You won't notice my leaving

And as I stand in the door it hits me:

I'm not angry, I'm grieving

My fear is a shadow, constant

Present in every action

Yet by far more prominent

In all of my inaction

Pause-rethink-doubt

Paralyzing fear of mistakes

An inherent distust of myself

Leading me to re-evaluate

It's easier to walk away

Away from family, love, friends

Away from all I could ruin

Creating a safe loneliness to live in

I have made mistakes

What has been done can't be undone

So my solution is to do nothing

Stopping things before they've begun

I'm scared you're who I'll be

That one day my green eyes

Will hold so much hatred in them

As yours do, unloving as ice

Every time I raise my voice

I hear the echoes of your shouts

Relive the venom and darkness

I've never known you without

Will I have any choice in the matter-

Will I be able to pick my truth

Or is it embedded in my DNA

That I will become just like you?

Nature or nuture or not

I worry I might have no choice

I lay awake replaying my words

Hearing them in your voice

I can't let anyone love me

If they do they'll be in the blast zone

When I errupt or snap like you

It won't hurt anyone if I'm alone

The fear bleeds over into my dreams

Nightmares of people leaving me

Ever since the time Mom left you

Fever dreams you'll what I'll be

When people say I take after you

I feel like I'm under attack

As if I'm too far gone already

Lost in the dark with no way back

You're in the mirror every morning

False smile and dark wavy hair

And though I laugh and say I'm fine

I know this fear will always be there

Take extra everything, more than you think you need.

Go up the old forest trails no one uses,

Because you are no one, yourself.

Do not stop walking until you cannot go farther.

This will give you extra time to use

Before anyone can find/stop/save/destroy you.

Take the pills before the alcohol,

Since two sips of vodka in you will

Be too trashed to continue. (You are trash.)

Do not bring your cellphone or a note

For dramatic last goodbyes.

No one wanted to hear what you said

Or had to say, in the first place.

The pep talk the world wants to give you

About things getting better one day somehow

Is a lie. It will get much, much worse.

Show yourself the mercy they won't

And make a swift exit from this life

While you are still courageous.

(They will break you if you live.)

Your selflessness

Makes me try

To be a better person

Your kindness

Makes me cry

For you have saved me

I don't believe in therapy the way atheists don't believe in God. I've tried it, and seen how it does not in fact change anything. I have been to the full range of therapists: the kind who tell you that you are lying, the kind that tell you how you feel, the kind that ask you questions and find all your answers wrong, the kind that tell you all your problems stem from the past, the kind that think mentioning the past means you are clinging to it, those that talk more than you do, and those that barely speak.

I cannot even say they had a negative net impact upon me. There is just nothing there. Like drinking tap water, there is no substance, no nutrients and aftertaste. Their faces blur together, pointless endeavors who neither made the chaos inside worse nor improved it. Each was unique, yet their names elude me, each as faded as a movie I might have seen once with a single good scene in it.

My life continues on, old bad habits surging up into a relapse, old fears giving me the regular anxiety attacks, old trauma lingering unwanted in nightmares. Therapy, well meaning and kind people online say. Go to therapy. Get help. The assumption that therapists have any real interest in helping someone is as naive to me as the thought that blowing fluffy dandelion seeds will grant a wish. When I was very young, I do remember putting that level of hope into things, people and God. I remember believing.

But belief is expensive, and experience is a costly instructor. I'm broke. I am broken. It is a better use of time to accept these two facts than to try to manufacture a salvation out of an idealized concept of a profession.

I am not an angry atheist. I am an exhausted one.

When you learn how many calories

Are actually in olive oil

And begin to regret every salad

That you have ever eaten in your life

When you remember cold baths

Burn as many calories as a workout

So you submerge yourself in ice

For an excruciating hour

When you take the stairs even though

Your ankle is sprained

Knowing every little bit builds up

By detracting from your overall mass

When you feel faint and remind yourself

You deserve this

You are only fasting like this to fix

The which you selfishly ate two days ago

When you leave behind your coat

So the cold air will sting you

Forcing your body

To work harder to keep you warm

When you try to eat and then

The panic hits

That you are a pig/animal/out of control

And you want to be real/good/in control, don't you?

When you cry over forty calories

That are over your limit

Of five hundred calories a day

At the very, very most

When you dodge being diagnosed

Due to your gender

And you think, 'I will be the one

They only diagnose postmortem'