Crashing

into something,

always

Mania like a ******* *****

I am biting my knees

and my head is racing

like a shooting star that nobody wishes on,

and I think I’m going to throw up

and I’ve had a head ache all day

so I got dolled up and reek of smoke, smoke, smoke

and I’ve got this tic where I pick pick pick

at my skin like clockwork

like you hear about **** users doing,

and my grandmother’s neighbor’s **** lab got busted

but that has nothing to do with this.

Can’t tell if I’m sick

or sick of this

felt myself writing my eulogy in my head when I got home,

felt myself running running running

and talking too weird and falling over

and I’m not even drunk

and I’m not even close.

I need to calm down but this mania has me ******* petrified, sick sick sick.

And I know I’m not eating enough and I’m smoking too much and

what I want is my mother, in that summer camp kinda way

where you need somebody to rub your back and coo

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay”

over and over again, letting your sobbing puddle into her lap,

like that time I tried to come out to her

for hours.

In 3rd grade my best friend asked me why my fingers were all sorts of cut up

and I told her, “Oh, you know, farm life” and changed the subject because the sound of the word “picking” makes my body curl up

and two years another girl asked me why my fingertips were purple

and I didn’t tell her it was because I didn’t know how to stop.

I need to run

not away or from something, just run

to catch up with my head

to catch up with my body, shaking shaking on this seat.

This is the one of the worst poems I’ve ever written but I think it’s

probably the most honest

because I am sometimes so scared to be alive,

and so scared to be human.

On an unrelated note, if I tell you I am queer,

I’m not looking for your opinion.

On an unrelated note, last night a girl prayed on her knees for me,

years ago I went to a church where they spoke in tongues over my head as I felt my knees buckle and I cried then, too.

When your only lived experiences are biased with depression, are haunted,

are counting your calories and

praying that something can save you,

and thinking that only you can save yourself, I’m thinking maybe I need something more.

I teach preschoolers almost every week about what it means to be a Christian, what the foundation of the Bible is but

I’m definitely not a Christian, because somewhere along the line, I lost that too.

Maybe I am as arrogant as my first job fired me for being,

maybe I am as ******* human as I’ve always tried to avoid

or something.

I think it is gone now, that stretching thin

that mania

of too much thought racing

train blaring

I’m sick, sick, sick.

There was a girl and she knew when I was upset because I spoke in threes,

in triples,

like I’m begging for that holy trinity,

like I’m shining a flash light at the stars,

calling in Morse code for the night to lift

for the gods to call me up,

like I’m begging for You.

If God knows everything,

does he read this too?