I say my mantras every morning:
“You’re worthless, ugly, and undesired.”
Can’t risk forgetting, now can we?

When I wash my face, it’s more out of habit than out of hygiene.
Some days I don’t feel like washing my face, but I do it anyways.
Maybe it’s the thought of changing something that I’ve been doing for so long that’s making me anxious.
Maybe that’s the same as how I view life:
Just a habit that I’m too anxious to break.

Brushing my teeth is less of a habit and more of a favor
You know, to everyone around me that day
They already have reason enough to avoid me
And the remainder of a long-broken train
One whose windows were shattered and metals bent
I am the debris of a boy
But I fail to remember when I was anything else.

The taxi ride to college consists of the longest and shortest 45 minutes of my life.
On one hand, I want to get there on time
My anxiety intensifies as I think of all the material I’m not understanding
I start breathing heavily as I imagine the workload I have to cover.
Then I think of myself, in class, clueless about what she’s saying,
Not even capable of physically concentrating. Not physically capable of concentrating.
My heart starts cooperating in the ingenious scheme to defeat me
A scheme put about by none other than my own self.
I think about the scholarship and what I could lose if I don’t study
Then I think about not being able to study
Not because I’m dumb
But because I can’t.
I think about all my other friends, totally capable of doing the thing I struggle every day to do,
Slightly envying them for having a reason to wake up every morning.
Then I think of my parents and everything they’ve done to me,
The amount of money they’re paying to put me here
And my mind drifts off to what they’ll think when they find out I’m not straight
The disappointment in their eyes
The anger
Huh, maybe even some fear, if I got extra lucky.
And at that moment I’d have repaid them well for all the work they’ve done.
So the ride suddenly become minutes in length,
As I find myself there
But not quite.

I lay down in bed, most probably my head hurting.
I try to sleep but I can’t.
It’s not physical, I just don’t want to miss out on anything happening.
What if this person talks trash about me? What if he sarcastically talks good (because you can’t talk good about me without a sarcastic undertone).
What if my friends are talking? I do not want to feel left out more than I already am.
My mind drifts to what would happen when I die.
I think about my grandparents, my family, my friends,
I think about rotting in the middle of the earth.
Suddenly, the darkness of the room becomes the darkness of the house, the floor, the building, the block,
And the darkness of the room becomes the darkness of the world,
And I feel like I’m slowly being ****** in.

I’m still alive. I take one last breath and the decision to sleep. I fast-forward my night with up to 6 hours of terrible slumber, wake up,
And repeat.