what is this adolescent sickness?
i have seen it in those accidental urges, those
presupposed just-one-more-go purges,
in that cold apathetic glow you're cultivating
through the pathological kiss of cancer our
culture is motivating,
in the eyes of girls who gave their sickness
one more sorry shot because they believed
the reason boys couldn't seem to please them
was on account of the uneven legs and knees that
they pleaded on,
and i have seen it in the insomniac pressure of
my own suicidal thoughts and depression,
pressing me into obsession, making a
profession out of my pain without my discretion.

what is this adolescent sickness?
i observe it in the edges of my best friend's
beat-up sense of self-preservation, saying
she has no place in a society that constantly
emphasizes why we need to be something
pretty for others to see,
and in the all-consuming hallucinogenic glitch
that we call home, our social media niche,
humming at an unendurable pitch that pierces
our sanity with every flick of its virtual switch,
and i watched it wrangle my friends in a
wrestling match between giving up
and grappling with the godless reality of
never really being enough.

what is this adolescent sickness?
i have stumbled upon it in alleyway girls and boys,
always sickly sidewalk prophets, society's toys
bruised by the persistent palm of poverty;
in thin hair and the thick of female skin
restless against a visible ribcage,
girls chancing a preference of death to
being unworthy of personal praise,
treating a wrongly angled glance
as if it somehow equates.
in the abuse brought on by our *******
personality binary, boasting about being
more consistent than the lies we
believe regularly, like 'our worth is set
in wealth and accomplishments' and
'benevolence feels good but believe me, you'd
look better with superficial confidence'.

what is this adolescent sickness?
i have witnessed it in this professional
sadness, carried like a coat on the
shoulders of those certainly undeserving
of a misery akin to madness,
and in the worried and calloused hands
of those who work to ensure their bloodshed
outnumbers the seconds they have left,
just to find their clock stopped going around
the moment they made a choice to stop counting,
and in the sickening shine of blades on innocent
skin, pleading for this persistent sin to take place
in place of the regrettable face of a sadist's grin.

what is this adolescent sickness
and how do we get rid of it?