loneliness lays in the back of
his car in a stranded parking lot
with a *** stained blanket in the backseat.
he hasn’t noticed that i can’t look him in the eye.
hes too busy enjoying himself.


depression sits on cushion chair in
mr burnside's office,
watching him fiddle with his tie
with a worried look on his face,
as if he would say the wrong thing
and i would fall apart right before his eyes.
“you been wearing that sweatshirt all day?”
yes.
“lift up your sleeves”
no.


anxiety takes a daily trip to the nurses office.
i’m okay, i just don’t feel well.
“here’s a mint, try to go back to class”.
oh great, a ******* mint. i feel better already


hopelessness is curled up in a ball on
the bathroom floor
with the door locked. i can’t hear
my mom yell at me anymore
about how i have no direction,
how i need to try harder,
be better,
go to the gym.


abandonment walks outside at
2 in the morning with no shoes on,
-9 degree wind chill nipping at her toes.
i am crying too hard.
please don’t leave me
is all that echoes in my brain.

teen angst rolls her eyes at ms allen
“im worried about you”
one minute,
the next minute embarrassing me in front of the whole class.
I don’t know how to ******* graph an exponential function
because i spent my night at bethesda north
answering the nurses questions.
“how many pills did you take?”
“are you okay to go home tonight?”
“how long have you been dealing with depression?”


this high school is supposed to look
like a castle.
that makes me laugh.
not once since i’ve been here have i felt like a queen.

I am alright
is what I say even when I have flashbacks everyday of the intimidating looking paramedic carrying me into the ambulance car as if I’m shattered porcelain.

We’re alright
is what my mom says even when she leaves the house she constantly calls and when we aren’t in the same room she repeats “Kelly? Just making sure you’re alright”.

I am alright
is what I say even when I have to look away when the clock strikes 9:27 am because that’s when everything suddenly went black and then spotted white.

We’re alright
is what my mom says, a single parent paying MRI scans, emergency room bills, antiseizure medication, the neurologist, the neurosurgeon, the epileptic neurosurgeon, without a cent from my father, and her worry lines are piercingly more clear to me.

Does anyone really wanna hear the truth?
I rub my fingers across my head imagining ripping out the millions of neurons lighting paths across my brain. Maybe then I wouldn’t have to worry anymore.

I’ve kept my mouth shut because it’s polite but I want to tell everyone who’s pretending to be my friend because they feel sorry for me to ******* because my health is none of their business.

It all catches up to me when I sit in the hallway at Cincinnati Children’s and I watch kids with tubes down their noses and needles in their arms and think to myself:
I can’t be one of them, can I?
This can’t be real, can it?
But I guess I’m alright.

The meds make me feel foggy, like I’m somewhere between awake and asleep.
Where my mind feels like it fell through a trapdoor and into a vacuum.

If it was up to me I wouldn’t leave the house. The only places I feel safe are in the nurses office or in between the 4 walls of a hospital with my mom holding my hand.
That’s what seizures do. Turn an 18 year old girl into a 5 year old, wanting to run in a closet and slam the door so nobody has to see it happen again.

No going down stairs alone, no locking the door when showering, no getting drunk at parties, no driving, no living your life.

So you wonder if I’m alright? If alright means seeing my mom cry for the first time in years, if alright means sleeping 3 hours a night, if alright means having to rely on others because I can’t do anything by myself..
Maybe I’m tired of lying.
Maybe I’m not alright.