I sense my heart is getting heavier and heavier as the sun rises higher then dips down to the horizon. I really don't know what to do. My mind is stuck. I wish I could be selfish about where I go and what I do. I wish I could let go of this burden that is sitting inside my ribcage. I wish it could speak aloud, and someone would get ahold of me, and all I'll do is cry and cry and scream until my voice becomes throaty and hoarse, inevitably losing to nonexistence. I wish I could just escape from education without actually leaving it. I wish I could postpone life. I wish life would just stop for a moment so I wouldn't worry so much and I wouldn't claim to have anxiety. I wish I could just do all this next year. I really need time to be my friend. And I wish my voice was here. Because it was never here. It was always too stuck up to speak. I wish I could talk to my mom as honest as I would talk to my best friend. I wish I could just tell her what I really want. I wish I wouldn't worry so much about what people thinks. I wish I could be careless and careful simultaneously. I wish when I lift the corners of my lips, it lifts the heavy weight of my heart, too. I wish people would just stop. I wish I wouldn't stress so much even though I haven't really started anything yet. I wish I know what I really want. I am wishing a lot of things. I wish I didn't wish for a lot of things. I just wish I was satisfied with life for once.

I constantly feel this feeling of impatience, of eagerness, of anxiety whenever I think about the next episode of my life. It baffles me so much that I am hardly satisfied by my present, that I am difficult to be impressed by what once was my future. Even though I am finally here, I can never truly be. I still look forward for a future, even when I am already in one. I question why I may never quench my everlasting thirst, and I answer, it may be because I look forward to when everything–when the trees die of dehydration, when the moon stops flaunting its ooze, when the sun decides to sleep forever, when history repeats itself–ends.

I am so tired of this white earth
so weary of the cold that keeps
tiptoeing under my skin
I want to feel the sun in my eyes
the grass beneath my feet
knowing that the planet is awake
I want the breeze to stroke
my cheeks
to tangle and untangle my hair
to give a wisp of life than to
numb my friends to their demise

(I wish this poem sounded
as beautiful as the one
that was in my mind)

I want to see the analogous
of nature
the complementary colors
of summer
and the monochromatic
hues of the sea

I want to be engulfed in
a lover's embrace, not the
warmth of a knit afghan

I want to smile again
I want no anxiety
            no duty
            no selective mutism
            to hold me back

I just want to be free,
or maybe I just want to go home.

I grew less of a human, but more of a machine. I was not fully integrated with this manmade innovation, nor would I ever be. I still felt my heart and its feelings weaving through my blood, and the ache from an anonymous source. I did not live anymore. I just thought, and let those thoughts grow their own thoughts. And let my brain take over my human function. This revolved around so many different things, and was now among my daily life. I was basic science. I created hypotheses and predicted the outcomes, and with those, I guided myself in producing the best solutions. Sometimes, I chose what was best for everyone. Other times, I let myself lose. I grew less of a human, but more of a machine. I did not live. But I assisted those who wanted to. I became invisible, stuck in the naiveté that someone would see.

As I give away my time
my space and
my people, too

Under this strange roof
I surround myself with novelty
along with strangers I now call my family

I realize how much I give
is of how much I lack
and how much I miss it

And how “it” is too short a word
to describe everything
it once used to be

I claw deep
at my skin
until my fingers reach
my flesh
and scatter the pigments
that was the epidermis;
hoping I would
born anew.