today i stumbled onto the
kitchen counter and made myself a
cup of coffee
i took my pills and i went to school and
did everything i was supposed to
i walked down the halls hoping no one would
pay attention to me

during science i tried to take notes
but something inside of me just told me to stop
and i focused on the clock
and i noticed how antique it looked
i wondered suddenly if it was a castaway;
something no one loved because it was too old
to function or something too ugly to be modern
i wondered if it would still tell the time next year and if there
would be another girl sitting in my seat wondering the same
thing
i wondered if the clock knew that it was
running out of time and that soon it would
become another broken thing in
this world full of perfection and that
no one would want to fix it
i wondered if the clock was afraid
of how fast time flew and how quickly it
could be replaced
then i thought about myself
i thought about how i was drowning in this
black abyss of perfection
i thought about how wonderful it must
be to be a castaway; to not
have to live up to anyone's expectations because
it was already established that you couldn't
i thought about the future; and
how next year i will be somewhere else
and i thought about how
long it would take for someone to realize
that i was so hopeless
and i thought about how quickly time flies and how
easily i could be replaced by the pretty girl who
sits in front of me
then i thought about her
i thought about how perfect she looked
and i wondered if she ever felt insecure
i thought about how nice she was
and how utterly fake she was all at the same time
i wondered if she was sad, like me
and i hoped to god she wasn't and
then i thought about how she would feel
if she was a castaway

tomorrow i will stumble to the kitchen counter
and make myself coffee
i will take my pills and i will go to school and do everything that
i should do
and i will walk down the halls; praying that nobody notices me
because in the inside i am the same as a broken clock

(h.l.)