Climbing the ranks
Perfect grades
Nothing less than a 4.0
1500s or above on SAT
or your worthless

Defined by numbers tattooed on my skin
Always on my path that I never chose
Always striving to do better, be better

but never being
never
being good enough

Before she turned 18 she made a wish that once she was gone no one would remember
But...
She was once 14 when she wished for flight or super strength
Then things became tough
She turned 15 wished for invisibility
When that didn't come
She turned 16 wishing for a chance at happiness
Yet nothing came
She turned 17 with a wish of death
...
She turned 18 and got her wish

Every breath I take
feels as if I'm drowning
Not in water
In silence

Every stroke I can feel it leaving me
The pain, the schedules

Yet when I look up
She has her business
He has full score on SAT and PSAT
Medals and trophies
worn like a second skin

4.0s, bare minimum
They have a legacy
Leaving marks no one can erase

Yet when I look in the mirror
I'm falling so behind
Already almost done with high school
Yet I feel as if I have nothing
done nothing
so empty
so far
so quiet
so...
behind

Goodbyes were never mine
they weren't real
until they were
Because I played make belief
until it was too real not to feel

How do I continue
when the echoes you left
scream in my head

How do I just be
without you
when every thought
leads to you

I can't keep going
every time I close my eyes
you appear laughter sharp and clear

How am I supposed to say goodbye
when I once couldn't dream of a day without you
Goodbye feels too final..

See you again

They chart my thoughts
Writing in the margins
Label me unstable
Calm hands, cold and cynical

White coats, dead eyes
Dissecting not with blades
But questions that cut deeper
Deeper than my blades could

I am but a test subject
Observed, not understood
Answers become symptoms
Insane at the very least
Driven to the brink of psychosis

Taking notes just a job
I am studied
Just a case in a folder
Patients not people
Not even human

Just wait it out
Wait until the fire burnt out
but you might just get singed by it
might just be engulfed in flames

Used to cry when I was little
used to feel so much pain
It was hard to hide it, hard to pretend
so i'd just cry on and on
Fight fire with fire maybe some water

Now though I just sit there
Wait till the fire burns over
Until it burns out
I've gotten so good at pretending I'm okay
I've even convinced myself

Nightmares to another place
A place I call home…
Called home
To dream again was to face it
To look away was to be free
Yet that ache would never dull
The farther I ran, the more it would pound
Engulfing my skull until
Until it wasn’t enough
Until I became my greatest fear

Joints… aching like rusted hinges
Hair… slipping away like autumn leaves
Memory…flaking off like the old paint that covered my walls
Fatigue… like a tide that never recedes

I feel as if
I've carried centuries in a single skin
Lived lives I can’t remember
But still feel in my marrow

And yet
I’m nowhere near the halfway mark

The same clock hands, circling
Almost in slow motion
Same dull rhythmic beating
Routine wears like sandpaper
Smoothing the edges
As the years blur and blow away

Before I thought one day I'd wake up in bed
Happy with no problems
Peace lying right next to me
no more worries, no more weight
that was what I thought healing was

The older I get I feel like thats not it not even close
Healing isn't a place, a destination
Its a journey, a rhythm, an acceptance

Healing or at least what I think it is
is being okay with having the bad days
not letting them eat you up

Its not about perfect mornings
its about getting up each day
not forgetting what happened the last
but just accepting
but who knows maybe that'll change

Just a few days ago I told some friends writing poetry helped
But just today I punched walls like everything depended on it
so maybe i'm not getting better
who knows

Look at me, say your sorry
next thing I know its over
Pity like a dagger wrapped like a gift
soft words, sharp lies

You ask why I bleed let the red run me over
Why drawings line up my wrists
In blood red
Then you turn around and say things
Like you forgot I ever told you

I hate you but I cant hate you
I love you because you love me
sometimes I just wish you'd hate me
so i'd be free
so i'd be allowed to hate you
without guilt

I don't know who I'm writing this to
maybe just someone out there
dragging themselves out of bed each morning
not quite ready to face the world
but too tired to stand the loneliness of the night no longer

Maybe you're miles, years, even livesaway
maybe you'll read this one day
and it won't feel so heavy
maybe I will too

until that day
cheers to whoever this finds
heres to a day where it ain't all so lonely

Stop to think before you act
As everyone had always said
When surrendering to the dark
Silence grows heavy
Thoughts begin to spiral
Right before bed
Moon comes by as an old friend
Drawing soft shadows along the wall
Bringing light even to the dimmest flames
Yet one night moon never comes
She waits by bedside
Without the moon's warm light
Darkness begins to tug at her
Until she succumbs to its promise
Of an eternal flame
Not meant to warm
Simply to blind those who fly too close to the sun

You don't know what you have until you've lost it
Those small, fleeting moments, you never held on
You take it all for granted thinking it will stay
...
But once its lost its not coming back
Somehow you just have to live knowing that
That you had more time
You just chose not to spend it doing something better
Chose not to spend it with the people you love
Left with simple echoes, just reminders of the choices you made
...
Wishing to turn back the clock
Imagining if you hold your breath long enough
you might just stop time
But the past is gone
And now you just have to live with it
live with what you've lost

My voice is almost gone
It hurts to scream, but I can't stop
I yell, shout, howl, scream
anything to quench the anger
to stop the anger from boiling over
I punch the floor until I can no longer feel my knuckles
But its only barely enough to douse the flames
The rage still crawls under my skin
I beg the flames for mercy until I go insane
They can't hear me, or they ignore me
My head feels as if it will burst
My heart even worse
My lungs as if I am drowning

I wish I spent more time with them
Less time pushing them away
The halls seem emptier without them
My group, my people
I was supposed to have 2 more years with them
2 more years to make dumb jokes that only we would laugh at
2 more years to make memories that we could look back at
2 more years once we learned to drive to go around on trips
2 more years to sit at our spot making jokes and screaming until someone complained
2 more years of those 7-11 trips I never went on because I thought we had more time
2 more years to play on the same team to go to games and practices I could never attend because I thought we had more time
2 more years of school dances, of prom and homecoming
I missed out on memories just because I was so busy studying
and now I won't get a chance to make more

I finally found my way out
No more blades, just tears
And before I know it
red slips down my arms again

An insatiable need
Now I write, go insane
because if i give in to that urge
that itch
I'd let everyone down
a disappointment

but all I really want to do is feel the blade dancing around me again

I scan the hallways for you
Wondering when you'll pop up
When we'll do our little highfive say hi
When I'll get to laugh at your jokes
Then I realize your off at college
Living your life
And i'm still in high school
Surviving without you
How do I do this?
I don't think I can.
To the 2025 seniors.
Man I miss you

The steady rhythm that keeps my heart true
A beat like listening to each drum
Each strum of a guitar
Each chord sung
Somehow fixes everything
Allowing escape for the estranged

I’m rewatching Harry Potter, and it hits me
He was only 17 when he saved the world.
Only 17 when he faced death,
Defeated Voldemort,
Buried friends,
And still walked forward.

I rewatched Hannah Montana,
And realized she was a star at 13.
She used to seem so much older—
Confident, funny, double life and all.
Now I’m older than she ever was on screen,
But somehow, I still feel behind.

Katniss volunteered at 16.
Peter Parker was dodging bullets in high school.
Percy Jackson fought gods at 12.
Even Lizzie McGuire seemed to have it more together
Than I do now.

And the characters I used to look up to
Now feel so out of reach.
I used to think it was because they were older
But now I’m the same age,
And somehow…

I’m just sitting on the couch,
Binge-watching their stories,
Still waiting for mine to start.

But maybe the difference
Isn’t the age,
Or the magic,
Or the fame.

Maybe the difference is
They had scripts
And I’m still writing mine.

When I was little I told the teacher
I don't feel happy
I never meant I was depressed
but rather happiness that I had
passed too fast
I could laugh one moment
Cry the next
Until each fleeting moment felt
like happiness was bleeding
out of my hands before I could hold it
Always one step ahead
I could never reach it

Does anyone still play make belief
Play pretend or house
Maybe in our heads, but never out loud
One day some of us just stopped
No reason, just that we grew up

One day it finally hit us childhood is gone
Little kids trying to play teenagers
And teenagers trying to go back to childhood

We play in the park like it will heal our inner child
We play make belief in our heads so maybe it will come true
But one day we lose our childhood
and we can't ever get it back

So each time I see a kid speeding through their years
I wish I could slow mine down
Stretch out the time that disappears

I know, I know, I know so much
But I can't act, can't act upon it
I sit there scrolling until it destroys me
until I can't breathe
I stop 5 hours later only to go insane
I spiral into anxiety of finishing my school work
Only to go to sleep and wake up the next day
I can't keep going like this
Yet I do nothing
I don't know how to fix it
I can't do this anymore