I felt so sad as I took a jar of paper stars from the top shelf of my school locker and held it close to my chest as I walked down the halls and I knew you were watching... Arden.

You just didn't do anything.

You knew what it was like to cling to life the same way you hung from death, like it was some kind of sick game. However, this is not a one player kind of match now, is it?

I powerwalked through the halls once, wanting so much to die. I had no plans, just a few ideas. You know, I didn't consider hanging myself in my mind to be a "plan to die" because I didn't actually write out the plans, I just thought about them a little too much.

I answered "No." when asked if I made plans to **** myself, because in my mind, I really didn't make plans.


When asked if I was homicidal, I don't remember what I said, but I remember not saying "no". I remember that I've imagined punishing people, but never killing people. I want to hold their lives in my grasp and hear them apologize like they actually mean it.

But I am too nice for that. Too Christian for that.

It takes a strong person to lift weights, but a stronger one to lift the personal weight off your own back.

I've thought about retiring my poetry career 10 years too early, not even making it to my mid-twenties before quitting simply because there were too many people too eager to get offended at my work.

I will not play innocent to your sickly made games.

I am no fool.

Although, I will not retire my poetry career just yet. Because every time I feel the urge to quit, I am here at 3:22am writing long strings of poetry.

Arden's gonna have a fricken sleeve of tattoos.
Alex is gonna have pain.
Baer is gonna have me taking care of her sister.

But who really cares about that? Because Arden's gonna have something.

Arden has friends,

education,
teachers,
a job,
a life.

Arden's gonna have love.

Arden's gonna have ******' love.


Alex is not going to beg for my jaw unhinged from all the fighting.
Alex will not bend.
No sir.


Baer has hired me as the worlds worst babysitter, and her sister, only a few years younger than I already holds me to a higher standard than most.

But Arden has more to life than me.

There's no comparison.

I too, want to die when I'm not staying up this late to escape my thanatophobia.

I will not live to see Arden's graduation.

But I will live to see the hurricane that comes after it.

I don't feel special Baer.

But no one really needs to know that.