It’s 11:30 at night, and I’m staring at a screen that no longer notifies me that anyone I know is awake. For I am once again avoiding sleep, but I am waiting for a reason to stay awake. I do not want to sleep for fear of never waking up, but if you send me a message, I will have a reason to get up in the morning.

Fact: Our communication is more body language than it is words but not that this applies to the text message you will send from your phone. For the only thing that doesn’t involve words in a texting conversation is silence.

You’d be surprised at how often I’ve had to be silent for the sake of others. You see, I have been told by many that I am too selfless, and that I need to look out for myself a little more. But I can’t. I do not have the ability to stop caring about people who need me, even if I am suffering more than they are. It hurts…to know that people I care about are in pain, so I pretend my pain isn’t there.

But slowly, I begin to realize that listening to others and caring for them is not a bad thing, but it does give me a reason to ignore my own problems. I don’t want to ignore my own issues, but I don’t have the courage to tell them to my own friends, why is that?

One time, my brother was so sick he could barely swallow without feeling pain, so I only asked him yes or no questions so he could nod or shake his head to answer. His pain, kept him silent, and my pain keeps me silent. The only difference between his situation and mine is that my communication with him was working and this silence within me prevents me from even saying hi to people.

I want to tell people everything, I want to have 5-hour conversations about everything that makes me silent and I want to be able to send you a text message without worrying about whether or not I just interrupted your life for 2 seconds. I want to tell you that I’m having a bad day, but I can’t because seeing you makes my day so much better that I have to smile. I want to tell you why I hate the weekends because I love school because my friends are at school, and that I had a fight with my parents, and that I hate looking at my own reflection, and that every time I say to someone that I’m sorry, I’m also trying to say that I love them. I am sorry…sorry… I want to tell you that I sometimes feel so much pain that when you say hello or goodbye, I will only have enough energy to give you a small smile and a wave, I am lonely…


I want to get better, I want to say everything and be honest and just WHY GOD WON’T YOU HELP ME?!? I want to play music, and have fun, and live my life, please somebody hear me…

Ding

1 New notification:

“Hey, are you still awake? You seemed a little out of it today. I’m always here for you if you need me.”

It’s 12:00am and I’ve missed the moment where today became tomorrow. So maybe today is the day I tell you everything. Maybe our communication isn’t broken. I write back saying: “Thanks for checking in on me, it means a lot. Now that you mention it, there is something that’s been bothering me, I have something I need to tell you…”

You said if I ever write a poem about you, that I should read it to you. Well here you go:

You should know I’m never the best at making first impressions. And although this isn’t the first time we’ve met, I still think I have something to prove. We never have as much time as we thought we did, and maybe that’s because we only have so much time to begin with.

Because you’re a story of sorts. And I’m not much of a reader anymore, but I can’t seem to get enough of how you view the world. Let me assure you, I’m listening.

I don’t really know how to say that I sometimes seem to want to know somebody even though we’ve never met. I remember handing you math notes, only to find that you’d disappear from math class like math notes disappear in school binders. How strange is it that you’d reappear from math notes to music notes?

A scripture of musical notation written on your skin and suddenly I needed to know who you were. But here I am asking about your tattoos thinking, “We’ve never met”. Only to be reminded of math notes I didn’t remember for tests I didn’t study for. So my first impression happened twice it seems.

And you seem so nice, offering your writing for mine. Offering up stories like it was over a nice dinner… or some type of wine was it? Offering up my listening ears only to find out how different we truly are. And how odd is it that we’ve met before?

Now that I’ve met you, I can’t imagine chalkboard hearts without wondering for whom the heart beats. Scrawling signatures like the chalk was meant to be permanent. I’m not much of a cursive writer, just a songwriter of sorts.

Like I said, we don’t have much time. You’ll leave soon, and I’ll wait another year to wonder if somebody else will offer up their hands as a gesture of kindness. And they will, but they won’t be your hands.

Forgive me if I ever forget your name, or the reason why I wrote this. But if we meet again and I ask about your tattoos, you can tell me all about them all over again. And between music notes and math notes, I’ll look at you and ask with the smallest bit of doubt, “Have we met?”.

And this time, I’ll let you make the first impression.

I decided recently to try to put my mind back together and isn't working the pieces of my mind are a maze that I don't know the answer to so keep on turning left turning left and turning left hoping that I don't end up in the same spot that I did when I started.

We all have things we don’t talk about anymore things that we left in the past far behind us things that we don’t like to think about.

I’ve forgotten all my memories not exactly where they used to be and I just don’t want to talk about them anymore we all have things we don’t talk about anymore.

You want to ask me if I’m lost well of course and lost… everybody’s lost sometimes. It’s never our fault but we choose to see it that way and so I’ve been looking through other people’s eyes to see if they can see what I’m supposed to be. If they know who I used to be.

Not the kind of identity crisis that you like to have that is the kind you keep around because it’s the only thing you can call home. I’ve been searching for pieces of my life through other people because maybe they remember something about me that I don’t I am lost… of course and lost. Repeating words, and phrase so I don’t forget them like the rest of my memory.

I’m not trying to steal anything that belongs to you I’m just trying to look for myself and if you have the key to that then I might as well chase you down as long as I can live.

Or maybe I just want your life because I can’t find mine because I’ve been looking through different people and not finding the me I used to want to be I am lost. So please don’t make me out to be the bad guy I am not trying to steal what used to be yours, I’m only trying to take back what’s mine.

I’ve stayed up countless nights and I still can’t find myself and maybe music is the only key out of that but I haven’t heard much lately. I haven’t slept in a few days and nobody’s been able to stop me there are things we do not talk about anymore. There are people that we do not talk to anymore. Our songs we don’t sing anymore because we don’t remember what they used to mean to us there are songs I have left so many years ago.

I don’t recognize myself in the mirror so maybe I can recognize myself in the reflection of a window of somebody else. I’ve heard a voice singing in my own ears and I wonder if it’s my own voice telling me to wake up. Staying up late at night thinking about all this is a habit that I thought I forgot years ago and yet it still comes back and I’m lost again in this maze of my own memory turning left turning left open to get to the end.
So yes I am lost but if you’re willing to catch me maybe this maze isn’t as dangerous as it used to be.

I haven’t slept in 2 years. I haven’t eaten in 5, I’m not lying.

People lie everyday. “Little white lies” we call them. They mean nothing at all. It won’t hurt anybody. What could possibly happen if I told a lie?

Some people are bad liars, and some lies are just bad.

I’m not a bad liar. But people just don’t believe me when I say anything. Everything I say becomes a lie in another person’s ears, they won’t listen.

So if I tell bad lies on purpose will anybody notice? I’ll mix up the truth with bad lies and see if people can tell the difference.

I’ve never broken a bone, I’ve never been drunk, I’ve never forgotten a birthday. Do you know which statement is true? And which one was the lie?

I’ve been sick for 10 years, my IV is made of tears, my cereal tastes like regret, I’m not lying.

I’ve forgotten my own name, I forgot where I came from, I left my consciousness on the bus. I’m not lying.

It’s very easy to ignore an obvious lie, when you know the truth. But I’m not lying…

My heart is broken, my dignity stolen, and my future is no more. I’m not lying.

My friends are gone, along with my dad and mom, my sibling disappeared. I’m not lying.

My chest hurts, my ribs are shattered, and as for me. Well, there’s not a lot of me left. I’m not lying.

I can’t stop myself from constantly running away from the truth, lies are just so much easier to tell.

They say the truth sets you free…
Ok… Let’s try again.

The poem is filled with lies, some of them easier to say than others. But I want to start telling the truth now.

I want to start this poem over. I want to be better than this. I know I’m better than this… And maybe you can hear it in my voice. But I promise. I’m not lying…

1.    The condition I have scrawled across my face looks like a frown, it’s so red that I might as well be bleeding anyway.

2. School is where most of my family is.

3. My teachers are NOT like my parents.

4. When I say yes, I actually mean no.

5. When I say no, I actually mean yes.

6. When I say “I don’t know”, it actually does mean “I don’t know”

7. You can tell that I like confusing people.

8. A turtle’s spine and ribs are fused together with its shell so they are stuck together. I believe this is an accurate representation of the relationship I have with my bed.

9. Remind me to thank my English B class for introducing me to slam poetry

10. Remind me to thank the Button Poetry YouTube channel for countless hours of awesomeness

11. Ever since I got into slam poetry, I seem to really like the sound of snapping.

12. We interrupt this program to bring you an awkward silence…

13. That awkward silence was where you were supposed to snap.

14. The people who need to hear this poem will never hear this poem

15. I wrote more than 10 poems finished an unfinished. And yet I choose to tell this story.

16. I try to convince myself that I’m not a poet, only a musician. But us musicians just take poetry and add whatever music we have lying around our messy rooms.

17. Random acts of kindness don’t seem to be looking for me, and yet I still have hope for the future.

18. I put capitals in words that shouldn’t be capitalized, but this mostly happens when I type my lab reports for my science classes.

19. If my assignment is due on Monday morning, I will purposely wait until Sunday night just to see if I really can beat the clock.

20. When I don’t finish the assignment I purposefully procrastinated on, yes, I feel bad about it. Yes, I know I could’ve done better.

21. I shake in my sleep for no reason, is it really this hard to stay still?

22. I am the most impatient person I know. So after learning that true love doesn’t happen like it does in the movies, I decided to give up waiting and I just moved on.

23. I’d like to believe that time travel would benefit people, but for people like me, we realized that fixing the past doesn’t make up for the problems of the future.

24. My friends at school are the coolest people I know!

25. I’m trying to figure out the meaning of life as if it were a math problem.

26. The words “Thank you” Don’t seem like a long enough phrase to mean something, when you really want it to mean something.

27. My window is shining with the glow of the amber streetlight on this street corner, and I wonder if anyone will walk by my house.

28. The first time I read this poem, I will wonder why I wrote it.

29. The last time I read this poem, I won’t know it will be the last time

30. It’s not what I said, it’s how I said it. And if you applaud at the end, I’ll know I did something right.

I stand in front of thousands of people, and I don’t know them, but I do know you...

When I was ten years old I wanted to be in the Olympics, an athletes dream in front of millions of people I don’t know. But I know you.

I stood on the podium, a stage of glory and pride for my country, medal around my neck, as the national anthem plays through my ears I begin to remember that I was gonna be a soldier.

At 14 years old I told you I wanted a badge or a medal, a uniform to wear, and something to fight for. And here I am standing on this stage about to receive recognition for my job.

And 15 year old me standing on a stage in front of thousands of people, with a guitar strapped around my body. And I’m singing a song I wrote, and only you know why I wrote it. The secrets I don’t tell the public are told to the people I really do trust in this world.

And yet here I am on a stage in front of people I don’t know.

Do you remember? I told you that you didn’t need to be remembered by the whole world by putting your name on a star in the sky. The sky doesn’t need another star, but Earth has it’s own star with your name on it, and it’s you.

And you don’t need to be remembered by thousands of people to be happy, you just needed me to remember you when I stand here.

You asked me to never forget you if I ever became famous. And I’m not famous. But you should be, you’re the star remember. You believed in me, told me I was worth something, enough to be here on this stage. So why aren’t you here? You are worth remembering, so why don’t you want to be famous? Why don’t you want to be on stage? I have a constant fear of never being remembered and you don’t want to be that person. Why do you not want to be on this stage? I want you here. I need you here.

I stand on a stage in front of people. Most of them, I do not know. I don’t remember why I’m on the stage anymore… But I know that you’re proud of me for whatever reason that might be.

I remember saying some sort of speech to these people, and suddenly you’re here. I can see you in the crowd, and you’re smiling. You seem so happy to see me here, almost as if you were on the stage beside me. And I wish you were. But I know you don’t need to be remembered by these people, but I remember you.

And when my speech comes to a close I say this: “Thank you, to the star in life who never made it to the sky, I just want you to know in this moment. That we made it!

My Dear Friend,

It’s been a long time since we’ve talked, I’ve tried writing this letter at least 10 times because I can’t decide how to write it. Friend, life has not been treating me well.

You see life is like a video game. You can make choices, say certain things do certain things, you can choose to progress, or hit pause for a while. But I’ve never saved my game. I always try to restart and redo choices to stop making mistakes, I try.

But in the end we never do win a game that we were never taught how to play. We were not given a manual to tell us what to do.
Ages and birthdays are like levels friend. A checkpoint to come back to but sometimes… I find it difficult to try playing this game again, maybe I just got bored again.

I choose to write you a letter because talking to you in person is sometimes a challenge I don’t have the strength to face. And I’m not afraid to talk to you. I’m just afraid of talking.

If I say your name too many times it might lose its meaning, repeating words over and over again until they don’t mean anything anymore. So I will say your name only when I absolutely have to. Your name means too much to me, I will not let it lose meaning.

Listen, I’ve been praying for you every night that you’re still alive. That I’ll see you soon. I haven’t slept in what seems like forever, but I don’t really see why sleeping is something I still have to do.

I’m losing consciousness and I can’t speak in full sentences as well as I used to. But this is the price you pay for playing a risky game.

I should probably send this letter tomorrow, but I’m tired. And if I don’t keep myself awake I’ll never get up in the morning. But, I haven’t said anything in this letter that makes any sense. I’m trying to figure this out on my own. But you’re not exactly close by.

When you get this letter friend, please... Come home.

I’ll be waiting by the street corner, and we’ll watch the stars like we used to.

Be safe, be kind, and be brave. I’ll see you soon ok?