Life gives you lemons,
Make lemonade.
Cut the chunks of ice
with the knife that’s tasted your blood.
Squeeze the lemons into the cuts littered on your arm,
Grit your teeth and savor the burn.
Collect all the sugar from your syrupy lies,
And all the times you’ve deceived.
Stir it together with the long list of things
That are wrong with you.
So now whenever I drink cold lemonade,
You’re the first thing I think of.

I cannot help but stop and look at bleeding scratches.
Do scratches make you shiver?
Do they?

I cannot help but stop and look at the permanent disfiguration.
Never forget the unending and indissoluble imperfection.
Do mistakes become forgotten?
Do they?

I don't believe that scars are small
Scars are big beyond belief.
Scars are capacious. Scars are largish.
Do scars last forever?
Do they?

One day I saw a fluffy little mouse
Running around the perimeter of the wooden floor of my house.
It was grey, with little white stripes near its eyes.
Instead of screaming or shrieking in surprise,
I give a warm smile.
The poor rodent just needs a warm place to sleep,
And I enjoy mice anyway.
A few months had passed and I forgot all about
The little mouse that has made a nest in my empty walls.
I had just gotten a cat, a sweet and innocent little kitten.
While I was reading a book,
My cat dropped something at my feet.
It was a mouse.
A grey mouse, with little white stripes near its eyes.
I screamed in horror,
I had saved that mouse once before!
My cat had undone something I felt so proudly about.
I tried to yell at the cat,
But that wouldn’t bring the mouse back to life.
I was going to punish the kitten,
But she doesn’t understand what she did.
Was it her fault, mine, or the mouse’s?

She was like a flower,
Pollen drifting through the air,
Her leaves fluttering in the wind,
The stem twisting and snapping and breaking.
Soon her head drooped on the ground,
No more strength to turn to the sun.
Seeds popped out like droplets of water,
No one wanted her in their garden.
Her words all stilted,
Her petals all wilted,
Soon she decomposes.

I remember
Your laugh as we played on the
Monkey bars with the rising sun.
Your smile as we nibbled at
Melting ice cream.
Your sigh as the
Summer winds ruffled your hair.
We were only children,
We’re still only children.
So why are these memories
So far away?

Raining gems,
Raining gold.
Depression stems,
I still feel cold.

Here you are,
I look away.
You seem so far,
You'll never stay.

I don't need you,
I have my money.
Yes, it's true,
Sweet as honey.

Close my eyes,
Dream of love.
All my lies
Are up above.

But what's the point?

Phospholipids, sucrose, phosphates
Biology feels like memorizing vocabulary.

Absquatulate, etymological, effluvium
English wants me to be a human glossary.

Axiom, cartesian, diophantine
Math is repeating the same problems in different ways.

Feudalism, hegemony, cartellino
History is staring at facts about dead people.

Humdrum, repetitiousness, homogeneity
Every second of monotony bores me.

Was it always like this?

You know those dreams where you're falling?
You try to grab on to something, anything to keep yourself aloft.
No matter how hard you try, you'll never best your nightmare.
And as you plummet towards agony,
You feel a moment of terror before knowing
That you'll wake up before you hit the ground.

The blood dripping from my heart
A pool on the ground
It makes a tasty main course
Watch you lick it up
Like a cat with milk
Sweet red drops
Help!

It hit me hard,
Your words.
You thought that they would flutter away,
You thought they would dissipate into the warm summer air.
Your words.
Instead of ignoring them,
Like I should've been able to do,
I turned them over and over in my head.
Repeating them until the only thing in my mind
was a cacophony of sound.
Your words.
My own mind was now telling me that I was worthless,
How could it betray me?
Your words.
They ruined my train of thought.
Train... they hit me like a train.
Your words.

When we were little,
We used to play in the meadow adjacent to the bustling highway,
Always sure to stay far away from the danger that the road held.
As we got older,
We would dare each other to touch the dandelions,
The ones that ran next to the road,
And eventually to tap a foot on the blacktop.
We finally grew up,
And I would hold your hand while staring at the abandoned path.
There was no need to use it anymore,
Except for the occasional traveler.
Suddenly, you stood up,
Your pale, soft skin brushing gently against mine.
I stand up next to you with a curious glance.
You give me a bold and flirtatious smile,
Your long hair trailing behind you
As you run towards the highway.
I grin and follow suit,
Until we’re standing side by side at the edge.
You will take a deep breath
And cross the road in a few long leaps.
I will put my foot on the ground and close my eyes,
Running after you.
But when I open my eyes on the other side,
You will be gone
Because I will remember
Attending your somber funeral
And holding your sobbing mother.

It is not ******
If you **** something not there.
Do I look happy?

Is it a crime to love
If the only one who's hurt is you?
If you ****** no one's feelings but your own?
If you hide it within yourself until you fall apart?
Suicide isn't a crime,
So neither is love.

Most simply it is music
A bow gliding across
Silver metal strings.
The scroll lifting as my chest rises in breath,
The instrument seems to sing.
Multi-colored wood gleams in the glaring spotlights above,
Sound drifting lazily through the air,
Clouds of rosin dust fly as the notes progress
And the audience leans in with bated breath.
Love’s Sorrow finishes with a caressing whisper
And only the echo of a memory is left.

I wander aimlessly around the facility,
Every so often passing by a door
Where wailing was audible from the hall.
The wailing I was supposed to ignore
Because the people behind the doors
Are “mislead and need redirection”

I do this every day,
Cherishing the short time
I was permitted release from my
“dorm room” where the mandatory hours
I spent in it were “just like boarding school”

They tell me I should
Think of this place as a
“Home away from home”

Maybe they’re afraid if I complain
The $9000 monthly check that
My mother sold her car to write
Won’t come in anymore.

I wish she didn’t waste her money
On some place supposed to
“Make [me] smile for the rest of my life”
Because after months here
I still feel numb,
And I still feel myself slipping farther away.

I pop them in like candy,
One after the other.
I can’t stop,
They’re so sweet.
All of my pain fades,
But my tears still fall.
I have to stop,
I know I won’t.
From up here,
The world seems so small.
Static creeping into my vision,
I slowly slip away.