Don't you worry about me, my darling.
My mental health can wait.
The worst thing I can do in this state,
Is sit and contemplate how I've royally ******* you over in life.

I'm sorry I was such an awful person.
I've tried to grow and stretch my reasoning,
But as far as I can tell I can't shake who I am.

I'm sorry, I wish it would have worked out.
I wish friendship was an option, but
It seems none of your family want me around so,
I'll just pack up my things and go.

Don't worry I'll leave you alone.
I'll leave my key back under the mat at your door step.
Don't worry about changing the locks, I've deleted your address from my GPS.

But I don't think I'll be able to ever forget where your mother lived,
Or the layout of your home.
I don't think I'll be able to reminisce,
Without tasting your blood on my lips.

I guess it goes to show you can't just keep people in your life that don't want to stay.
You can't keep handing them your heart
Over and over again.
When you're broken and can't repare,
That's how you stay broken, right there.

You'll bleed on the floor and cry their name,
They hold the piece to save you from your pain.
But they threw it down when your back was turned and walked away.

I guess that's what you get,
For trying to sing a desperately, happy tune in the rain.

I like to do those quizzes
in glossy bubbles that you
find
in Cosmopolitan and
Elle and
Seventeen.

Which girl should I be?

Should I
dump paper flowers
on my milkmaid braid?
Long skirts, long chains, and
Beatles on my radio
during their ‘Indian’ phase?

Should I
paint it all
black, strip life down to
a *******,
blare punk at full
scream,
and cram my toes in ratty Docs,
smash all emotion
into smithereens?

Should I
sugar-coat my mouth with
Maybelline, button up
collars, laughs, opinions,
read books on behaving
just like a
daydream,
sip teas, bake cookies, aim for
Ivy Leagues?

Which gilded box do I crawl
into?
Which skin to don
this week?
Which fashion editor-friendly
stereotype to fulfil?

Which girl should I be?

Not he/she/they but "the borderline"
The borderline imagines this elaborate fantasy to be necessary
the borderline turns to clinginess
the borderline may exhibit narcissistic symptoms
the borderline the borderline the borderline

the borderline-
a chalk marking on the sidewalk

the borderline-
trees separating territories

the borderline-
a sign stating do not cross

not me
I am human

but since I'm a 'borderline'
you wouldn't know that

would you?

The split personality which exists within us,
constantly battling for the spotlight of your mind,
feeding off your acquiescence to their imposing forces.
Beating like a drum at the sides of your skull.

I could say I'm the result of my parents:
I'm organized because they raised me to be,
Intelligent because they gave me those genes,
Short for the same reason- at 4' 10' I'm as tall as I'll ever be.
But I know there's more than just that to make me Me.

I could say the thoughts in my head were influenced by the books I've read,
That my way of thinking is directed by all the words in someone else's head,
And that even though half of these people are dead
They live on with the readers like you and me.
But I know there's another reason my mind thinks as Me.

I could say all the little habits I live every day
Were first watched when I saw someone else do them that way.
I saw my mother’s reserved behaviors and made them my own,
I watched Nickelodeon and learned how to crack a joke,
And all my memories as I acted upon these things could very well be what made me Me.
But I know I'm the only person who truly acts like me.

I know that genes made up my body,
But do genes decide how I cut my hair?
Or chose the color I paint the finger nails my body grows,
Decide what clothes my body will wear?

I know books influence my way of thinking,
But who decided which books I want to read?
Wasn’t that Me?

I know there's not a habit in this world for me to pick up that wasn't someone else's first,
But when I saw someone bite their nails I didn't bite mine too.
Instead I paced around my room, not even knowing where I got it from.
No one chooses my habits any more than my clothes or my books.


I chose those things because I liked them.
Because I wanted to.
I chose the things that make me.
So then if you asked me, "Why are you, you?"
I'd say, "Because I want to be."

gray.

black.

white.

his friends are gray.
his family is black.
the sky is white.

he feels like he's going insane,
running and pushing through the crowds
because why were the colors escaping him?

does he have to live through this boring, mundane and colorless earth?

he pants,
trying to catch his breath.
his surroundings, full of grays and blacks.

("Why is everything so black and white and gray and black and gray and white?")

he puts a smile on his face instead,
gathers around his friends.

he thinks he sees yellow.
but his sight keeps on betraying him.

he tries living in a banal, monochromatic world.

but.

he picks up a razor,
not heeding the warning:
Curiosity killed the cat.

(at least red was so much more beautiful than black and white and gray and black and gray and white.)

i giggle at a friend's joke
and wave goodbye to them.
i walk by the streets, kicking rocks
and thinking of dumb old things.

i open the door to the house,
and i am almost used to the sharp, berating voices inside.

i shut them out,
and lay exhausted on my bed.

putting an arm over my eyes,
i rest.

and wake up to them,
looking at me with horrified eyes.
my room is a mess--
a beheaded stuffed bear,
broken ceramics,
crushed scissors,
a butcher knife in my hand,
and warm, crimson fluid streaming down my arm.

what happened, i wonder?

I spend most of my year in self-effacement. Head down, hand up, a ghost who whispers answers to the lost. They take it; without a second thought, glance, judgement and leave the drooping girl in shades of grey to her notebook of lies. Poetry, prose, fiction, all of it is falsity straining towards enlightenment, in feeble attempts to discover itself, words stumbling into awkward rhymes hoping to somehow fall... into truth.
Then I do an about-face. Suddenly, out of nowhere, my hair falls into perfectly shaped golden locks around a painted face. A mask of melanin and mascara allow me to play a different part: one of laughter and physicality, one of reality and presence. The person I become in the summer months of heat, and sweat, and flesh believes that to be found, you must first endeavor to get beautiful, tragically lost.