hm.
it's may 7th,
isn't it?
12:01am
on the dot.
i forgot...
today is my birthday
today i am twenty
years
old
and i don't
feel a thing.
i am often alarmed
frightened
confused
by my lack of feeling
and everyone says
it has something to do
with depression
hell,
i don't know.

i always used to get
some little tingle
some little thrill
of excitement...
it's my birthday!!!
i'd think...
even last year
the first year
without mom
without anything
normal
i still felt
something...
but there is
nothing.
in fact
i would have forgotten
if some random *** girl
i haven't talked to in two years
hadn't just texted me
happy birthday...

...happy birthday,
littleredwritinghood...
maybe this year you'll get what you want
i'd really enjoy
some arsenic
this time around
i wonder what death feels like
maybe i'll actually feel something
for
once
i guess it's worth a shot

It was one of those mornings
where you peer out your bottom floor window,
and look up at the raindrops freshly fallen.

You feel broken,
and yet rushed with an unexplainable emotion.
but you know it’s a good one simply with a bad aftertaste.

You see people everyday, no, you stare at them.
You wish for relationships you once had.
Others you wish you could hold,
and those you could never give up.

Have you ever heard the saying about faking a smile?
It’s an understatement.
It’s not sadness, or anger really, just pain.

It doesn't start out as pain, it just evolves, over time.
The madness results in Emotionally caused Physical pain.
The pain doesn't hurt, it just...sits.

This emotion that we've nicknamed pain, rushes through the body,
Arms numbs, legs shaking, eyes holding back, everything.
It’s all caused from sight, with a drop of longing.

You see this person everyday.
You long for the same people every single day.
And your body just longs for them.

It’s not as lustful as it sounds.
You just possess an attraction to these people.
An attraction that even the most specific and descriptive of words could not describe.

You sit there and you are bound by society’s lock on intermingling.
You are bound by the mock and disgust of others.
You are bound by that person of which you desire.
You are bound simply by yourself.

All this.
All of this Emotion, if you will, was bound in that little drop that clings to the window.
That was but a drop of what I feel every single day.

You can’t imagine
but don't let me sound as if I am exaggerating.
For I am not.

I have felt wonderful things.
Things I am not sure most of you have felt.
Though I wish you could.

I wish I could place my hand on your chest
I wish that all of that energy, that emotion, would flow into you and then back into me.
I could look into your eyes, and I would know, that you know, how I feel.

You could understand everything.
You could sympathise.
but the fact of the matter is, you simply can’t.

I do not believe you have felt what I have felt too, no.
Different version and variations, yes.
But this feeling of impossibility, I know you have not felt.

You are common rebel,
this is not bad, no not at all,
you have more opportunities to release this emotion than I ever will.

And i envy you. All of you. Every Last one.

You look away from the rain drops.
You go back to living.
You go back to hiding.
You go back to solitude.

Yeah, it was just one of those mornings I guess.

I feel like a statue
Dissolving and disintegrating from the elements.  
Maybe that is what statues are,
Frozen sadness that is not heard but only spoken to  
A cloak of frozen smoke that eventually crumbles
Loneliness turned into powdery dust.  
Maybe dirt and sand are really lost and lonely souls
Surrendered to the harsh elements of humanness,
Becoming the support for others to find their footing
Crying statues
A petting zoo of statues
Lonely souls that finally get touched and stroked, picked up and spoken to
By other sad and lonely ones
Who have not yet turned to stone

Where did you go?
You were there just a moment ago
Or how many years?
Why do thoughts of you bring me to tears?

What happened to you?
We used to be close
Now you're a thought,
                             a memory,
                                     a ghost

What do you mean its me that's changed?
Is that why we're now so estranged?

Where did I go?
I thought I was here,

Just a moment ago

we were raised to be unsure

to be doubtful
and confused
and trustless

to wonder

but only because we
cannot assure
ourselves

we were told to be quiet,
sit silently, and do good

we were never asked
our opinion and we
never asked why

we were told:

we need to listen to our parents,
our teachers, our papas, mamas,
uncles, counselors, and bosses,
to the politicians and back-alley
preachers because they know it
all, they’ve been around the block
and seen the world, and they know
how it goes

we need to believe their advice
and do what they say because
god is always watching you
know

we were raised in a
universe devoid of
reason

we were left pursuing questions
without ever knowing there were
actually answers

we, the doubtful,
confused,
and trustless

how to do we know
anything?

too many,
I say,
look skyward for
their answer

only to miss,
a tiny whisper,
constantly
humming out of
their hearts

When I was eight years old,
I overlooked a moment of compassion
And challenged the will of a fellow third grader
Compelled by my ignorance
She gave the most astute summary of my life ever uttered.

When I was eight years old,
A frizzy haired girl asked me an impudent question
A question of infinite importance:
How do you sleep?
How do you sleep at night, since you know yourself?

When I was eight years old, my arrogant mind brimmed with resentment
Reaffirming that I,
I, apart from my arrogance,
Was the best person I knew.

I was eight years old, and a prophet had spoken.

Eight years later,
I long to be swallowed by the sheets
Eyes stare mockingly at the dormant ceiling
Clinging to the handrails
As my train of thought
Careens off the tracks
Exploding in a cloud of terror and regret

Eight years later,
I long for the simple arrogance of my eight year old mind
I long to close my eyes
And remember nothing

Because today,
Today I am sixteen
And tomorrow I will be twenty-four
And the next day I shall be eighty

When I'm eighty,
I'll stare at the bleached walls
Succumbing to the force of the past
As it consumes the present.

When I turn eighty-eight,
I'll look to the end of my starched bed
And He shall smile
Saying, "Well done!"

I hope I lie, when I'm eighty-eight,
Because If I am honest
If I tell the truth
I do not know who he is
And I never have
I will be cast away
because, eighty years before,

When I was eight years old,
I was arrogant
But still innocent
eighty years from death
and eighty years from shame
I could have heeded those words
The words of the frizzy haired girl

When I was eight years old,
I could have decided
I could have had him sing me to sleep
I could have died entirely unlike myself.

Now that I'm sixteen,
I still do nothing.

I wasn't always so easily discouraged.
I used to bristle with enthusiasm.
I glowed with it.
It didn't matter if the task was simple, or tedious, or daunting, or boring.
As though on rails, I slammed into each and every task with terrific force.

But I got older.
Things that used to come easily grew slippery.
What I used to do without thinking twice, I found myself over-thinking.
I threw the brake. I ground to a halt.
Finally, I became idle. A left-over husk of a kernel that's already been popped.
I drowned myself with doubts. Hypothetical situations that might never happen.
I lived in fear of what might go wrong.

So I began to watch everything go wrong, as though I was helpless.
I was no less able. I was no less compassionate.
But I had grown wary. Of what?
What was it that, out of nowhere, caused me to slow down?

I guess I looked down and realized that if I fell, I would not be getting back up.

When you're young, you have no worries, because nothing is relying on your success.
So you mess up a math problem. You'll get it eventually.
So you botch things with that cute girl who sits across from you. You're young, you'll get it.
Re-assurance, faithfully, unwaveringly. A safety line should I fall.
But I never really fell, did I? So why am I laying down like I have?

Get up.

Get up.

I worry about everything. I worry that I will fail.

I dread what comes, what I can't avoid. But time, and time, again, it comes, and I miraculously don't die when it hits, because I've been bracing for a train-wreck impact, a force that will really, truly, finally, definitely lay me flat for good.

I close my eyes, and brace. But the crash never comes. The silence that was continued to be.

I turn behind me, but there's no train there.

I'm starting to realize, with relief, (with horror), that maybe all I needed to do was step off the track.

I look down, and realize, with a first-creeping then-howling laughter that I was never on the track to begin with.

I look off where the track is. There's no train there, either. Maybe there never was.

Maybe there never will be.