Sometimes I feel for my dog's heartbeat
because I know, at nine and a half years,
she hasn't got long left.

Sometimes I think about how I will react
when a death happpens.
Will I cry? Will I scream?
And then I feel guilty for imagining such a thing.

Sometimes I wonder how my friends
would react for me.
Would they shed tears?
Maybe not.
At this point, they'd probably
shrug and say they didn't know.

My mind has felt different recently.
It's not normal,
compared to people my age.
I shouldn't be this way.
I care about things my friends don't,
but they think they're empathetic.

They ignore the mssages
written on clothing tags,
but I'm wise enough not
to buy those clothes.

I have overwhelming dread
over my future and what to become.
But people say to relax
and let life take its course.
If I let life take me places,
it would take me to a mortuary.

She gives me mixed feelings.
a week ago, I thought no one wanted me alive,
but now she's able to look me in the eye.
I've noticed she laughs with me now.

Is it me or are people just being fake?

The only consistency right now,
in this moment,
as I sit in bed at 12:01 am,
writing this,
is that I know that my pen will never
catch my head up, my thoughts.
I don’t like using the word “brain”,
it feels too technical, even though I am.

I don’t want to get old.
When “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
became “What are you going to do?”
was when I realised how badly
I want time to stop.
I know a way to make time stop.
A permanent solution to a temporary problem.
Or maybe my problem is also permanent.

I want a break
so my pen can catch my brain up
and so I can finally piece together
a suitable future.
Will my parents be proud?
Of course they will, it’s their job.

It’s now 12:06. Thank you.

Flat on my back,
I wonder if I should redecorate my room before I go.
If I ever have the guts to go.
Sorry, not “guts”.

Sitting up slightly,
I realise something:
If I were to go now,
I wouldn’t leave any of
my “friends” a note.
Maybe they’d wonder why they didn’t get one,
but one can’t be too hopeful in this filthy world.

Standing infront of my covered mirror,
I try to see through the blue
fog of my jumper.

No, I wouldn’t leave them the letters,
but I would make sure to leave my family some.

My best friend is called Lola.
“It’s short for Dolores,” she told me,
before she became someone else.

She liked music, reading, English lessons at school, doing homework, dying her hair, cutting her hair, painting, drawing.
Anything that had creativity.

I gradually became to hate her
over the course of a few minutes
I saw a video about not being enough.
The comments were filled with:
“Everybody is so much prettier.”
“Why can’t I be like them?”
“I’m the ugliest of my friends.”
They all resonated with me.

Then I realised that out of all my friends,
she was the only pretty one.

I won’t bother describing
as beauty is subjective.
But, to me, she was everything
I wanted to be and everything
boys wanted these days.
She had multiple boys that liked her.

Me? You know the answer; don’t lie.

She never seems to take the boys anywhere,
she just talks to them civilly,
giving them mixed signals;
like my face.

I always make sure I look happy.
But it’s not right, even though I am.

The point is:
Lola is everything I’m not.
Lola has boys for plenty, yet look at me.
Lola has a balance between grades and life, but I can’t even regulate my emotions properly.
I hate Lola.

Lola was my best friend.
She probably got sick of me
so she moved on.
I can’t move.
I hate Lola.

I realise that the
mere thought of doing
anything with my friends
sends me into eternal sadness
because I am just a
vessel, a nobody, just
someone who hangs around
because they have no one else.

I think I wanted to be a surgeon
at one point,
but I now know that it’s just
another uneaten fig on
Plath’s fig tree.