Abby - Hello Poetry

Abby Dec 2013

I’d love to be thin
thin
like a whip
like a grass blade
a grass blade
that knows everything
that
doesn't sleep
sleep
at night
or in day
and
that knows everything.
But
people look
and
people talk
and
I really am quite tired
tired
and hungry
hungry
even though I know
I don’t need
need food
right
now.
now is not food
time
time
is what I have too much
and
too little
since
with less time to
eat
I know I’d eat less
less
than the minimal
I’m training myself
to
eat
slowly
but surely
I relearn how to be
be
anorexic.

Abby Dec 2013

So I Walked into the House After School Today...

It's time to give up
when you try to collapse from exhaustion onto the couch
and stub your toe on the coffee table in the process.

Abby Dec 2013

Explosions in the Dead of Night

I scare people.

I'm not inherently scary-
I don't dress all in black
or carry weapons around
or talk about blowing things up.
In fact,
all I talk about is,
well,
facts.
I don't get to have emotions
or tell people what I think;
I let other people be open
and I let them talk.

But sometimes it *****
to be the quiet one,
especially when I can be as loud
as anyone else,
and when that happens
and it's been a long day
for the last two weeks
(or three or four)
I say things I don't mean to
and people,
well,
people are scared
because they see just how well
I hide my
emotions.

Abby Dec 2013

Expectations

What do they expect of me?
To get perfect grades,
to know everything,
to be there for everyone every time
even when no one tells me what's going on.
I have to be athletic but god forbid I get thin
or muscular,
and god forbid I sleep.

I can sleep when I'm dead,
which at this rate will be soon
because who could keep this up, really,
for more than a week
and I've been going for months.

But months drag into months
and the days all blur together,
but that's fine because I think if every moment
were clear I might just slice my wrists now
and be done with it.

But I'm not done yet,
seeing as there are still things I haven't researched
and someone else's homework to do
(because they'll fail math if this paper isn't perfect),
there are siblings to torment
and cats to play with,
and wire to the side that I'm too scared to cut deep with.

So the cuts are shallow but long
and they don't fade as fast as I'd like,
but they're something
that no one expects of me.

Abby Dec 2013

Politics Talk

According to JFK:
"Sleeplessness is discontent,
and discontent is the first necessity of progress!"

                                                                                    No no no that's not it.

It was once said of Americans that:
“Although our interests as citizens vary,
each one is an artery to the heart that pumps caffeine through
the body sleepless, and each is important to the health of democracy.”

                                                                                    Get your **** together!

Daniel Griswold once said:
"The all-nighter has been a failure
by
every
measure."

                                                                                    This is a hard-line approach that we cannot take.

                                        And why not?
                                                                                    Because you can't learn to defend it in time.

                                        Oh yeah?  Watch me.

The moral:
You will lose and so will they,
but you may as well go for it
anyway.

Abby Dec 2013

Decisions

I could say
that I'd be up late studying
or
I could say
that I couldn't sleep tonight
(just tonight, random sleeplessness)
or
I could say
that I got distracted
(by Wikipedia, the CDC, Edmodo)
or
I could say
that I fell asleep with the light on
(at my desk, with my book, and my laptop)
or
I could tell the truth
(that I don't sleep, that I hate sleeping, that if I sleep more than four hours it's as bad as pulling an all-nighter)
or
I could stay up by cellphone light
(so no one can see that I'm up)

Abby Dec 2013

There is a Castle on a Cloud

A castle made of smoke and ash
that squashes the cloud and makes it rain
a black and gray that falls
when clean snow was meant to come.
The floors are ash
and the walls are ash
and the windows are blackened with smoke.

There was a lady in white
she's now an old crone in tattered gray rags
who stares through the floor
because the window's aren't worth cleaning anymore.
Her hair hangs o'er the drawbridge
and down cloud
and sometimes it shakes
and you can see the white like electricity
even through the gray.