I hate it when people look behind bright smiles;
when they look at the underpainting of my heart
and find that there’s nothing behind my laughter
but empty white that lacks dream or purpose
and was only born to remain hidden.

I remember smiling brightly
and laughing
when talking about you–
as if you were still alive.
I don’t know who I was lying to,
if to them,
to your memory
or to myself.

Mindless eyes stare at screens
that follow code written long ago
into their tiny microchips.
Technology is like a drug;
a seed planted in the brain
that injects dopamine
when lit with the right
combination of RGBs.
It is watered by loneliness,
and the nutrients it takes
are the ones that make up happiness.
Eventually,  
when there is nothing left
the brain will rot
until we are all so ill
we end up throwing our bodies away;
we are the reusable pots
of our own inventions.

Can we talk
about those teens
who saw their lives
draining out of their hands
like sand falling back into the beach,
and instead of holding it tightly
against their chests
decided to blow it away
with the wind;
like a kid blowing his candles
far too fast
and extinguishing the fire
from his only birthday cake
until there was nothing left
to live?

She has been through hell and back
and would never wish that on someone else,
so she’ll hide all that she wants;
scoot it far into her heart.
She’ll give you all the kind smiles,
she’d never harm a fly
because she knows how to empathise.

I never fit into the fairy tale
of a perfect broken soul,
I hurt others
because I don’t know how to love
I try my best
but it’s never enough.
In fact,
I don’t.
I don’t try my best.
I do the bare minimum to keep myself alive,
I haven’t got a kind heart,
all I got is luck
and a broken soul.

I feel stuck.
I am rowing but my boat doesn’t move;
I am trying but it's never enough;
it is two steps back and one to the front;
missing assignments pile above my shoulders
the load is making me bend and fall to the ground
and my face is up against it, looking at everyone else above me,
getting kicked at as they move forwards
without me.
Because I am stuck
and I can't move
or breathe
or barely exist,

How do you expect progress when it is
this hard to live?