Sometimes I wonder
Am I oversensitive
Or are you plain mean.

When people accuse me of
being emotional or
oversensitive,
of playing the victim,
it invalidates me,
and then I feel small
and then furious tears brim my
emotional,
oversensitive,
victimized eyes

But as I'm trying to explain this
to you over cold chicken wings,
I go glassy and red with shame
because your words just put a cap
on my emotional allowance
and suddenly I see you
as just another dead end,
a road that leads
to an unlived life.

Are you a man or a prop, and am I
a fly from a web--
detaching, leaving weak limbs behind
in its grasp?
or am I the lone spider--
she who disorients
then releases
just before
venom hits
vein?

October 18th, 1995. I was born a little more than a month early; Ma always says it’s because I’d thought of a good joke and couldn’t wait to share it with everyone. Dad says it was because I was too hungry.

Yes, my name is Harsh but I promise I’m a nice enough person. Harsh means happiness in Sanskrit and I’ve always worn that name tag proudly. I use the username "harshhappens" as an alternative to the unfortunate saying "**** happens." Happiness happens, too.

I’ve got my father’s temperament and my mother’s smile, but I love my mother’s temperament and my father’s smile wouldn’t fit my face. I look at the two of them and see a patched, two-tone mirror of myself. I’m scared of what I am taking from them and what I’m not.

My childhood was Pokemon and Legos, chocolate chip pancakes and milk, hugs from my grandparents and bedtime stories with mom. Oh, how I loved to read. If books were grape juice, I was an alcoholic.

I’ve got my share of adolescent acne, the bags under my eyes hold the weights of my sins and I’ve already got smile crinkles about my plain, dark eyes. My hair is usually combed to a side and turns into a beard as you trace down my sideburns. I dress like a trendy 80-year-old psychology professor sometimes, other times I dress like a wannabe-tumblr-model. Oh well.

My favorite colors are maroon and grey. I’m also colorblind. Go figure.

I’m going to school to help people and hopefully save them from themselves. Problems of the mind are at the root of our existence, and will continue to terrorize victims no matter how much money they earn, no matter how much *** they have, no matter how lovely their spouses are, no matter how big their houses are. When people go to sleep at night, they deserve to have peace of mind. I’d like to help with that. I know too many people who can't take it. I knew too many people who couldn't take it. No one deserves to go through that alone.

I’m a five-foot-ten-inch sculpture made without wax. If I’m nothing to you I’ll at least be genuine. I’m pockmarked and scarred in my own ways.

Music runs through my veins, along with endorphins and an appalling lack of iron. What I listen to can be like honey and sometimes it’s a hurricane. I’ve shed tears to music, it’s been a part of me for ages.

I don’t sleep very well.

I am an introvert in the most proper sense of the term. Sometimes I get oversensitive, and being with too many people or around certain people can get very overwhelming and intense, I tend to shut down in these instances. Just make eye contact with me and I’ll open up to you, I promise. I don’t like parties. I’d much rather sip a mug of coffee in my basement with a canvas in front of me and paint all down my jeans, or sit by my window and write my heart away. I’d rather take a long drive with the love of my life or take her to dinner. I don’t take pride in this solitude, I hate it most of the time. I wish I enjoyed myself at parties.

I’m scared of heights and of knives in the wrong hands. I’m also terrified of the dark.

I’m a hopeful romantic, it’ll take a lot for you to take hope away from me. I’ve been blessed with a girlfriend that is genuinely the best thing to ever happen to me. She’s the kind of girl that you work hard for but you know she’s **** worth it. She’s the kind of girl that teaches you things both about the world outside your bedroom and about the person inside your heart. She’s the kind of girl that makes you write poetry. I am plenty ******* up in my own way, but no one else can ever love the way I do; let that be a vice or virtue.

You could probably buy my soul off me for some chocolate. Or some nice lobster. Or mashed potatoes. I'm just a very hungry person.

It’s too late for my parent’s praise to mean anything to me, I needed it earlier. I live with a constant doubt that you can call self-consciousness or self-doubt. You can quote Freud all you want. I need constant reassurance that I’m worth anything to anyone and everyone and I look for it desperately. Sometimes when I get really bad I just want to hear a reason why I’m worth listening to. I am constantly trying to convince myself that I’m good enough. It’s frustrating for both me and my loved ones. I’m 150 pounds of waiting for someone to tell me that I try hard enough and that I’m all they need.

The best compliment anyone has ever given me was from my girlfriend. She said “I love your mind.”

I write because of my girlfriend. She woke up this primordial part of me that really just likes to put a pen to paper.

So, hi there. I’m Harsh. Nice to meet you.

Well, Neptune and his sad sack. What to say about the watery Fish? Nothing really. You slip around in life oversensitive to your own liquid shadow. You're far worse than Cancer when it comes to feelings and such, no wonder most of you remain lost throughout life, like a body snatcher, you dream the imaginary world of happy people and happy endings. A Disney disaster really, unable to be on your own for long, you need other people to keep you grounded and on the right track. Codependent anyone? Jesus Christ on a **** stick, I dated one of your kind and couldn't shake him, 25 voice mails later. Tragic really. But it's not all bad, you speak of posies, whisker woo-woo's, and butterfly kisses. Shut the **** up and reach into the real abyss of madness, you poser! Truly the "flake" of the zodiac, you dismiss common manners with some attitude of "Look at me, look how silly I am!" No jack ***, you're an irreverent ****/***** who has no considerations for others. Don't even get me started on the drug use, ya loser. Compassion? Go to church, don't come here.

Advice: Anything is possible when it happens, but for you, nothing ever happens. Wake up. Stop trying to find yourself and start creating yourself, you ******* *****.

A single scrap of paper

and the child within me springs to life-

the child with bed head and a LEGO fascination-

leads me up and down stairs on all fours;

lights my face, shines my smile

soaks my senses- oversensitive;

takes a horizon, gives me an infinite shadow box;

takes a coincidence, gives me providence;

reminds me that some trees are ladders,

the others are giants, like buildings but wiser;

makes me giggle, as the circles untangle;

makes me ask myself,

Are they following us?

Who made this video game?  What's a boat made of waffles?

makes me too excited to eat; gives me dessert first;

lets me eat infinite Twizzlers;

lets me laugh at all of the sleepy adults,

and stay up late talking about collective consciousness;

lets me decide, "next time I'm going to the nature park",

as long as I can talk to all of the statues and sculptures on the way;

lets me write till there's no more room.

I love it when you decide you're going to hate me for a week,
Even though you haven't made any attempts at any form of communication in 2.
I thoroughly enjoy when you lie about the little things,
And get mad when I tell the truth.
It's absolutely adorable when you say I'm oversensitive,
Then ignore me for a month when I make a joke.
It's great that you can decide to respond to me months later,
But I can't take 5 minutes.
I'm a ***** and a *****,
But you can't be mean.
It's cute when you pick everyone else over me,
But you have to be my number one.
I like when you want me to make conversation with you,
Then tell me everything I do and say is wrong.
It's great that you can hate me,
But I have to love you.
Your best quality is using my fears and secrets against me,
But you don't tell me any of yours.
Most of all, I love when you all do this at once,
Then drop like flies at a picnic.

I just don't understand you're logic.
You treat me like your childhood teddy bear,
That's only there to hold your tears.
Which I wouldn't mind doing regardless, but it's all the time.
I feel like I've watched you grow up.
From love, then confusion, fear, sadness and now an unrestrained hatred directed solely at me.
Gosh. What did I do? Why can't you tell me? Why can none of you just tell me already?

I won't give up, because you know I can't. It's not my nature to walk away, ever.
Even when I'm not wanted. Or needed. Even when I know I'm not. I could never be, Nanny McPhee.
You know I won't call you, or disturb you when you're with your friends,
Because you know I'm scared of them.
The lying doesn't bother me as much,
But sometimes it's unnecessary and it still hurts.
I know I'm oversensitive sometimes,
And you're helping me get over myself,
But I can tell you've still got a long way to go.
I don't keep the battery in my phone anymore.
I don't want to get my hopes up that someone will try to talk to me, since they never do anyways.
There are no secrets and no trust. Yeah. It's all gone.
There's no thought anymore.
Your team is all the people you want,
Because why chose 5 of 5 when you could chose 4.
It's one less opportunity for me to be ignored.
I'm awkward in every sense of the word, and you should have learned that by now.
Please stop making social interaction more difficult for me.
New people are difficult enough, when I still feel weird around you.
I thought it was a joke at first, after all of your abuse,
But I've learned a lot this life, about what my friendships must include.
If I have two friends, than they must hate eachother, and eventually one hates me and leaves, than the remaining one must wait a bit before following suit.
I don't know why you always chose me as an advantage for your own personal gain. Maybe I'm the only idiot that doesn't know when to shut up.
The kind you can manipulate without me realizing until it's too late. Naive. Clueless.
No one's ever on my side.
You're all always together, against me,
And I can't even take one of you, so why bother trying anymore.

I don't fit in with you and your friends.
You don't want me there anyways.
Because you don't need me, until they're all busy.
But I need you, and you know I do.
I hate when you use that as an excuse.

Breathe in
Breathe out.
"It'll be over soon"

"It isn't going to be fine"

"All will be forgotten then forgiven"

"But what if it won't go back to normal"

"Relax, you're over-reacting"

"What if it's hopeless?? What can I do then??"

Breathe in, Breathe out
"You can and you will"

About a month ago I cried because I couldn't find my favourite pair of socks. Last week I cried because I forgot my AP books in my locker, and I couldn't do the homework that I wouldn't have been able to bring myself to do in the first place. Yesterday I cried because my cookies didn't come out just right.

I cry. A lot. About everything.

I have been called everything from oversensitive to a baby to overdramatic. I
mean, haha, I clearly really wanted to wear those socks because now my whole day is ruined. I am extremely good at making something out of nothing.

Being this kind of sad is funny that way, no inconvenience is a minor inconvenience, it's all the end of the world or might as well be.

But I go with it. I joke about my tears and their daily visits.

I also joke about my anger and the chair I kicked resulting in a dislocated toe. I joke about the things I've thrown and the people that make my hands clench at my sides. I joke about it because it's easier than explaining it. I don't like my anger.

So, I've learnt how to turn my angry into lonely and my lonely into busy.
How do I explain that when I say I've been super busy lately, I mean I've been too busy falling asleep because drowning my pillow is tiring.

Depression is a monologue shot underwater, depression is sulking because I won't talk about it anymore.

How can I explain to my friends what is happening inside of my head when I can't even figure it out myself? How do I explain to them that I have been hit by too many people with "how dare you hurt me with your hurt" to not be convinced that I will accidentally do that to them? So we've grown accustomed to sulking. It has become a routine, joking about those ridiculous mood swings of mine.

My depression is a coat disguised as depersonalisation tendencies, "laziness,"
cries for attention and closed bedroom doors behind which continuous music
plays, harmonised with the sound of dripping cries of loneliness.

Of which the belt is anxiety. My psychologist has given it a name: John. Its
supposed to make me feel like anxiety is some exterior force and not something fogging up my entire inside. But he's better known as:

"Sorry.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sorry.”

“I know I'm being annoying."

"Sorry.”

I try not to acknowledge it. So, I leave my pen clicking. hair fidgeting, periods of breathlessness and restless tendencies as just that; inconvenient tendencies. Sorry.

I've been told to pray and trust in faith, but I only wear a religious necklace because if I don't, I go home with a neck scratched raw by John.

I wrap myself in this coat for comfort, which seems ironic. But really, comfort is found in familiar places and it seems I keep losing my jackets of happiness and liveliness, so this coat is all I know.

There are some days I am so sad I don't remember what it's like not to be. Like when you're really sick and you forget how to breathe through your nose and you're so sure you'll never breathe through your nose again and I'm so sure I'll never feel joy again.

Except when you're sick, you can go and get a doctor's note to explain why you couldn't go to school and didn't write that test. I can't tell my coach I missed yesterday's practice because I got hit with a wave of sad. I can't tell you that my homework wasn't done because depression kept me tied to my bed for the better part of the day

My psychologist once told me I was brave to seek her help. I didn't feel brave. I felt scared. And desperate. And lonely. And tired. I am so tired of trying to take care of this terrible body that refuses to take care of me.

My depression doesn't ask for much but when it does it is something I cannot give and that is the joke. It is just me asking for something I cannot give. My friends get mad when I don't give them pieces of me. I can't give them something I'm not sure is there anymore.

in my obliviousness
inadvertent and unintentional
some may say as usual
i disturbed a wasp nest
the heightened bombilation
an anger-pitched droning
unheard somehow
therefore unheeded
until that impolite *****
a warning sting
through t-shirt to torso
followed by a few more
in quick succession
set my legs moving
apologetically away
with hands raised
chastened and contrite
both in supplication
and in order to remove
the offending article
of clothing
the oversensitive wasp
having become trapped within
defensively stinging
as nature directs
to be honest
its overzealous instincts
began to feel
more like spite
than mere survival