I promise,
I’m a good girl;
I stay away from
narcotics, alcohol, sin.

Traditional stuff you’d find
at parties:
bustling, joyous laughter,
celebrating their momentary acceptance.

Girls my age are supposed to
lose her individuality in the heat of the moment,
find herself as the collective energy of the crowd,
dance, fight, scream.

They fight off the night’s
darkness, silence, coldness,
for the party’s
brightness, sound, warmth.

I remain
alone,
allowing the night’s emptiness
to swallow me whole.

Surrounded by darkness,
I notice its layers—
the infinite depths of reality
threatening to tear us all apart.

Just as anyone else,
I’m not as good as I should be.
Despite the comfort I have in
barely keeping myself afloat,

I want
to feel
something
too.

I drink energy drinks at night.
Not so bad, right?
I thought the same
against my mother’s warning:

"Never drink those!"
Despite being able to recall
coloring within the lines of a coloring book
at a hospital:

seeing my dad be pushed in a wheelchair
out of the operation room.
His spirit was stolen,
and his heart would tick forever as a reminder.

Compared to the other girls, I
lose my individuality in the loneliness of the night,
find myself in the emotionality night wraps me in:
watch, listen, wait.

My heart struggles to keep up as I drink
more, more, more.
I smile, and finally my thoughts run as quickly as my peers—
beat, beat, beat.

I’m tired of being a girl,
of failing to live up to inhuman expectations,
or fitting in with those sweaty bodies.
I wish the glory of femininity didn’t end with girlhood.

Instead of playing with human sensuality,
I play with human mortality
in what I’d like to call
a college student’s version of Russian roulette.