I am so sad today
Most days
And you ask me why, every time
I wish you would stop doing that
I don't have a reason for this impeding dread
I don't have a reason I am afraid of my own skin
And the power it might not possess
I wish I could tell you a tragic back story instead
About childhood cancer or my dad walking out on me
About how the whole experience was traumatic and how this is just a flashback rearing its ugly head and that I'll be ok
In a day or two
But the fact of the matter is
That I am a small girl from a small Pennsylvania town
Who has more big privilege
Than she likes to admit
Who should have a smile bigger than the sun
According to her parents paycheck
And the number of times she's gotten cheesecake for her birthday  
But still she cries pathetically over doorbell rings and reflections in mirrors
And reflections in the minds
Of everyone else

And you say how sorry you are
I wish you would stop doing that too
I have enough self pity to pay for tuitions of all my friends who say
It's just how college works
It's hard
You're smart
You got this!!

Most nights I do not study
But writhe in pain on a bed that becomes a black hole, roping me down towards the hell I swore I'd gotten rid of.
The biting bleeding lips type of hell
I should have stopped biting my lip by now.

And you say you want to help
And more than anything
I wish you could
Free the inmate from the cage in her head