I didn't stop hurting until
I put you into poetry

Dear Academia;
I took the adderall
because I thought
you wanted me
to be a machine.  I didn't
understand that
amphetamine tasted
like candy once you
got used to the way
your jaw locked and your
ears rang.  Dear
academia, did you
see my face when you
read my GPA, did
you see the way I stayed
up too late after my
after school activities
trained me to live with
anxieties?  Dear academia,
why am I afraid of the mirror?
Why did you teach me how
to write a perfect paper but
never prepared me for
the look in his eye when he told
me he didn't love me either.  Dear
academia, i'm ******* and you're
swallowing me, does the sting
of your impulses feel better
when you know you're eating
my hard earned money?  
Dear academia, why
do you give me empty promises?  Why
should I spill my blood with
this diploma, list
my ethnicity and birthdate
next to the insignificance
of what you think makes me
worthy, do
these details feed your
impending due dates or
are you just getting off
to the idea that
only the educated few
know how to
think straight?  Dear
academia,
I tried my hardest
to let you fool me, I
can feel your ego fattening
beside me as I watch your
children scramble for their
ideas of monetary
gluttony.  You're increasing
our wage gaps, do my late night
tears fuel your addiction to epistemic
poverty?  Dear academia, you
taught me to think critically.   I am on fire
with the matches you forgot
you hatched within
me.  Scorpions occasionally
eat their parents and I hate
to admit that this ****
has me hungry.

meet me in the parking lot
neither of us are dead
even though we pretend to be
pretending is what we do best
apart from blurry 2AM mischief
-lxs

who are you
but a few molecules
of the universe
stitched together

what is your voice
bur a single vibration
lost within the echoes
of a thousand more

you tell me that i matter,
that i am different,
that i am special,

but what am i
but a single
strand
of endless DNA
that could still function
after the death
of my chromosomes

It was about the time,
Hours after the day had died,
And bikers flashed their lights
Like the starry glazed eyes of
Decayed faces found in late cars,

That the local school's nature god
Had granted me a fall blessing
I saw in horns, on a hill he was
Standing, staring, like my lover
Not far over - under dying leaves.

I write love letters
to the oxygen in your lungs
and give thanks
to the trees who allow you to breathe

what a blessing it is
to exist alongside you.

-hw