A name
Replaced by dashes
Who were they?
And where did they go?

Faces I knew
Voices I heard
Cadence familiar
They were my world

Terrain has changed
Plants overgrown
Are we still friends?
I no longer know

If I wrote a song about me
The intro would be a happy melody.
I’d miss a couple chords
Hum some notes a little too sharp
But it’s okay

The first verse would be laughter
Dancing through the sun’s rays
White keys beneath my fingers
Playing the major

The second verse would fog over
minor notes bleeding through
each wrong sound a confession
I prayed no one would hear

The chorus would unravel
Restless chords, circling, choking
A violin played with shards of glass

The third verse would be filled with screaming
Raw and jagged
Into the void where I hoped to disappear
The fourth would fade into silence
And the fifth would hollow to a ghost

Then the devil's interval would loop, waiting for the next line

When did age start feeling like a countdown to death?

As I grow older
There were more big problems
Overshadowing the small ones
And so I stopped tending to those small things

Like brushing teeth
Or going for walks
Or bathing
Or eating
Or sleeping

Huh… I think I might be dying

If I speak my mind
Behind a blank mask,
I do not own the thought
I do not speak my mind

I remember
The days
I grew up
Beaming,
Laughter threading through the halls
Like echoes that knew my name.

And when I left
My only regret
Was never hearing them sing
The ode to me.

Still,
I knew
I mattered to them.
Their words I'll keep
In the folds of my heart
Or tucked away in lines of code

But this year
They're silent.
And I stand outside,
Face to the sky,
I pray for rain to fall
So I will not weep alone.

Birds fly
So do I--
Lifted by your hands.
Paper *****,
Wrestled falls,
Laughter with no end.

Scars earned,
Lessons learned,
Gearing me for life.
Always here,
Support clear,
Pillar of my life.

Your guiding hands are always there
To catch me when I fall.
Soft combs through my tangled hair
Hugs, a protective wall.

Your strength's a roaring lioness,
Your heart burning so bright,
Fighting through the crushing stress.
You burn away the night

Lost and lonely I drift

Wandering through hazy days

Looking for the chubby little fingers

That used to tug me around with laughter

Water listens, acknowledging the pain
It washes and cleans the wounds lightly,
Soothes and calms,
Like a burbling brook to sit next to.

But blood…

Blood is thick and heavy.
It leaves a taste of copper in my mouth
Even after my head resurfaces and I can breathe again.
It stains and flows from cuts, tearing my stitches

Can't eat
Can't sleep
Can't stop crying
Can't breathe
Can't live
Can't do dying
Can't write
Can't read
Can't scream aloud
Can't choose
Can't break
Can't shut down
Can't fly
Can't fall
Can't let them know
Can't speak
Can't stay
But still can't go

I miss the friends who
Would ask if I was okay
So I could say no

There is a child
Who follows everywhere I go.
Late at night I hear him crying,
Yet my family stirs not.

When he cries,
I’m bound in a straightjacket,
stitched with silence
and the things I don’t know how to say.

I tell him to stop,
But he never listens.
So I muffle his sobs with a pillow
And hide him beneath my blanket

Sometimes he comes out during the day
Wailing for all the world to hear.
I tape his mouth shut
And wait until his tears won't be seen

I always hated them--
how they left me behind the curtains,
worthless, unseen, forgotten

So when you told me
I was part of one,
shame flooded the courners of my soul

And yet, so did joy;
spreading like a warm fire.
Finally, a place where I belonged.

I heard her today, you know—
A ghost of my past

And for a moment I forgot.
I forgot what life was like without her voice;

Clear, high, wavering yet confident,
Beauty slowly reclaiming attention from the inky flaws.

She wore a smile that wasn’t made of porcelain
But still fake, cause it wasn’t really real

For she had long faded, like cotton candy slowly melting in humid air,
Along with the wisps of my childhood.

But for the first time since the fall
The little boy began to dream of skies again

I saw a familiar face in a crowd
Like dye in clear water
Disappear before I could reach it

If you doubt yourself
You start to doubt others
And if you doubt others
You’ll start to doubt everyone
Til there’s no one you can trust

There’s an incomplete poem
Sitting in my drafts
Titled “Maybe It’s not So Bad”
Last edited: 7 April.

I don’t think I’ll be finishing it any time soon
Or maybe never

My head’s
Six feet
Underwater

I’m trying
Hard
Not to drown

Bubbles
Trailing
From my lips

You’re
The air
Keeping me alive

I can't solve anything

Not my life, or theirs
I can't bring back the missing

Can't hold them as they cry
Can't do anything right
Can't say the right things

Even if you say I do
Cause I know
I know you'll never look at me
The way you look at him

I'm
Just
Backup
The second best
Option

T h e   d a y s   s e e m   t o o   l o n g
A  n  d     t  h  e     y  e  a  r  s     e  v  e  n      l  o  n  g  e  r

Funny how quickly
A life can be-

So brittle
That a single word (or seven)
Could pour salt on my opened palms
And break
My short sense of happiness

The first “hello,” a waving hand
We’re only seats apart
“How do you do? Wanna be friends?”
That’s how it used to start
Expired words, still on my tongue
The words I wish to hear
Now changed from days when I was young
To whispers in my ear,
“All this is fake, so shallow too.”
“You sure you’re really friends?”
“I bet they just put up with you,
Cause you help meet the ends.”
The questions dragged up from my mind
I’ll tell the moon at night
And search alone, hope I can find
The answers to my plight
Tomorrow when the dark retreats
I know I’ll call you friend
I hope you’ll do the same for me
Even if you just pretend

Don’t look
Please

There’s a reason I’m hiding
A reason for the mask
A reason for the sleeves

Inside is a mess
Of tangled lies and brittle truths
That I’ve stopped trying to understand

And somewhere in there
There’s a child; a puppet
Who just wants to solve the world’s pain

But can’t

So the child hides behind the personas created
Behind stories woven in fiction
Behind poems bled upon
Behind a name
that doesn’t
exist

I'm

Falling apart and rotting away
Insecure, lost, with nowhere to stay
Nothing worth loving, an echo to ****
Endlessly crying on my window sill

Sometimes I wonder
If it’s all just in my head
And I should just stop

“Now you won’t be distracted.”
You took me away from my friend
“It’s for your own good.”
He was the only one keeping me sane
“You don’t talk in the middle of class anymore!”
You triggered my depressive days
“It’s only temporary.”
To think I actually believed you
“Are you okay?”
The audacity!

“Yeah, just tired.”

Tight skin throbbing
Under sleeves long

Prickling hums
Growing red and warm

Sweat trickles
Lines start to ache

Nails making sure
They never fade

I sit at my chair
For hours on end
Staring at the blank paper

The story is at the tips of my fingers
The characters chatter in my mind, ready to take the stage
But to my horror

My words are gone and only the silence remains

It's not that I want you gone
I appreciate you
I really do
But it's hard to believe you're sincere
When you're also scrolling through shorts at the same time

As a child
I hid under my covers,
Fearing the monsters of the night
Lurking beneath my bed.

But now they live in my mind,
Crawling through the cracks,
Festering— even in the sun’s warmth.

No blanket can shield me.
No lamp, no lullaby.

I close my eyes
But still, they linger.