My first impression of the children's hospital was how nice everything was. It was new, with fish tanks and red sofas; pastel windows which made pretty colors on the floor when the sun went through them; walls were freshly painted and everyone talked with a smile. Everything just looked so peaceful.
It wasn't until my second visit that I saw the flaws. I was sitting on one of the red couches, waiting for my name to be called, and I was looking at the fish tank. A little girl was pressed up to the glass telling her mother that she could see nemo. But when I looked closer, I saw a little fish turned over floating at the surface. A man behind the glass quickly pulled it out of the tank, but I saw. That's when I started noticing other things. Like the bloodstain on the cushion next to me. And the fact that a few tiles were missing from the floor. The wood paneling had scratches on it; one of the pastel windows was taped up; and every parent was smiling, but the little kids holding on to them kept asking what was wrong.
Maybe that's just how hospitals are. They want you to think that everything's okay; that all that goes on inside are couches and fishtanks. They think that if they write out the word HOSPITAL in bubbly pink letters people might get it into their brains that everything's okay. But that doesn't change the fact that it's a hospital. Masking pain only works for so long, until broken bits and pieces push their way through.
I think hospitals are just fish tanks. Everyone is put on display for doctors and visitors and things seem okay for a while, you know, until they aren't. When a little nemo dies, they send away his body and just replace him with another orange fish that people can look at. We are all the cracks in the pavement; elevators shut down for repair; a phantom pain that nobody wants to believe is real. If you stand far enough away; if you distance yourselves from anything close to the word hospital, you can just let yourself focus on the mask they put up. But once it's time, and you're sitting on a red couch in the lobby of the children's wing, with a kid asking you where her older brother went, you'll find yourself staring at the cracks in the facade with a single tear running down your face and with emptiness in your stomach.

hidden in the green mirror
are blue eyes
exploding with quiet suns
scattered with silver sparrows

i really cant wait for the day
when someone asks
why im sad, and why
my smile looks too real
to actually be real,
and it's gotten to the point,
where i tell myself
that someone will notice,
and when they do,
ill marry them.

My friend Amelia (real name, of course, redacted)
is something of a pained Ophelia.
The play's the thing, the part brilliantly acted;
She stands alone by Hamlet's side,
She sighs and moans and pouts and pines,
and waits for him to be attracted.

But Hamlet I know; He's a friend of mine,
and for her heart, he doesn't pine. He's out to solve his father's ******;
Let him go, Ophelia. It's all right. He won't be dissuaded by your ardour;
your love won't keep him long distracted.

Senpai; My Liege; it all rings far more familiar than it aught.
"Notice me!"
"Notice me!"
or then again...
                           not.

lately, everything's been about you.
i'd see "closed" signs on antique shop windows
and eviction notices on apartment doors
and remember how it felt when you slammed the door on every possibility of us.
i'd see pens and papers and stop myself in the bookstore from throwing them on the ground and screaming "i used to be the one you write about". now i just find spare ones in my room that i can cry onto when no one's around. the ink seeps through my fingertips as i break the plastic case of every pen i lay my hands on and it's supposed to make me feel better but it doesn't. it just reminds me of the ink you injected in my veins and no matter how deep i cut i can't get it the **** out.

you grew something inside of me and i swear they're not flowers because they've been flourishing when i water them with *****.

i'd stare at streetlights and remember that one time you told me you'd  kiss me under every single one of them but here i am brushing my teeth so hard it bleeds every night because the only time i taste your lips now is when i'm dreaming.

and now here i am trying in vain to paint the sunset with the color of your eyes. i didn't want to forget how they lit up when you said "i love you" but maybe it was just a reflection of how bright mine were when you finally said those three words.

well, to be fair, you only told me you loved me. i guess it's my fault i assumed it meant you'd never leave.

i was trying so hard and
put everything on the
line just to see you
i did everything i could to
build you up while you
were too busy tearing
me down to notice
but now that i've given up
you want to see me more
than ever and you need
me in your life?
i refuse to be a doll
sitting on a shelf
in the back of
your mind

What is Heaven?

What is Hell?

If I told you, would you tell?

If you love,

If you hate,

Determined is your fate,

If you're perfect,

If you're sinful,

If you're too broken to even notice,

All these people trying to help you,

To get to Heaven,

Or to Hell,

Then you'll ask:

What IS Heaven,

And what is Hell?

I love you.
I mean not just you.
I love a lot of people, a lot of things, concepts, etc.
But anyway.
I love you.
Notice I'm not saying I'm in love with you, because that's different.

And I realize and I know.
Not many people feel it like me.
Some days I think my purpose is to give as much as I can and get nothing in return.
I am simply made to feel empty and alone, no matter what.
That's no one's fault but my own.

See, if I could help it, I wouldn't love you.
My love, my affection, my thoughts, my feelings, ****, even my presence is wasted on you.
You couldn't care less what or where I am.
Who I'm  with, who I'm *******, what I feel.
But, I can't hate you for giving me feelings.

It's not YOUR fault I'm like this.
I know I know I know.
But it doesn't help that you nurture my feelings.
When you touch me like you might care.
Like holding my hand in dark rooms. Like kissing me softly.
But you don't care. At least not sober.

I am constantly bending over backwards for anyone.
Even a stranger.
I want to make everyone happy.
I want to help people.
But I can never do it for myself.