i’m lost
my legs are tired
and the concrete looks like a trampoline
if you throw something hard at an even harder surface, the something does not bounce
it breaks
if i throw my body to the concrete that looks like a trampoline
my bones will shatter
but my soul will only bruise
and that annoys me

because i thought death was easy
it’s this life that’s hard
what happens when escaping life becomes so difficult that death disappears from sight
when i thought death was easy but there’s no more fight left in me
when did trying to die become so difficult?

they tell me i’m not alone
which i find to be pretty funny because when my thoughts are falling out of my head too quickly for me to catch i’ll look around
and all i see is fragmented thoughts splintered on the ground

you have commitments
appointments
social obligations that consist of lifting others up
you have a job
and friends
and school
and papers to write
i know it’s hard for you sometimes, too

i know i drag you down
you say you won’t entertain the thought that my existence is a show put on by lucifer’s angels because i’m just
dramatic
you say
my idleness is the reason why my brain is wasting away
i’m the reason i’m wasting away
if it’s all in my head,
will the pain get better as i get worse?

they tell me
i’m here
and they’ll miss me if i go but when i tell them i’ve been trying to leave for years
they tell me no
i’ve been trying to stay for years
i laugh

they tell me
there’s so much more to live for
smiles and hugs and really dumb jokes
art and literature and art and art and art
and art

one thing art has taught me?
everything dies
everything ends
and humanity’s soul takes a beating every time we try
to erase the existence they’ve worked so hard to create
we could be frail
and throw ourselves to the pavement
the headlines the next morning would read Another one Bites the Dust or something

it’s really hard to be positive when you don’t want to be
or remember how to be
when stats of suicide are so frequently reported you wonder if that’s what you’ll become, another statistic
“the percentage of suicides of queer, korean adoptee, catholic, females has now risen to 1% this is Fox News reporting”
or something

i’ve heard that.

when did trying to die become so difficult?

-rgp

And on the night her life changed before her eyes
She wept
Cheers broke out around her, congratulations and kudos were given
And she
Put up her forcefields and closed her doors once again
To mourn

In the trembling ground she planted a seed
And watered it with a concoction of part--saline-part-hopes-and-dreams drawn from the wells of her eyes
They never quite understood why her knee **** reaction was sadness
Nor did they know of the depths her heart could sink to
They didn't understand that she was different than the rest of them in that to her, happiness was a forced facade of what lie beyond cracked smiles

She mourned her relationships and any attempts to mend broken ones
She wept for the lives she'd never know
She mourned for her mother
She wept for the young woman who gave her up
She mourned the loss of her mountains
And her clear open skies
She wept so that she could no longer tell
Where the monsoon rains started
And where her tears ended

She felt her soul breaking
And she laughed
Isn't it funny
I find it hilarious
How I've shattered myself so frequently
That the shrapnel no longer hurts

-z.z

Euthymic. Happy in a depressive state.
Crash. I was too close to the edge.
Fall. It's such a long way down to the bottom
Fell. Less than 8 hours ago I was
Euthymic. It never lasts long, does it?

-z.z

vagrant lives she leads with fear
uncertainty tugs at her feet
at least, that’s what she thinks
the road calls her home
begs her to kick off her boots
and caress its trails with bare soles and a bare soul
the skies notes she hasn’t been around for months
that the sun missed her morning kisses
and the stars missed her guidance
and the moon missed her dancing
these days she’s as lost as the lives she’s supposedly guiding
trying to get them both up to a safe place again
so their souls can sing the songs their bodies once knew by memory
so her heart can start beating again

-rgp

My name is something I keep around like old trophies from youth competitions or scrapbooks of memories from a better time. It is a reminder and a bittersweet one of that of a thing I cannot change. I never liked my names. I wondered why my parents decided to drop the second half of my Korean name for the sake of 100% inclusion. Is nothing sacred? I wonder if they knew that by doing that, they stripped me of my origins. I despise my name. I despise the projection and enforcement of family it relays. How far are you willing to go to make sure the kid knows they are yours? Hell, make it into a ******* name that will follow them around for the entirety of their life. The fact that it’s so beautiful will offset the pain of hearing it butchered so many times, will offset the pain of hearing what isn’t mine, will offset the nullity I have come to feel every time I hear it. My name is a prison number of conformity.

i want to talk with someone
but i don't know how to say it
i want to talk just talk
not about specific life events or what i ate for dinner last night
please don't ask me about my family or my academics
ask me why my replies get short when you ask me how i am
tell me more than
well i'm glad you're still breathing
when that's my response to your short question
i know
that i can twist my words into appearing positive even when they're not
i know that my sarcasm doesn't always transcend beyond the computer's algorithms
i know that you don't know how to mitigate my suffering
and that's fine
really
it is
so we'll talk about you and your great life adventures
even though right now
i want to talk about the poem i just read by andrea gibson
i want to talk about my writing professor and her brilliant mind and how i've never been more motivated to get to class just so i could sit there and take in the simple grandeur
i want to talk about the night sky and i know it's overrated woohoo the stars and moon huzzah for the earth's night light but have you ever noticed
how when you stand out in the middle of the road at 2 am in the morning,
the world down here is silent and flat but up there, the galaxies stretch and bend beyond the eye can see, the stars are all placed so perfectly
hapharzardly scattered about but in the right places
sometimes they're so dim, you know?
i will never stop aweing over the miracle of the sky nor will i ever not stand in the middle of the road at 2 am in the morning on a rough night just to be reminded of the beauty that's still there within each and every one of us even though sometimes we can't see it
i want to talk about the dream i had last night
and the night before that and how i am scared to fall asleep because my mind is a ******* complex and ***** thing that can thread unimaginable hypotheticals through something that was supposed to be peaceful
i don't want to sleep
i want to talk
i want to talk with someone
because i'm tired of talking to myself
-
-rgp