If I die in a school shooting
I'll never go home again.
My room will sit unused,
A capsule frozen in time,
A snapshot of how I was.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never see my dog again.
She will sit at the front door
Waiting for me and wondering,
Why I never came home.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never graduate from high school.
My yearbooks will sit stacked
Stopped short of their goal,
Missing years that should have been.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never see my mom again.
She will sit distraught,
Planning a funeral
For a child taken from her.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never see my friends again.
They'll sit together, missing me.
One empty seat among them,
A constant reminder of their loss.

If I die in a school shooting
I'll never see my little sister again.
She will sit through high school
Knowing I can't guide her through,
That she has to figure it out alone.

If I die in a school shooting
My school will be stained.
Pools of students lives will sit,
Blood tattoos on the brick structures,
Marks of death ground into it.

If I die in a school shooting
Everyone will wear black.
They'll send their thoughts and prayers
To a town marred by death,
Forever to be the home of a shooting.

If I die in a school shooting
Will the world change?
Or will I become one of hundreds  
Of kids who have to die?
What will it take?

If things continue this way
Children will have to live in fear.
They'll look over their shoulders
Always worried and wondering,
If they'll die in a school shooting.

i’d rather write about the freckles on your back than think about all of the ways in which you quite possibly don’t love me.

i feel sick at the very thought of you picking me apart the way you did; fingers grabbing and stroking in a catastrophic symphony of skin and vulnerability.

let’s read between each other’s lines; share my sentences and punctuate my paragraphs with your mouth; because i can breathe easier on the mornings where i wake up wrapped around you.

because my moods change like the ******* seasons and the spinning in my head doesn’t want to stop.
                                         you tell me that i should probably get a therapist because no one that thinks about all the ways in which they could **** themselves has an ounce of mental stability.
                                          i tell you that i have been to four.
                                          names faded into a blur with hazy snippets of conversation remaining.
20mg.
                    30mg.
you tell me that trust issues and scars aren’t endearing and i tell you that neither is counting up the potential number of pills needed to dissolve your body into the living room carpet.

let me sink inside your skin and make a home in your flesh;
i tell you about the nights where i lay awake in the bath turning the water red.
                       tragic, isn’t it.

you tell me that this isn’t how my head should work and i tell you that i already know. everything you could possibly tell me i already know.
i know that 400 calories a day isn’t normal, and my hands shouldn’t shake all the time.
                                             i know.
please let me stitch myself into you, even just for a while; until i no longer feel dizzy and my world stops spinning.
i don’t need you to tell me that it will be okay, because honestly i don’t think it will be and, that in itself, is okay.
                                                                ­                 let me stitch myself into you, because my own skin can’t take it anymore.

let me call you back when my voice stops wobbling and my vision straightens out, but honestly, i’m terrified that it never will. what if this is it. headaches and tears and shaking and blood.
                                             and the debilitating, gut-wrenching feeling of pure and euphoric emptiness.

                                              tragic, isn’t it.

i am in a haze today. it is cloudy and beautiful outside. it is also pressing down on my chest and i struggle for air. i wore your shirt to bed last night and it helped steady my oxygen supply. i wish you were here to say my name and speak to me in my native tongue to remind who i am and where i've come from. i'm forgetting everything, slowly. recreating yourself is only good when you haven't done it five thousand times over. i just want to be me now. but how do i become me if there is no you? pick me up from the library and walk me to class. hold my hand and tell me that you will stay with me no matter how grey the sky is or how cold my fingers feel.