If I could go back there,
to that day in first grade when I yanked my project (on bridges, yellow cover decorated in crayon) too fast from Allison's hands and her fingers blistered on the staples,
I would be standing there,
next to Miss A as she lined up the class,
ready with a band aid and a hug and I would say, "Be more careful next time, alright?" and Allison and I would get yelled at for skipping in the hallway to art class,
the moment of shock dissipating from my mind like so many accidents of the year.

If I could go back there,
to that night in April of eighth grade where I learned what true poetry was,
I would be there at ten twenty-four,
and I would wake the dead to keep myself from typing those fateful lines if I had to,
and I would save myself from skewing the feather-light foundation of our group of five
that later was heaped with bricks at odd angles
which came tumbling down.

If I could go back there,
to the last Monday before 9th grade began (whether it was Monday morning or Monday night I forget),
I would give myself a Mountain Dew and say, "He's fine, but go for her,"
and then as I ran down the b
to the day in fifth grade when I realized no one was laughing with me,
the day that I realized I was an outcast, and that "being different" wasn't good,
I would be waiting with my pink-haired baby sitter as I stepped off the school bus,
a Lilly Quench book in hand and a mug of hot chocolate (even though it was March) in the other,
and I would pull from my pocket the same necklace I was wearing,
a wire-wrapped amethyst on a crumby silvery chain
that was the first of many,
and there would be acceptance in the house that night.

If I could go back there,
to the moment I learned about eating disorders in health class from an over weight gym teacher who couldn't care less about the students,
I would bump the kid next to me from his seat (let him whine, he's a ****) and sit down,
a plate of chocolate cake and a spoon to eat it with making a mess of the plastic desk,
and maybe I would realize that I was already skinny enough.

If I could go back there,
to those nights when I learned the true power of words,
to the moment I skewed the foundations of a solid friendship of five,
I'd shout and scream and wake the dead to stop myself typing those fateful lines,
heaping bricks upon bricks to collapse my only bonds,
and I would give myself a mug of Theraflu to knock me out,
and whisper in my ear as I nodded off, "Stop being so **** impulsive."

If I could go back there,
to the last Monday before 9th grade started (whether it was the Monday morning or Monday night I never recall),
to the night where I should have closed my laptop for good when Joanne signed off but instead I reopened it at 12:17,
I would give myself a bottle of water and tell myself, "He's fine, but go anyway"
because it meant the world to Allison that I do so,
and as I ran out of the house in the opposite direction of our suicidal friend to meet up with her,
I would head toward's his house and tell him we were coming so he could be awake and his dad asleep when we showed up at the door at 2:23.

If I could go back there,
to March 19, 2012,
when I learned about life from Death himself,
when I learned that some things are worth living for and that isolationism doesn't work but it will have to work for me,
I would stand there at the foot of my bed,
freezing cold because I refused to turn on the heat,
I would hold my hand and be supportive because now I know that no one else will be,
that no one can be there for everyone always,
and I would stay with me for the months to come and relive the hellish months to come because no one should have to hold the world up alone,
knowing that they can't even maintain a grip on themselves.

If I could go back there,
I would save myself.

I turn off the lights and hide beneath a blanket
phone dimmed,
laptop closed until I absolutely must open it.
Still,
11:21 pm and in comes a figure
to tell me to go to bed or risk the penalties.
He's trying to help me.
Hypocrisy.

The next day in the halls
and there is a figure in a hoodie,
backpack off one shoulder,
and I want to apologize but the look in his eyes hasn't changed
and somehow I know I was right,
that something is wrong,
that the search the night before hadn't been so pointless.
Hypocrisy.

Suddenly the air in my lungs is a brick
there in the hallway,
a sliver of eye contact before I look away
hide my arms when his are on display for all to see,
and I know anything I could say
in that very moment would be
Hypocrisy.

"What kind of nightmares?"
The kind that creep in the darkest corners of my mind, the kind where everything is grey and specters  of dreams and fears and hated things come creeping from corners in circular rooms and almost attack me.
The kind where shadowy figures depict who I was and I stab them or shoot them or they burst into flame because I can't let them live.
The kind where I know that everything I care about is dead, or the kind where I realize that I care about nothing and nothing cannot die.
"Have you no good dreams?*
A good dream is one in which there is light all around, where my setting is definite and the demons  attack.
A good dream is one in which I watch as things I love (because in these dreams I can love' dreams don't have to make sense) are whisked away by witches and creatures, in which I see the villains coming for me.
A good dream is one in which I die quickly so it can be over.
I rarely have good dreams.

Is this what we've become?
Scarcely a word all week,
two full sentences mar
the perfect lines:
"morning"
"Morning"
"Pleasant night?
"Eh.  You?"
"Eh."
"Good luck."
"Same to you."
The monotony of the academic realities
rivalled only by the monotony of conversation
as days go by with only those
exchanges
deemed necessary:
"Night."
"Night."
Because really,
we don't know how to talk anymore.

Thursday is my night.
Both my sisters have dance class so I have the house to myself.
I have homework.
I have to take out the trash.

I have the most cheerful outlook I've had in weeks.

It seems a thousand pounds of sorrow
have just flown off my shoulders,
sprouting wings and going to pester someone else.

I took out the trash with a hop and a skip,
not even caring that I was still wearing shoes
(Mind you, I can't stand shoes).
As I spun in circles I "whoop"ed and "wee"ed
and the phrase,
"It's a great day to be alive"
leaped from my mouth,
spring boarding off my tongue and over my lips.

I returned to the empty house and kicked off my shoes.
I took a shower with the door open
and the lights on
(I normally keep them off).
I stood under scalding water,
burning away any residual sadness.

I returned to my room and found my spring pajamas.
Normally I shy from math,
hiding in history books
and chemistry worksheets,
but today I dove into the calculus questions,
pencil flying over differentials and derivatives.

Today was no different than any other day.
Except that today is Thursday.
My Thursday.

WHOOP!

I know everything about
tobacco.
Cancer stats,
asthma stats,
usage rates among teens
tweens
and young adults.
Give me five minutes
and you can have a list of the taxes on tobacco
arranged by state
(alphabetical or by rank?)
and a dozen studies that all say
"smoke up, Johnny, it's good for you!"

Data is my nicotine and I am hooked.

We're surrounded by
Smoke, Lies, and the Nanny State
and no one gives a ****.
Follow the rules
and hide your smoke,
your *****,
and keep away
from the kids.
Carcinogens in hot dogs
are all well and good
because there's
"nutritional value"
but you can't eat a cigarette.

Eat your lies and **** your e-cigarette like a lollipop because that's the cool thing these days.

Captain,
suit jacket still beneath your tremor-less hands,
dark jeans as classy as any suit,
blue and black tie radiating calmness,
confidence,
you are our best.

Captain,
how you speak with such careless finesse,
words painting a picture and cutting it to shreds
and repainting it in new light,
you respond and counter questions,
a mongoose attacking an ancient cobra,
striking, winning,
grinning and frowning in perfect rhythm,
ever in control.

Captain,
you cannot win an uphill battle
when your opponent walks on air,
when spectators throw to them machine guns
and step on your fallen spears,
nor can your army
(ever willing, ever ready)
fight without you and your words
drilling through enemy lines,
ever calm,
confident.

Captain,
I have suffered the sting of defeat,
as have we all,
and I have felt the shame and fear
that flows in your blood as you hear the result,
and I see the look in your eyes
as you walk, ever steady, from the room,
foot itching to kick the walls with your radiant deliberateness,
and then you come back,
the look in your eyes one of exhaustion,
for you are tired,
Captain.

Captain,
rest your mind, hold your tongue,
let sleep and lethargy be your's for a day,
for the weekend,
for we all shall,
we, your army, who are tired and worn
from the conflict,
who have come out as victors or failures
and who cry in your dreary shadow.

Captain,
ten days remain till next we fight,
papers as swords and numbers as shields
beneath fire from questions like missiles
which we must deflect,
somehow,
and we will be ready, Captain,
we, your army,
in our suit jackets and clicking heals,
will lead you as you lead us:
to victory.

Water rushing down
                         arms
                         torso
                         legs
and
                         face
tracing lines I wish erased
lines of
                       purple
                       red
and
                      tan
I wish this hell never began
light by incandescent bulbs
                      sunlight
                      lamp lights
                      moonlit glow
too late to stop and now you know
pain from
                      hunger
                      knives
an­d
                      words' impressions
soon we learn our masters' lessons
rebellion 'gainst a life of sorrow
leaves a fear of new
                     tomorrow.

Suddenly I'm out of excuses
and it makes me very afraid.

It's vacation,
time for fun and games and
running around and gingerbread
cookies and presents and candy
canes.

We spin around the room,
me feeling giant,
like a monster hanging her from my
arm, and she squeals in terror and
in glee.
We dance and the music
blares and she comes to a rest just
above me, suspended in mid air on
my feet before returning to the
ground.

When did I last get my
coffee?  How long did I
sleep for last night?  Six hours?
A record of late since I stopped
liking sleep.

"You're going to drop her on
her head," says a far away voice from
the top of the stairs, and
we ignore it, falling over
laughing before leaping back up to
try a new move.

My room reeks of nail
polish (my favorite paint) and
is full of wrapping paper.  "Done," I
send with a picture of the presents, wrapped
in their pretty bows and glittery
paper, the exciting facades for the less
than thrilling contents.

iTunes picks the next song, a
Chumbawumba that matches my mood
exactly, and I feel bad because I
spin a little too fast and her
head whips around and narrowly
misses the railing of the couch.
But she grins and says to
do a different trick so
I do and it's fun.

This book is interesting but
not enough to be
entertaining.  Do I have
a headache or a caffeine
buzz or am I just too tired to
continue?  I slept two nights in a row
how is this happening?"*

"Can we dance again?"
"Sure, go find some Christmas
music."
And then we danced, her
eight year old frame spinning and
flipping and leaping and
running around the tiny room that
is our basement.

If I had to write a suicide note,
right now,
what would it say?
I think it would go something like this:

Dear *(No, too cliche.  I don't want to put the blame on someone by mentioning them here),

I'm tired.  my eyelids are heavy and my toes are dragging below me.  I want to run, run far far away as fast as I possibly can.  But I won't.  I hate running.  So I'm going to stop now.  Stop running from everything and hiding from everyone and burying my head in books that I don't even care about anymore.  So here's what I have to say.

Don't make me a martyr.  I was not bullied, except by myself.  I'm not the victim of our school system or the government or some political agenda.  And I'm no advocate for self-righteousness, either.  I'm just a human who got too tired.   Too tired from staying up all night studying, writing speeches, researching arguments and arguing with people; living in this day and age is exhausting and I simply couldn't keep up.

To the one who knew me best I say this:  When you're flirting with Death (which I'm sure you are as I write this) you don't have to come visit me.  I'm still not convinced that I'll be there to be visited, and think of how it would crush the Tree Gremlin to know you could see me and she couldn't.  Plus I wouldn't know you.  Who knows anyone in the land of the dead?

To Tree Gremlin:  Marry your idiot.

To my family I have nothing to say; mine was a battle enacted beneath their noses, under their roof, in the tree behind their house.

To the debate team:  Get over your petty **** and write some arguments.  I spent the entire weekend writing and researching and collapsing twice from exhaustion and my team STILL lost.  Get your **** together and stop ******* around.

42, the Game, sodium hexametaphosphate, elf king, are you an insect, sea turtles, etcetera etcetera you've heard it all before, good bye and good luck.

~Abby

*This is why I'm glad I'm not writing this today;
I really have nothing of value to say.

I can barely bear to talk to anyone,
so focused am I on my work,
night after night staring down the computer screen,
day after day lost in books,
any information is a chance to get distracted,
any communication is a snap back to the present.

"Are you alright?" I asked.
"Pardon?  You're a bit behind on that one," said the blue-boxed response.
"I know.  I'm behind on everything."

I don't know how long it's been,
for no longer can I measure in hours spent asleep
nor hours spent procrastinating.
Every minute is either reading or not reading,
and I can say for certain only that I have more reading minutes to account for.

"It's fine.  You're fine."
It's never fine.
"I'm sorry. "

I don't know what time it is,
or how the rock in my hand made it across the room.
I run across to the curtained-off closet
and kneel down next to my forgotten projects,
wire and beads echoing past happiness.

"Why are you sorry?" asks the confused message.
"Because I was stupid.  I thought..."
No I didn't
"You're fine."

The room is blurry, fuzzy, shaking,
and I don't want to leave this corner of my closet.
I forgot I was wearing headphones but now
all I can think is the lyrics coming through
and they're not the cheerful kind,
they're the kind that let me cry for once,
at least till I get a grip.

"How was your day?"
It's got to have been days, weeks, months,
and I still avoid contact
"Hello?"
"Fun fact:  about 1% of the world population identifies as asexual."
If I don't respond she'll leave me alone
If I don't respond she'll know something's wrong
"Night."

The adults in the living room
don't bother to keep their voices down,
and I'm the topic of conversation
and they're both wrong.
The memory of the sensation (but not the act) of
stumbling around the yard, desperate for respite,
and of falling in front of my bed and sobbing
without knowing how I got there
is fresh in my mind.

"Maybe we advanced her too fast."
"She's never had an issue before and I don't see why her grade should be so low all of a sudden."

I know that mine is not the worst of situations.
Sleep deprivation and academic stress
are not unique problems,
and the blue message box tells stories from an imperfect existence,
but somehow I can not face my life
and I dwell in the green message box,
and in whatever else I can find to hide in.

"Are you up for a mission?"
I can't see straight, I'm so tired
"What sort of mission?"
"I'll share you the instructions.  I need some made up words."
I'm still at a charity astronomy show.
"As soon as I get home I'll hop on."
It's after 9:00 pm

I've spent nights staring at the message boxes
on my green Pantech's screen,
ready with a shoulder and a slap in the face
when I need a hand myself
because when you can't have help all you can do
to distract from your own trouble
is focus on someone else's.

"It's a cry for help."
"I get it but I can't emotionally connect to it."
"I'm sorry...  I'm getting too involved in this stupid story."
"No!  I'm just emotionally inept."
"I need help and trying to explain emotions to Abby is like talking to a brick wall."
"Sorry... I'll just go to bed now.  Night."

There's a spider on the ceiling
so I have yet another excuse not to sleep
as if I needed one.
I want to be there for everyone so no one will ever have to be there for me,
but of course,
I need something to be there for me.*

"Do you have your history book on you?"
"What chapter, what topic, and what format?"

It's being told to go to bed at three in the morning.
It's a stained mug of coffee,
refilled again as you wonder,
"When did I last eat?"
and then carried into your room,
sat next to a bag of chips and a used-up pen.
It's walking into school the week before and slipping into a haze of equations and dates.
It's a binder full of papers that you swear you just cleaned out,
notes on topics you've forgotten,
memos from the principal about events long gone
which you read because they're a distraction.
It's sprinting home because a second spent away from your books is a second wasted.
It's finally getting home and crying out,
"Who gives a ****!"
as you stare at an equation
for the flight path of a spherical chicken,
for the synthesis of some chemical from some other chemicals.
It's missed club meetings and missed socialization.
It's misery in it's purest form.
It *****.

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)

It's amusing,
really,
how a mind can train itself
to work a
certain way,
can condition itself
against emotions
so that thoughts can run
free
of bothersome sentiments
bogging down
logic.
But,
like an athlete must
occasionally envy
a child dipping french fries
in a chocolate shake,
a mind can grow
weary
of endless analysis,
of careful interactions
and long
for heedless
expression.
But hold!
for there is yet much
to understand before
all that.

We used to say
"good night"
to each other.
We used to know that,
come morning,
one of us,
at least,
would be ready to face the day,
would be ready
to hold the other up
through our
tireless texting
of the other,
a fifteen minute drive
and a world
away.

We don't say
"good night"
anymore.
We know that,
come morning,
at least one of us
will be even more
exhausted,
even more miserable
than the moment
we ceased
communication.
One of us
at least
will plod through the day,
head slanted towards
the same page in
a book
for hours,
support and help
a head turn of
forty-five degrees
and a world
away.

Take me up to Maine, up to Nanny and Grandpa's house.  Take me out to their dock at the bottom of their sloping back yard with its perfectly manicured glass, down the aluminum walkway that's too steep for Grandpa to walk down anymore at high tide.  Take me to the dark-stained, thickly varnished wooden planks that we fished off of at dawn and went boating from at lunch and here we dangled our toes in the salty ocean before dinner.  Take me there to die.
                But not yet.
Wait till the summer, when monarch butterflies alight upon the hollow railings that you always tell me not to hang off of.  Wait till the end of June, when the heat of summer is such that garden snakes sun themselves on the rocks that lazy waves sidle up to in the gentlest of breezes.
                And when we get there, wait for me to be ready.
Let me undress and show you the bones that will, by then, stick out from me at every angle.  Let me show you the lines that you thought were from the cats in the fading light of a Thursday sunset (because Thursday is my night) and let me show you that you were wrong about me.
                  Tie a heave chain 'round my waist.  I promise that I will be thin so it doesn't take much length, and you'll want to cinch it tight like the belt you say I wear wrong so it doesn't slip off.  Weigh me down with the skillets that are never clean enough.  Padlock to the metal links the books that were my escape till you took them; I won't care now if they get ruined.
                 There we will stand, eye to eye, as orange sunlight contrasts with the elegant starlight as the night is revealed to us.
I will set my glasses down far away from the water's edge lest they fall off and be lost forever in the tangles of seaweed swaying softly beneath our feet.  Then, for the last time, pick me up.  You will see, then, how I've faded to nothing against your ever-critical gaze.  For the last time throw me off the dock and for the first time I do not struggle to stay dry.
                   The night I made this jump thirty-seven times on a dare and a whim, the arctic water never ceased to sting as bare skin met briny sea.  On this one occasion, this one last occasion, I will feel instead the welcoming warmth of summer that is my last season, taking me in with a comforting finality.
Collect my clothes; in a heap too untidy for you to look at will be a grimy green t-shirt and dusty old shorts.  Take my glasses too, and go home.
I'll be fine.

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.

My shirt today is a hand-me-down
from my grandmother
on my mother's side
who likely wore it better that I.

I can so easily picture her,
in the giant house on the coast of Maine with
flowerbeds and
the ocean and
seagulls hopping over the ashtray
that she and Grandpa share.
I can see her,
standing on the fluffy sheepskin rug
before a mirror (twice as tall as she and half the breadth of the room)
and reaching down
to the antique drawers below,
wincing at an ache not yet forgotten in the morning's pills
as she retrieves the shirt at random.

It's a pretty enough shirt-
white with thin black stripes
running horizontal most of the way up.
Sleeves hang to the elbows-
and hang they would off her palsied, wrinkled frame-
and the whole thing is thin,
light,
screaming "old lady."

I bet,
as she sat down alone at her dining room table,
eating her marmalade on an English muffin,
that she didn't slave over
the fact that she was wearing sweatpants
or the fact that she was wearing the same pink slippers
that she's had for twenty years.
I bet
that when her husband came down
for his toast with butter and raspberry jam,
they didn't speak a word,
that he didn't notice her shirt
(which is much like any other of her garments).

Was that the moment?
The moment she decided
that with her next letter she would send this shirt,
with a sticky note on it,
"For Abby."
Or was it later,
as she sat with a book she'd read a dozen times
(and was too old to see the print besides),
smoking a cigarette
and watching the tide recede?
Did this shirt walk
through the grocery store parking lot
in search of
laundry soap and 2% milk
when she chanced upon the dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets
and thought of me?

I guess we'll never know.

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.

This week started on Thursday,
or,
since it started the week,
Monday.
It was as miserable as a Monday.
A C on a math test- my worst ever.
Then debate after school,
running fact after fact,
knowing more than anyone but unable to think fast enough.

Friday was Monday, too.
I ran crying out of one class,
walked sobbing from another.
"Too much pressure!"
I screamed at the trees, at the dirt,
as I ran,
fell,
stomped,
completely out of control across the backyard.
I've never had a breakdown before
but that was it.

Saturday was a Sunday,
with too much work and not enough time.
Volunteering and cleaning and a break
for twenty minutes before moving on to the next thing.

Sunday was Sunday, too,
and I never did finish that essay.

Today was Monday.
Sleep deprivation
piled on stress
piled on putting an entire planetarium show together
in three and a half days.
Five miles to the orthodontist,
five miles back,
and now my face hurts beyond the headache.

Tomorrow will be Tuesday,
and sort of Friday because there's no school Wednesday.
But it'll be Monday, too,
because I'll have nothing done
and be as useful as a dead turtle
from the exhaustion of this week of endless
Mondays.

There I am, as every day, binder out and papers everywhere, backpack opened to the candy stash that badly needs replenishing, hair a mess, mind a mess, too tired to concentrate on the work I have to do.  Enter the usual companions:  a health class, a couple ditchers hoping to finish a paper by fourth block, the girl with bruises on her arms and makeup in her hair, the two antisocial boys who sit in opposite corners with identical lunches (peanut butter and Capri Sun), the Whovian who puts away the returned books, and my lot of social misfits (there's three of us).  We take up a computer and a table each day from 10:42 until 11:18, engaged in our various tasks.  Through funny pictures and a book of proverbs and our lunch of backpack candy and the constant awareness that we are the hopeless dregs of high school society, we muse on existence, point out each others' problems (it makes our own seem less isolated), and make idiots of ourselves all below a whisper.  No one tells us to go away or stop showing up or to shut up already about our problems, likely because everyone's got their **** to deal with and I'm beginning to see that everyone respects that this is our way of dealing with it.  People who come to the library at lunch don't want to involve themselves in someone else's life; they want to isolate themselves for just a few minutes from the ******* around them and accomplish whatever they came to accomplish before facing the real world once more.

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.

Food and cutting
two things
that torture me
two things
I can't go a day
without.

Gods I'm tired.
3.5 hours spent in math class is too much.
6 hours studying US History is too much.
356 hours of backlogged sleep loss is too much.

Gods I'm exhausted.
Hundreds of messages are hundreds too many.
(considering the topic)
Dozens of nights spent crying are dozens too many.
(considering the reasons)
Scores of Google docs are scores too many.
(considering the contents)

Gods I am worn out.
Even a minute of conversation is a too much.
(regardless of topic)
Even an inquiry is one too many.
(regardless of reason)
Even a glance is too piercing a stare.
(regardless of meaning)

Gods,
f* you, I want to sleep.

Call me
                                                                                              weird
and tell me


off

but
                                                                                                                      there are some nights
when

if I crawled into
bed
                                                                                              I
                                                                                         would
                                                                                            not                      c
                                                                                          come                  i
                                                                                            out                 t
                                                                                                               e
                                                             and the floor                         n
                                                                                    is                 g
                                                                                        less      a
                                                                                               m

The first thing said to me
this morning
was a request.
The halls were empty but for us and one more,
the linoleum tiles echoing with far away feet.
Binder open,
eyes fearful,
he asked what the homework had been.

The second thing said to me
this morning
was an accusation.
People moved around us in tides of sleepiness,
the ceilings shouted for us to all shut up.
Hair askew,
eyes concerned,
she called me out on the cuts on my arms.

The third thing said to me
this morning
was a message.
Music summoned us to class,
teachers shouted for prompt attention.
Backpack sideways,
handshake feeble,
his glance told me, "have a good day."

It seems like                                          everyone wants
                 to be                           loved                       and                              I
         don't                                             get        why                                       because
          it                                             ­          seems                                                 like
         nothing                                                          ­                                          but
                tro­uble                                                             ­                       to have
                        someone                             ­                                       with
                     ­              that                                                           much
                                      affection             ­                               for
                              ­               the                                      most
                   ­                              wretched                 thing
                                                           ­   you      know
                                                ­                     of.

I have homework,
lots of homework,
math and history
and research on Cuba
to be memorized by
Friday.
Yet here I am,
on the internet,
scrawling words into
the black leather binder
that I carry around.
And I keep clicking
through the verse on
the screen
in the vain hope
that it can tell me
why.
Why do I keep Facebook
open in another tab,
watching for a pair
to be online simultaneously?
Why do I demand
news from the happy ones
but cringe at every word?
And why are
my pens choosing
now to run
out of ink,
now,
when I most desperately
need to ask the
paper:
Why can't I love?

Satisfy
my morbid desire
to know
just how you are this morning.
You wish you were dead
and I don't blame you.
Your hand-written note
and Aspirin bottle
loom large in my imagination.
I think of you
falling asleep to ask Death,
"May I go now?"
and his response
of rocking you in his arms just one more night.
In my mind's eye
your cat (the little black one) watches you
take your phone in hand,
the clock readout "9:10 pm" in its green lettering,
and calmly type your confession.
You are not dead,
but you want to be,
and I grab a wire and some neosporin
because I can just picture
what I plan to do next.

This weather,
this unnatural heat
is ******* the life from me.
Here, in the dead of winter,
tomorrow is Christmas and for the first time
in a week
you can tell by looking outside,
feeling the air.

With the cold comes
a new hope for sanity;
I can't stand the heat;
it feels like the summer is repeating
itself,
and by god I never want to go back to summer.
The cold
matches my mood,
frozen solid,
with nothing moving in it but the sparkling light off lonesome ice,
and if you stay out in it long enough
you turn numb.

No one likes an ending,
but without an ending how
can you call a beginning a beginning?
There is no birth
without the shadow of death
nor death without remembrance of the beginning.
To remember is to forget,
and vice versa,
for no detail is spared but at the expense of another,
deeds forgotten,
friendships faded,
the glint of an ending reflecting a beginning.
And sometimes we can't predict
what beginning we'll see,
thrown back at us in those last seconds,
be it shadow or reflection or a scene in our mind's eye,
so when the nights are too short
and the days ahead longer than we can know,
beginnings fade to endings
through darkness and light,
and sleep is the title
which comes before the beginning.

There's a cat on the coffee table
but my coffee's in my hand.
Why is that?
The coffee in my hand is shaking
while the cat is steady as can be.
I'm wide awake
while the table's peacefully asleep.
Maybe that's why.

There's a dog on the floor
but my feet are on the couch.
Why is that?
The floor never moves
though the couch gets shoved about.
The floor is firm, determined
while the couch is soft and pliant.
Maybe that's why.

My sister's in the kitchen
but I am in the living room.
Why is that?
My sister has purple hair
though mine remains a drab blondish.
My sister's still in middle school (eighth grade)
while high school has taught me harsh realities.
Maybe that's why
the dog follows her
and my cat's asleep on the coffee table.

Look at the thermometer:
It says 32.
Turn off the heater.
Open a window:
feel the cool influx of air.
Sit back down.
Look at your phone:
Still no response.
You asked why.
Open a new message:
You want to type in some more words.
It's been one hour, forty minutes.
Look at the window:
It's better out there.
Exit the new message.


You had nothing they wanted to hear to say anyway.

Please stop apologizing
every time you say something
and the reaction is not immediately what you expected.
Sorry is a stupid word
and doesn't fix anything.
All it does is show us that you meant to say that
and meant for us to know what you meant.

We're all depressed,
a bit insane (especially you),
close to death (especially me),
and trying to not be (Ok, maybe only she is).
Jump away to your fantasy world
or stay here and let me think
or do what I do and put on an act for the good of the order.

But rust and Ruin stop saying sorry
when I like the track you're on
but it's too harsh for you to put to message
though you did so anyway.
Things are not alright;
they never are and no one expects them to be
so we may as well ask
what's the ****** point?

Why am I here?
Two am and I'm wide awake,
only the light from the computer screen
like the last three nights,
except tonight
it's youtube making noise
rather than friends,
it's sandpaper and pocket knives hurting
rather than sentiment and memories,
it's terror causing tremors in my hands
rather than sleepiness.

Why am I here?
42 days without a scratch
(from myself; only bruises)
and now I need to wear long socks again,
let people think I'm incapable
of bathing the cat with any degree of control,
hope no one's had their coffee
when they see me first thing in the morning.

Why am I here?
Just the thought of sentiment
sends me reeling
and there it is in black ink,
untidy scrawl,
only instead of a last-hope plea
it's a Valentine's card,
instead of "mashiara" (my lost love)
I'm a propper significant other,
instead of an old painted luck charm
it's a Hallmark card that still smells of printing press.

Why am I here?
Two weeks now
and I want to be done
with the constant attention that closes in,
threatens to expose my torments
to people I'd rather protect
only this time
I'll cease to respond
rather than fight over it,
I'll isolate myself from the world
rather than  pretend that I want to,
I'll die
rather than watch the world unravel before me.

Why am I here?

The sun shines upon flesh,
bathes it in heat and cheerfulness,
lavishes upon it gifts of light and promise.
The sun shines upon a walking corpse,
skin but a display,
behaving as if alive for lack of alternative.

The wind moves among hair,
covers it in cooling whimsy,
carries it towards peace and frivolity.
The wind moves among exhalations,
each breath but a show,
in an out to pass the time.

The blade sits upon a shelf,
speculates on past and present,
mindless as a thing long dead.
The blade passes through the yielding skin,
each slice like a breath,
anything to feel alive.

So here I am.
I swore tonight I was going to die;
the movies are over,
there's nothing left to show,
nothing left to teach.
I have no purpose.
Numbness cascades over me,
the cat scratches
stovetop burns
and splinters
are nothing more than peripheral sensations.
So why am I still
hesitant?

There's no reason why
I'm too tired to get up
too excited to go to sleep
too numb to know when I'm cold and
too frightened to make a sound.
No longer does sensation hold weight
nor thought hold value,
only empty promises I wish to fill
to keep me moving forward.
The ice in the yard is soiled
by dog tracks and
by marks from my feet
sprinting laps at three am to make me
just sleepy enough to collapse
(and though I want to lie down in the ice and stay there I do not).
Of course I'd like to say something,
to have someone know in case
by morning I am gone,
but as soon as I find the words the subject's passed,
shoved in a corner where
no one likes to look.
The look of the words spelled out
on the screen make me want to take them back,
and I rush to do so before realizing
*it's only in my head.

Life stared at her
from a place few
dare to venture,
a palace of
purest white,
spires reaching
to a cloudless sky’
grinning in her way,
daring existence to
exceed her domain.
But she,
she danced with
Death about the
headstones in the
sun,
carved names and
dates long forgotten,
and she remembered
them little as anyone,
but focused on her
step, graceful
as in a dream.
Clouds loomed high
above and far off,
echoes of a war
so far off,
yet so near,
and it was a
war born of Life
and Death.
And so Life crouched,
insane in her power
over all and over nothing,
but she
she danced with
Death about the
gravestones
at twilight.