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.

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?

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.

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.

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!

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'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.

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.

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

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