Meggy

“I grow wildflowers from my back like a fertile garden and you pick them one by one until I am all bare roots and broken stems. You pluck the petals- She loves me, she loves me not but that’s the problem, see; I’m kneeling at your feet, offering you the skin off my back and still you need an old wives’ tale to prove that it’s enough.”
― Emily Byrnes, Things I Learned in the Night

“I used to envy people who could pick up a knife   and not think to themselves what if I stabbed someone? I watched them cut their steaks so mindlessly, so unafraid. Fork in meat, cut, cut, cut. fork in mouth, repeat. Sometimes I got soup just because I didn’t need a little weapon to eat it. Eating shouldn’t be this hard, life shouldn’t be this hard, and don’t even get me started with scissors. All of these people cutting their steaks and doing their construction paper projects; I must be crazy, because nobody else has these thoughts these bloody thoughts    these what if I killed my sister thoughts.”
― Emily Byrnes, Swim

“Choosing yourself doesn’t make self care easier. It takes WORK to show up for yourself every day. But it does make sacrificing, neglecting, doubting, and compromising yourself harder. You simply won’t settle for that anymore.”
― Melody Godfred, Self Love Poetry: For Thinkers & Feelers

“I am afraid of losing loved ones and being alone in the dark but mostly I am afraid of being merely tolerated when I want so badly to be loved.”
― Emily Byrnes, Swim