LATELY I'VE FOUND THAT TYPING IN ALL CAPS MAKES ME FEEL AS THOUGH I'M RELEASING SOME OF THE HORRIBLY REPRESSED EMOTIONS OF MY CHILDHOOD
LATELY I FEEL LIKE NO MATTER HOW HARD I TRY I WILL NOT SUCCEED
LATELY
LATELY I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT HOW THE FUTURE IS UNCERTAIN YET I'M CERTAIN THAT IT DOESN'T REALLY HOLD MUCH FOR ME
LATELY
I've been withering.
It's getting
harder and harder to just keep smiling,
it's getting harder and harder to force myself to start trying,
it's getting
difficult
to get out of bed every morning.
Lately, things haven't been looking so great, it seems. The clouds in my head are creating
thunder around my vision
and lightning in my veins, begging
to strike.
Lately, I can't find motivation for anything.
Lately, I've spent more time quiet and alone than anything and that scares me.
Lately, I've been looking into dark things only to find certain things that should be terrifying are only exhilarating.
Lately I've been dreaming of nothing
because I've never been a dreamer
and I've never had any drive
and I've never had desire
and lately
I've been thinking about how I'm not actually passionate about anything.
Nothing is exciting.
Everything has been hazy lately.
I've been sleeping ten plus hours,
and lately that hasn't been enough for me.
Lately I've been...
struggling
to finish anything.
Lately
everything is exhausting.

YOU NEVER INITIATE CONVERSATION UNLESS YOU NEED ME FOR SOMETHING AND OUR FRIENDSHIP IS BUILT ON YOUR MENTAL HEALTH ALONE. ONCE YOU RECOVER I WILL BE NOTHING TO YOU UNTIL YOU RELAPSE
BECAUSE ALL I AM TO YOU IS SOMEONE WHO CAN TELL YOU HOW TO BREATHE. MAYBE
IT'S GOOD THAT YOU LIKE TO TELL ME ABOUT HOW I'VE BEEN KEEPING YOU ALIVE
BUT I'VE JUST BEEN PUTTING
YOUR OXYGEN MASK ON YOU BEFORE PUTTING ON  MY OWN YET YOU NEVER ASKED ME IF I COULD HOLD MY BREATH THAT LONG.
YOU NEVER ASKED IF I CAN BREATHE LIKE I TELL YOU TO. YOU NEVER ASK HOW I'M DOING UNLESS IT'S LEADING UP TO ME SAVING YOU.
I'M SO SICK OF IT BUT I CAN'T JUST DROP YOU OR ELSE YOU MIGHT DIE AND I'M SO ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED OF BEING
CITED AS THE CAUSE OF ANOTHER DOWNWARD SPIRAL THAT I'LL JUST KEEP SUFFOCATING MYSELF FOR YOU.
IT'S FINE.

I'm an extrovert.
We aren't really romanticized in pop culture. Chances are,
your protagonist is a cute introverted girl who has
everyone secretly swooning over her,
but her best friend sidekick is outgoing and talkative.
We autorelate "extrovert" to red solo cups and heavy synthesized bass lines and...
well,
frat boys.
The unpleasant, obnoxious kind. (The ninety-nine percent.)
I guess it's understandable sometimes to see where you're coming from with this assumption, but
let's learn to revise.
Introverts recharge by being alone, but if I'm in a group and suddenly find myself faced with an empty home,
it's like all the oxygen has been ****** from my lungs and shattered my soul.
Being alone means thinking too much and we all know what thinking too much does (--so maybe extroverts need loud music and red solo cups--)
I don't get how someone finds it refreshing, silence and being stuck in your own head, but that's probably because I'm not an introvert and you're not an extrovert and I'd rather have a body than a body pillow next to me in my unmade bed. I like people.
When kids are wearing t-shirts proclaiming the opposite, I get it.
It's pop culture,
it's in to be out but being by myself is when I'm most out of it.
It's hard for me to consistently text you back but believe me when I feel like my brain is about to collapse I'd like to lessen the collateral damage.
After that, I'll start up ten different conversations with three different friends but all of them are introverts whose sleep schedules are inverted from mine, triple check the time, see it with your own eyes, life keeps tick
tick
ticking by and I feel stuck on the sidelines.
I forget to feed myself sometimes (most nights.)
I'm a people person dragged into my own mind that
I forget how to take care of myself.
I'm a people person who can't make friends last to save my life,
forget it if they're already acquainted.
All my friends think they're hated by all my other friends--
You two don't know each other, totally polar social circles, but I know each of you like pieces of my soul,
and I make Horcruxes not from ****** but from memories of late nights and falling asleep on the phone,
out of control
we need something to hold,
so we falsify lasting lovers to have some control over,
like empty stomachs that can't leave us until we say so,
like long showers that can't end until we decide it's us, not them, we should take a break from each other for a while,
like bed sheets that act as open arms holding us until we toss and turn into sleep and asking us to stay a little bit longer in the mornings.
I'm an extrovert.
I can't really explain exactly what that means to me specifically or simply,
it's just that being alone makes me feel lonely,
and nothing on the Internet will ever help me with that.

she
makes me
feel like a
summer storm when I
most believe im a hurricane
she is my special
little fix of
perfectly blonde
nicotine.

please
don't touch me, okay?
please
stand back at least 3 feet
in a perfect circle,
missile range.
please
keep your distance, okay?
please
don't attach yourself to
my brittle bones
and aching soul.
please
don't leave me, okay?
just
don't touch me
stand back at least 3 feet
keep your distance
(missile range)
and attempt to avoid attaching
to my brittle bones
and weary soul.

honestly, baby, who are you?
you can walk all tall all you want to
but honestly, who are you?
nobody cares what comes out of your mouth
and nobody even listens.
nobody knows your name or the stars in your eyes or how they
glitter and shine like the constellations at night
honestly, baby, who are you?

because let's get real here:
no one really has stars in their eyes because no one has ever gotten close enough to anyone's face to determine the constellations
we romanticize eyes like skies and fields and oceans
we claim that the first thing we notice about a person
is their eyes and the stars that reside in them
but let's get real: that's not how it works.
we notice smiles and laughter first
we notice the bands on someone's t-shirt
we notice the way their hair cascades
the way they stand or loud things that they say
we notice their mannerisms and their pose
their scraped-up knees and the brand of clothes that they drape themselves in
eyes are beautiful
no one has ever fully had the same, that I've seen
but no one ever notices them first, because eyes are like secrets
eyes are like windows
you can admire a house from afar
but you have to get close to peek inside
that's the part that we romanticize
it's the ability to approach and appreciate
but if you're just driving by, you aren't going to note a house's windows but rather its architecture and unique colors
whether it's wood panels or brick or stones
you notice the cars in the driveway before you think about the people inside
that's how it is when we think of eyes
because people are like houses
full of secrets and
when you're from the same neighborhood, the floorplans are all similar
but the insides and the paints and the pictures and the residents
are never the same.

one time I read something that said to fall in love with a person's eyes,
because they never change or get old
but I don't think the author of that quote ever thought of cataracts or clouding or colored contacts or blood vessels popping
everyone changes
we're like phases of the moon or the path of the planets around the sun
every single year we shift and grow close or apart
eyes are like stars, some nights they shine but they also fade away for bursts of time
what zodiac were you born under?
does it determine the secrets hidden in your pupils?
the stars that change their place in the night
are just as distant as a stranger's eyes
I hope that's not what people notice about me first

because I might not know who I am
but I know that I'd rather be recognized
as the girl with the band you like on her shirt
or the smile that is somehow contagious
or the laugh that fills a room
I don't want people to notice first
that I'm just another one of the millions of girls with green eyes.
if you're searching for stars, look somewhere else
because the universe makes me feel small
and if I'm gonna go to space then I'm more interested in the black holes
if you're curious, I'm an aquarius
it's a fixed sign but I've never really felt fixed in this world or in time
I'm a traveler of spectrums
I don't really know what that means
but I do know that it's not found within my eyes but rather the fluidity and gracelessness of my motions
it's in my fumbling tongue and off-white teeth
it's in my clothes and the skin underneath
it's in my favorite foods and the things that I drink

I'll walk as tall as I want to
I'll speak so loud that you have no choice but to focus on the things coming out of my mouth
I will continue to search for stars within my own eyes
because if I can't map them myself then I know that no stranger meeting me for the first time ever could.

my eyes are not stars
because I am a supernova
my eyes are not stars
because I am an explosion
my eyes are not stars
because I am made of a collection of chemicals in a state of reaction
and I can barely handle this one combustion
how am I supposed to be a congregation of them?

your eyes are not stars.
remember that.

you can try to steal the show
but baby, remember your place
you're a sidekick, not a hero
maybe there's some grace in martyrdom
but that's not where you wanna go
step down, sit down
you're a sidekick, not a hero