for me

when the story starts and ends with
we'll be okay
how do we know when it truly ends?

while we watch under the slide,
waiting for the world to pass us by,
as the monsters under our beds yell
and hit

when we need our friends more than ever,
but we pull away
because we can't be a burden
why must the story keep going?

when we are the seeds in the ground,
the trampled underfoot,
when we shatter and are glued back
over and over and over
why do we always have to be fixed
when we were never broken?

when we dangle by a threadbare knot over a bottomless pit,
how do we keep from falling?

how do we know they'll catch us?

how do we know that when we feed the dirt,
our story ends?
how do we know where our story takes us,
when neither of us are even protagonists
in our own stories?
how do we know we won't fade into the endless crowd
of blurred faces and silent whispers
waiting on the banks of the river styx?

why do stories have endings?


why can't we live a life worth living?

How do I write a poem about the fact that in my childhood bedroom I had about 10 glow-in-the-dark stars blue-tacked to my ceiling, and that I could touch them if I stood on my bed on my tippy toes, and now, in my 3rd year of university, in the the house I rent with my friends, I have ridiculously high ceilings and a projector that shows me a galaxy?

How do I describe the feeling of staring into the bathroom mirror at my 20 year old reflection and seeing the ghost of my younger self looking back at me from behind my bloodshot eyes? We both stand there at two thirty in the morning with tears running down our cheeks, our hands angrily ****** in our hair and our stomachs ****** in to the point of pain. I can't tell her that it'll stop, because it hasn't.

The dreams she had slip further and further away from me. I can't reach the stars anymore.

please mom
it's getting worse

do you know the weight of it?
clawing your way up
test after test,
year after year,
to be the perfect reflection of the dreams they have for you,
those that are now your own.
where your worth now hangs.

when they see the prize,
they say, 'oh it comes so easily to her'

Easily?

i bled for this.
i screamt for this.
and my mind?
it whispers
'this is just what you're supposed to do'
you are 'gifted'
its your mere responsibility.
nothing to celebrate. nothing special.

isnt it?