i have no internet
and i'm at the house
of the child i babysit
except he's not a child
he's sixteen
and i have no idea why i babysit him
except that i get paid well
and he's in a wheelchair
so i basically do nothing
the whole entire time.

this one time
when i was a kid
probably five or four
and i still lived in california
my mom took my brother and i
to meet some kittens

that was when i learned i was allergic
and that i couldn't touch my eyes
or rub my face into kittens fur
unless i wanted to end up
sniveling with red swelled eyes
and scratching endlessly at my skin
where their sharp claws innocently landed

my neighbor
when i first moved to kansas
had a cat i think
i'm not sure my memory is fuzzy
i think i was eight
but it was such a loveable cat
until it clawed up my back
and mom had to clean with
something that burned
to lessen the swelling

but i love cats
i really do
if i had to pick a dog or a kitten
i would certainly pick both
because i honestly couldn't pick

now at nineteen
i have my own loveable cat
all white and gorgeous
so soft like a blanket
and cuddly like a puppy
his eyes different, a gold and a blue
he's the best thing

sometimes it sneaks up on me
like a dark shadow
a mist that shrouds me
trying to protect
but doing the opposite.

ever since it
crept into my life
i have had the hardest time
getting rid of it.

the sobbing does nothing
to help and the one thing
that does i cannot do
in fear of upsetting him.

when i am alone
with my thoughts
they finger my insides
pulling plugs
and implanting
awful ideas.

all alone
i am scared of myself
of what i might do
because i can sneak through
the apartment
bottle of aspirin in hand.

the only thing
that keeps me holding on
is the idea of a better tomorrow

i used to write such
pretty words

where have they
all gone?

i cannot write anything
it's all in my head
and i can see it but
it won't come out

no matter how hard i push
my mind is constipated
and laxatives aren't helping
i'm not sure what to do

i can write ******* and
tell myself that's good enough
but it's not and it's so
******* frustrating

and depressing how
unhappy i am with my creative self
i am not creating enough
and i feel stagnant and stuck
no matter how much **** i use
my mind is still a dry desert
and it's painful to keep trying

i prefer to brush my teeth
to the point where my gums bleed
and pull the floss down hard
between my pearly whites,
grinding the thread back and forth.

i get chills down my back
when i get a papercut
and i can see the blood
slowly come out in little round *****,
or when i rip a hangnail down my thumb
and i can see the fresh layer of skin.

my body goes numb
and my mind draws a blank
when he bites at my neck,
even better when it leaves a bruise.

the feeling i get
when his hand suddenly meets
the bare skin of my lower body
is pure ecstacy, i could only imagine
what it would be like
if my brain was on a high.

the sting and the should-be negative,
or unwanted, emotions
are what i strive for in life.
i like the feel
of the pain
but not when i'm alone.

in high school
despite the last bit of it
being spent as overweight
and with major lack of confidence
i found myself indifferent
to everything.

maybe it was because of the depression
and the abuse
or it was everything combined
but i wasn't excited or upset
about graduating.

i didn't have anything
to look forward to,
the life i imagined for myself
after high school
was a coffin
and i couldn't see anything past that.

sometimes i found myself thinking that
if i failed my senior year
i could stay another year
and maybe that would mean
another year for me to live
before i met the end.

mostly,
in those last few months
i found myself growing fonder
of the people that spent their time
teaching me the things they knew
and i had begun
to entertain the idea of becoming a teacher
since i thought
that i would get nowhere
with art or writing.

after i graduated
and realized i wanted to live after all
i spent little to no time
looking into becoming a high school teacher
it all seems too much of everything
too much money, too much time
not having enough time
that's the thing holding me back
my excuses that keep me stuck
and flailing around
wallowing in self-pity
in the pig sty of my room.

maybe if i took a leap
took a chance,
grew a metaphorical pair of *****
(or just got a shot of testosterone)
i would man up
and do the **** that it takes
to get where i want to be.