A teacher told me once
That I am the ghost of my school.

He said this because I do what I like-
Walking through halls during class, getting odd schedules, skirting the outside boundaries of events.

But always quiet. I do what I like,
but I do not cause trouble.

But the way he said it,
and his expression after he'd said it,

made me wonder how much he knew
at the time.

I guess it was always pretty obvious, once tiny red lines began to crawl onto my skin
And fade away again.

When I had to be excused from class
With a red face and shaky shoulders

When I wasn't at school for a week with no explanation,
only to return three months after break ended as if nothing had happened at all.

I still get called a ghost, sometimes,
but I heard him tell another teacher that he regretted saying it at all

Because he'd heard what I did over winter break,
and how close I had come to becoming a real ghost.

Youth, to me, was a heavy shadow
before I knew what lurked in heavy shadows.

Not to say that there was darkness in my childhood,
but that I couldn't see clearly for all the veiled truths around me.

My purest memories are of plush blankets,
and warm food,

And enjoying those things
before I ever understood what 'luxury' or 'privilege' meant.

Youth
Brought me guilt

And guilt
Ended my youth

I was often told
That I was an old soul,

Mature for my age,
Or wise beyond my years.

But what good is wisdom,
When it brings no profit to the wise?

My childhood home was beautiful to me,
in the same way that chandeliers are beautiful to small children.

They shine,
but never for them.

They were made by adults,
for adults.

For no other purpose
than to stroke their egos.

To be able to hold some shining thing
over their head and cry,

"This is what I bring,
See? I have done well, too."

There are times,
Yes...There are times when I am focused, on task, efficient, and brave.
When I can breathe fire and kick the world's *** and tell you exactly what I think with enough accuracy to trace the trajectory of my words to such a minute degree that I might be able to calculate the distance they could travel before piercing a person's heart. Sometimes I use these projections to my advantage - sometimes I take aim and say just the right thing, at just the right time, and sometimes I do it just well enough to convince someone to fall in love with me.

And then there are times,
Yes...There are times when I am caught, stuck in my mind, surrounded by the dry dust of my thoughts, unsure and unclear. When I am tired and not-all-there. When I am so apathetic that I will let you slip through my fingers like the dreams I know I am letting go of, like the time I spend crying about them that I know I will not get back. Sometimes I won't speak for days - even weeks - on end and I will want you to think that I do not love you anymore because I can't fit you into any of the boxes I have made in my head, and sometimes I ignore you just enough to convince you to push me away.

But there are times,
Yes...There are times that I love, wonder, marvel, and even adore my world without you. When I can look out the car window and see the landscape slipping by like the time I spent crying about you, the time I know I will not get back, and I do not speak for a while. Sometimes these thoughts don't hurt as much as I thought they would, like a vaccine that I worried about right up until they stuck me with the needle and I think 'I could do that again', and sometimes I do just well enough with all the hurt I caused myself with you to look past all of it and see that it is still a beautiful world.

And there are times,
Yes, there are times,
When I feel just brave enough to share it with someone.