The death date I assigned to myself when I was
what, 10 years old?
I told myself I would die one way or another.

Most likely by my own hands.

Because I had no purpose here.
Because I was too weak for this world.
Because the pain and weight were too much.
Because nobody seemed to care all that much.
Because those who had only cared for the false parts of me.
Because those who truly had didn't want to live either.
Because I was tainted by those who were thought to have cared.
Because it was the only way to be truly free.

I would play pretend to be adults with my "boyfriend".
Would play dance with knives and needles on my arm.
Would make candy out of painkillers.
Would imagine myself to be Icarus when meeting with high ledges, flying then
                                falling.
Would dream about that date,
01/04/2026.
My 16th birthday.

No 10 year old should be doing that,
I don't think.

It's always between the two.
Myself or everyone else?
Myself or my family?
Honest to myself or acceptable to everyone else?
Truth or tradition?

I don't want to lose them, their respect, everyone's respect.
Nobody is going to accept me or take me seriously, and I can't just give up everything I'm known as.
Can't give up the little I have left.

But I can't live like this.
Every day like this just feels so wrong.
I hate myself,
I hate living.

I can't live my life like this, live someone else's life.
I try to convince myself that I'm wrong, that I'm just doing it for the 'trend', for attention
but I can't.
I can't stand looking like this, being seen as something I'm just not.

But a big part of society hates the existence of people like me,
my friends hate the existence of people like me,
my family hates the existence of people like me.

What am I meant to do?
I hate this so much.
The constant reminders, the self-hatred, peer-judgment, fear, frustration, people on social media and the news and the government and ****,
I hate this so so so much.

My life is an act.
I'm pretending all the time.
And the crazy thing is that it's still not right.
It's still not enough.
Again and again, i ask the world "why cant i be normal?"
The world never responds.
I play every part I'm asked, but an actor can't play two in the same scene.
What do you want me to do?
I don't understand

I'm so tired

It always comes back to this.
I don't know why I always fall into the belief that they'll be okay
again.
Again.
Again.
It keeps getting bad.
Then it gets "better".
And I think it's really better,
But then it's not.
And
I don't know.
I hate this.

Why don't I feel good about this?
I've been practically killing myself for 3 years and... I got what I wanted.

"Wanted".

Did I really want this?
Was all that for just this?
I should be grateful, I know I should,
but I still find myself asking why.

Why?

They didn't do ****, I did.
They told me and all I said was "oh, wow".
I can't say I didn't expect it, but, I don't know.

I don't know.

I'm not mad that I got it, of course, but not really happy either.
I don't really feel anything about it. I tell people, and I don't feel any pride, just nothing.

Nothing...

nothing
nothing
nothing
nothing.

I have a lost for inspiration
so I’m offering to you
A poem about this lost
cause I just don’t know what to do

I have thought of many ideas
A poem about perfection
A poem about stars
A poem about a piano
A poem about feelings and emotions
Poems of all kinds
But all the end results were bland
So I’m doing what I can
By writing this poem
This horrid poem of mine

The chance of me submitting this poem is low
But if I don’t do this I wouldn’t know where to go
My mind a confusing mush
So this is a poem of nonsense
If you want you can just stop reading
And you wouldn’t have to hear this rambling

I honestly don’t know how poets do it
Cook up all these ideas from their mind
How can it can be so full of thoughts
Cause from how many most of them write
I’m sure their filled with lots
I would be blessed to have a mind of a poet
But I don’t… so that’s unfortunate

I guess I may end it here
You probably didn’t like this poem
Neither did I
But if you did like it
I guess that’s fine

I hope you haven’t lost too many braincells reading this
Honestly, with writing poems, I’m helpless

This world we live in is chaotic and messy,
and yet we expect ourselves to be composed and perfect?

How could we, when we ourselves are individual complex worlds that follow the same principles of the wider world.

How, if we are the monomers of this complex structure and therefore share its qualities -
No,
Give it its qualities.

For we are chaotic and messy
And apart of something much greater than ourselves.

So don't be so rigid,
Its not in our nature.

Just be.

Society sees us as black and white,
Good or bad,
Wrong or right,
Even their shades of gray are seen as improper and strange and not right.

But I am not black or white and
I am not those shades of gray,
I am bent light.

I strive when it's rainy and shine high and bright
I am the small ray of rainbow light,
A ROYGBIV full of life.

Even if they say I'm too blinding,
I'll keep on shining and I won't conform.
I’ll blind them with my radiating pride.
I won't let the world see me in black and white.

I think I'm nothing
But you think I'm everything
How can I be both?

I want to be a candle
I want to cover myself in wax
Feel it broil my skin
To see my waxy peel crack and break at the pressure
Watch me fall as warmth is radiated on me
And let the scorching heat take me over

I want to be a candle
So they can finally see that I can only last so long
From the tall shining figure
To a Bath and Body Works cavity
So they can watch the ******* fire turn to ashes
I’m not flame-retardant
I am a candle
And my wick has burned out

Let me be a candle
So that I, myself, can put out the lights
And finally, be at peace

I am scarred.
Can you see?

I am weeping.
Can you hear?

I am hurting
Can you feel it?

I am sorry
Can you forgive me?

I am not
okay
Can you tell?

I am
                   dying
Can you help me?

I am asking nicely
Please?

Don't say your parents don't love you.
I wish my parents loved me.
They're not liars, at least not in that sense,
But I fear that they love the concept of their daughter more.

Don't paint them to be loveless monsters.
They're not, I know they're not.
Thats what makes it hurt more.
The fact that they hold so much love
That I am simply unworthy of.

Don't you love them?
I do,
But aren't I allowed to love myself more?

I would cry over spilled milk
But not spilled blood.

Because, the spilled milk is actively disrupting my linear and strictly constructed plan to make cereal and therefore also everything that comes after it, and I would have wasted milk and so prevented a future me from the cereal breakfast pleasure.

But, if the blood is my own, I can usually disconnect myself from the injury and just not notice, ignore, or press a paper against it to prevent bloodying everything and go on with my day with but a slight sensation in my finger. If its more dire, I'd disconnect just the same, but be slightly more irritated as it would now disrupt routine but still probably be fine. If not my own, then I'd really struggle to care, as I do not have much of the ability to transfer another's pain to myself via the superpower everyone seems to have called "empathy".

Me crying for spilled milk and not blood
does not make me alien.
It just makes me some sort of sick ******.

Huh.
I think I rather just be an alien.

Twain
Rose
LOOK "RIGHT"

FLOWER
Said
not

My disgust and horror

the
Greatest Rose
doesn't
ACTUALLY HAPPEN SOMETIMES

when I die
I will decompose
and be made
into something alive

I am living
made out of
decomposed bits
of dead things.

is anything ever really dead?
is anything ever really alive?

I don't know.

but my heart beats
and the earth breathes
just the same.

You can't eradicate me,
Mr. President,
Just because you say I don't exist.

You can't speak me into nothingness
With words full of bigotry and lies.

I'm still here,
Mr. President,
We're all still here.

Even if it isn't safe for some of us to be ourselves openly,
Even if some of us haven't found ourselves yet,
Even if some of us are 6 feet under because of the people who believe in your definition of an American -
One that excludes anyone you don't understand,
Anyone that challenges your beliefs,
Anyone remotely different from you -

We're still here.
We're still here.

Don’t cry
Don’t cry it's alright
Don't cry they’re right there
Don't cry they might stare

Don’t cry
Don’t cry you’re just fine
Don’t cry as they glare
Don’t cry they don’t care

Don’t cry
Don’t cry you’ll survive
Don’t cry it’s not fair
I won’t cry, I swear

Don’t cry
Don’t cry wave goodbye
I cry, my heart tears
I cried…

Once I tried to convince myself that it was seasonal,
And that it would pass like the chilly weather.

Then flowers started to blossom,
But I was still stuck in the bud of my mind
And birds came back from migration,
But my happiness didn't.
Though there were no more flurries of snow in the air,
There were still blizzards in me.

Now, I wasn't only freezing,
But I was alone.
While my teeth were chattering,
I watched everyone else have fun in the sun.
With no one here, no one to snuggle up with, it's impossible to keep warm.
I tried to reach out at least a hand to their summer world,
But it could never reach me.
It's almost like I have a repellent on me,
And no matter how hard i scrub,
It always remains.
But of course, I'm not going to drag others into this winter with me.
Because I know the nature of it.
And I wouldn’t want to inflict it on anyone;
Once it begins, it'll never end.

This eternal winter
has no escape.
This eternal winter
Will be the death of me.

I am the apple that fell off the family tree.
They say I don't fall far,
and its true.
Its impossible to completely rid of my roots.
But I still have the power to do what those stiff branches were too stubborn and fixed to:

Grow.
Grow from their flaws and generational hurt.
Plant the seed of healing which will grow with the generations to come into a new tree with deeper roots and riper fruit.

It hurts to detach myself from my history,
But it would hurt more to put my children through the same pain.

I am fine
Go ahead, Turn blind eyes
Ignore the signs

'Cause I am fine
Theres no mental decline
And its not like I hate this life of mine

I'm fine
Totally fine inside the mind

When I say "goodbye"
For the last time
Don't gasp and cry

Couldn't you see past the glass lies?
Couldn't you see that I wasn't truly "fine?"

Or were you willing to simply stand by
Only caring to care when I had already died.

Am I physically unable to succeed, like, ever?

I mean, come on world, cut me some slack!
I'll try as hard as I want,
give you whatever you want,
Just let me have this,
please.

I say this, and I mean it.
I give up every part, piece, fragment of myself  
Just to keep failing over and over and over again.

I'm telling you guys, its seriously not fair.
But fine...

I'll just slowly disintegrate into the Earth
Like all dead things do.
Maybe, then I'll grow into something thats actually good
and beautiful
and worthwhile,

Like - like a flower growing from *******!
And not like a total failure and complete waste of space.

It feels like
Relief.

Taking a deep breath and
Breathing for the first time.

Looking in the mirror and seeing someone familiar
Instead of that stranger that only grew more foreign with time.

A weightlessness from letting go of the heavy load
That had accumulated over the 15 years.

If feels like
Utter, pure joy.
Excitement.
Relief.
Freedom.

I know that I'm alive,
I can feel the rise and fall
and beating beneath my chest.
I see the cloud of air with every expel of breath into the frigid air.

But this freezing cold is finding its way inside and flows through my veins causing me to shiver.
My warmth is stolen along with my liveliness and I am left as a shell of what I once was.
Left as this alive emptiness, like a ghost without a soul.

I know that I am alive
and, just the same,
know that I am not living.

I simply drift about your world aimlessly,
with this useless heart, body, lungs
mind
That keep me alive against the world's better judgement.

Find me a purpose
Find me a soul
Find me a life
So that I could live.

I'm stale, spoiled, way past my due date
And yet I'm still here, in the back of the fridge.

I know the cold is meant to keep me around for longer,
But the prolonging was meaningless when my demise was inevitable.

I'm without purpose, without notice
I'm not quite sure why I'm here really.

I wasn't supposed to be around this long.
Just pour me down the sink already,
Theres no chance I'm getting better now.

I'm sorry, really.
I hadn't meant to bother you by
Messaging you everyday for a week,
Each following one more frantic than the last,
Because you wouldn't respond.

I was scared.
Really, really scared.
Scared that you had done something to yourself...

Scared that, maybe, you
Stayed in bed too long
Cut too deep
Went too many days without eating
Too many days skipping your meds-
Or maybe, took all your skipped pills all at once---

It's irrational, I know.
I'm sorry.

...

I remember, I've done this before,
I was... 10, it was 2020.
I remember, my best friend, Kaydence, wouldn't respond to my texts
for a month.
We had fought,
It was some stupid Minecraft game.
And then, she just
Stopped texting
Back.

I was lonely, it was quarantine after all, and I didn't have no one else to talk to.
I texted her every single day
Cried every single day.
I was being dramatic, obviously,
I'm always so **** dramatic.

When she came back, she acted like nothing had happened.
Her mom had just taken away her phone, or something.
I didn't have to worry.

...I think that month I spent, alone,
Thats when it had started to get bad.

...

When you did respond,
you told me that you were sorry.
That you were
alive.
I think you understood where my worry came from.

I asked you where you had been,
and you said that you were just doing school and sleeping.
It was another depressive episode.

Oh, well.

I feel bad to feel relieved,
But
It could've been worse.
You could've
Cut too deep
Or stayed in bed
Or skipped your meds
Or taken too many...

You could've
Left me.

I said sorry for being such a bother,
Said that "I hope you feel better."
And even though thats not quite right thing to say,
But I think that's the closest I could've gotten.

I'm sorry, really.
I hadn't meant to bother you by
Messaging you everyday for a week,
Each following one more frantic than the last,
Because you wouldn't respond.

I was scared.
Really, really scared.
Scared that you had done something to yourself...

Scared that, maybe, you
Stayed in bed too long
Cut to deep
Went too many days without eating
Too many days skipping your meds-
Or maybe, took all your skipped pills all at once---

It's irrational, I know.
I'm sorry.

I remember, I've done this before,
I was... 10, it was 2020.
I remember, my best friend, Kaydence, wouldn't respond to my texts
for a month.
We had fought,
It was some stupid Minecraft game.
And then, she just
Stopped texting
Back.

I was lonely, it was quarantine after all, and I didn't have no one else to talk to.
I texted her every single day
Cried every single day.
I was being dramatic, obviously,
I'm always so **** dramatic.

When she came back, she acted like nothing had happened.
Her mom had just taken away her phone, or something.
I didn't have to worry.

...I think that month I spent, alone
Thats when it had started to get bad.

When you did respond,
you told me that you were sorry.
That you were
alive.
I think you understood where my worry came from.

I asked you where you had been,
and you said that you were just doing school and sleeping.
It was another depressive episode.

Oh, well.

I feel bad to feel relieved,
But
It could've been worse.
You could've
Cut too deep
Or stayed in bed
Or skipped your meds
Or taken too many...

You could've
Left me.

I said sorry for being such a bother,
Said that "I hope you feel better."
And even though thats not quite right thing to say,
But I think that's the closest I could've gotten.

How can you love me
When the name you know me by
Isn't truly me?

My family has a miscellany of hair, yet we complement each other perfectly.

Papi has short hair like a dark chocolate shrub. His beard is kept short and is rough like sandpaper, contrasting with his lively outgoing self and he has a bit hanging below his lip that he occasionally twirls around his finger.

Mama has long soft hair that is kept formally straight and tidy as a ruler for outings and work but can revert to its wild self at home.

My older sister has the hair of a firebrand that never seems to stay in order. It’s kept a jungle of curls, curlicues decorating the edges.

My little sister, the youngest, has “long long” hair. “Long long” hair, as soft as the down of a chick. “Long long” hair, dark like her nightly chocolate milk. “Long Long” hair, perfumed with aromas of pizza and hair oil. “Long long” hair, untamed and wild as a lion cub. “Long Long” hair, in braids, pigtails, pony, and puff. “Long long” hair, like a princess— the regime of our apartment, like the mermaid who had long since found her voice. Just barely reaches below the shoulder, and has yet to get her first haircut. “Long long” hair, she says. “Long long” hair, like the “big kid” she is.

My limbs
My mouth
My fingers
My mind

It all feels so
                      
                        heavy.

I am heavy
with hurt.
Both mines, and yours

And the hurt of
My mother,
a woman who deserves commited love.
And my father,
a boy who shouldn't have starved.
And my grandmothers,
girls that grew up too fast and too far away from home.

And the for all the children of the world,
all of us whose ability to love others and ourselves in a silly, gentle, erratic, genuine, inperfect, beautiful way was lost with boxed up toys and discarded sugary cereal boxes.

And for the world,
a once beautiful place that has been forced to endure careless brutality and abuse that is now scarred and broken and yet is still fighting for itself.

Like all the children of the world
Like my grandmothers
Like my father
Like my mother
Like you
Like me.

It's a heavy load to carry,
But I'm not planning to give in any time soon.

I walk into church and know I don't belong.
Feel the eyes tracking me down like its the final judgement.
Put me down like a dog for my sins that are emphasized by the lens of stained glass,
Then hang my beat body to be "saved."

(Y)our lord and savior died on that cross for the salvation of humanity, yes?
Then it makes sense why you dehumanize me, because I seem to not be on the roster.
I can repent all I want but it won't change who I am, only whose mask I wear for the holy supper.

Tell me I'll be eternally ****** for my estrangement.
Thats alright. I'm practically already there.

Hot water rains on my skin
The fog it creates holds me

Like you once did.

I breathe it in,
let it  travel   over     my           body
as your       hands          once            did
like I used to breathe you in
and the reminise our love-making left
in the air.

I close my eyes and let my mind float,
like the vapor,
to you and I
when we were still "us."

I loved you.
You loved me.
Why?

My hand detatches from the wrist
and turns the heat
up
        up
                  up.
Until it burns me.
Like you did, with your burning sweet caresses.

The steam fills the room
Fills my body;
an empty hot vessel without you.

This acid rain from my shower head,
It hurts so good.
Like our *******.
Like before.

Now that we're you an I instead of we and our,
I’m just left longing
For the kind of hurt,
For the kind of love,
For the kind of everything that a hot shower can’t give.

You can't open  the session with,
"How suicidal have you been feeling?"
And expect me not to immediately shut down.

"[Deadname], I know you're not..."
Choose your words carefully.
"stupid,"
Score.

"I know you can do it, you just choose not to."
It was never a choice, just a response.

"Come on, [deadname], just talk to me."
How am I meant to tell you to tell you of the deepest darkest parts of myself when you don't even know
my name.

I wish I knew how to be a person.

To you, it seems to be second nature
And yet to me, it seems like a sacred craft
To which I don't have ancestral access to
A foreign language
That'd take me a masterclass to learn
A calculated dance
Whose music I am deaf to,
While you have this mesmerizing choreography that you didn't even have to practice.

I can try to imitate,
Copy-paste your manerisms, sayings, even tone
But it's clearly ingenuine on me
and so very exhausting.

How can you do this and enjoy it?
Free flowing laughs and excited speech.
You shine, so bright and proud,
Not noticing how your light is making a shadow of me.

It's sad,
frustrating,
lonely.
Lonely to be a human
But not know how to be a person.

crying to sleep
ever so quiet
so they won't hear
my hurt
waves of hurt
hurts so much
make it stop
no, don't
they can't know
this is all I have
all I know
all I am
crying to sleep
all I want is sleep
all I want is peace
peace of mind
I had figured
that I would meet peace
at my grave
you understand,
don't you?