my father always keeps a hammock in the back of his car,
as if one day we will camp out under a million stars.
that's the kind of spontaneity i long for.
the closest i have gotten was confronting you this week,
and my only result was burned bridges.
i have never camped out under the stars, never gotten drunk, never kissed a stranger.
but i told you i was mad at you and i told you i did not care if you were mad at me too,
and now it is one am and i cannot breath and i feel like i am going to throw up because i cannot stop thinking about last year at this time.
i can't think of one thing that was the same.  i'm not even sure i'm still the same person.

some things sound so weird in past tense.

i don't think i've ever hit a lower bottom, and i don't think i've ever seemed happier on the outside.
i talked about dying twelve times today and i was only joking once.
i have gotten better at small talk and at burying myself in the screen of my phone but i have not gotten better at dealing with everything i keep inside.
i could fly across the world tonight and i don't think i would miss a single person,
but i am not leaving. they are.  and somehow it seems a lot less intriguing when i am the one stuck alone in this dumb little town.
i feel weird about it too.  guilty, even.
i have friends but i do not want to be their friend.  i want to be friends with flowers and paintbrushes, not with people who sing songs for little kids and yell about tv shows.
that is not me anymore.  to yell i would have to have passion, to care about something.
i don't.
i know that i am not a robot, because i honestly used to care.  but when people stopped caring about me i stopped caring about them, and now it wouldn't even matter if i was made of metal because nobody would notice.
my best friends all have new best friends.  on days when sitting at their lunch table doesn't give me a headache they ignore me anyway.
i am sailing by on a boat made of false smiles and fake texts, but i am sinking.
or maybe i have sunk, and everyone is looking at me through goggles and the water is distorting my laugh.  maybe that's why it sounds funny to me now.
maybe i sound funny to everyone else too.

here's a shout out to the kids who can feel stress twisting their intestines.
to the ones who used to be smart and are now approaching the average line,
and who don't know how to deal with this.
to anyone who's cried in a school bathroom once,
twice,
three times a day,
and has never told anyone.
if you've ever stared at someone for so long they blurred around the edges but still looked perfect to you,
and they never looked back,
if you've ever stayed up until four am so you could go through the next day too tired to feel.
to the kids who hear sirens down the street and dream of the day they'll be coming for them,
but will be too late.
to anyone who has ever sat through a class full of people who want nothing to do with them,
anyone who has held their head up when they felt like falling to the floor,
anyone who has dreamed of epic adventure from the bedroom they are afraid to leave.
if you've lied to a therapist and your parents and everyone who has tried to make you feel better,
if you complain all the time but still keep things bottled up.
here's a shout out to us,
to the introverts and the depressed and the lonely,
to anyone who has survived one day and another and another,
and to everyone who keeps going,
no matter how badly we want to quit.

please don't tell me i can do it because i can't even meet my own expectations,
much less yours.
i want to scream from rooftops and i want to punch holes in walls,
my head is exploding and itching and burning,
but all i do is cry.
i am so useless.
stop
crying
please.
i am not my favorite song, i don't know about love and loss,
but yet the lyrics make me cry and i want to sing them forever,
paint them on my walls,
brand them onto my skin.
i feel so little and so empty and so sad all at the same time,
i don't care about anybody and i am so lonely that i don't even
care about myself.
i want to be with him and i want to go out on the weekend,
but all i do is cry.
rain makes the flowers grow but these tears just make my chest ache,
and my face red,
and my vision blurred.
stop
crying
please.
poetry used to come easy but now
the only words that come are the same every time.
i want to be successful and do well but i don't care
enough to make it happen because i don't deserve it.
what's the point of doing anything when it's going to end soon?
not soon enough,
but soon.
stop
crying
please.

everyone told me that people would change
we'd grow up and grow apart and grow away
but i didn't believe them because i know my friends
(i knew my friends)
we were so close and we were so inseparable
on the days when things ****** they were always there
and i grew up and now everything *****
and they grew up and now nobody's there

if i expected change i definitely did not expect this

i was warned that growing up does things to people
now i'm starring in a horror film watching my life dissolve
in the hallowed halls where everyone else is thriving

being invisible is an amazing superpower
except when it's an accident

I drop my pencil under a guy's chair and my friend convinces me to ask him for it back because "he's nice I promise" so I work up the courage to call his name as loud as I dare and I just start talking so I can tell him what happened before I lose my nerve, but halfway through I notice he's not listening at all and instead of asking for my pencil I ask him to ignore me. He does.
I met a boy and he was intriguing and clever and sarcastic and not unattractive and I thought he had potential but I waved in the hall and he didn't wave back and he didn't want to sit next to me in class.
I invite a boy I've known since 3rd grade to sit next to me in class, and he does, but then his friend shows up and there's a wistful look in his eyes. He doesn't talk to me, and he switches his seat the next day.
I sit at a crowded lunch table full of people I don't like because the people I do are outcasts. I don't have time to eat all my food.
I switch lunch tables to sit with my crush, by invitation of a friend. They ignore me to talk to each other. I try to join. I ask what's so funny. They shake their heads. He's sitting almost on top of me because the tables are so small but he never even turns to look at me.
Last year he sat with us and talked mostly to me and her table was having drama and fighting and now they all wear skirts to school and look pretty and my eyes are puffy and my legs have a light layer of fuzz which is easy to see because I'm still so pale.
I was the only person to sit alone on the first day of biology class and when I walked in the second day a girl who's never been particularly nice to me and wasn't in the class yesterday is there. She's excited to see me. She asks me to sit next to her. She looks at my paper while I write. I don't say anything because I don't want to sit alone anymore.
I'm stressed out by the second day. Unprepared.
718 more days.