Tear, tear, tear.
Spend classes tearing paper into tiny bits.
Why do I do it?
(Tearing until my fingers hurt.)

Count, count, count.
Almost run into people every few minutes.
Why do I do it?
(Count my bones whenever I can.)
(Count the steps on the stairs when I ran.)
(Count the steps I take and how many breaths I draw.)

I am aware that everyone sees me,
counting and tearing and restarting,
and I don't want to stop even though it's not with a degree of panic.

Check, check, check.
Check so many things again and again,
but not the things that are really important.
(Check that everything's not changing or if it is.)

Please don't ever ******* touch me.
Please don't ever ******* touch me because I'll snap.
Please don't hug me because we both know it's empty.
Please don't ever ******* touch me until it's to hurt me or **** me.

Quelquefois l’homme dans moi est la raison que je veux mourir.
Il brûle mes poumons, mais il me trempe dans l’eau alors je brûle à l’intrieur seulement,
mais l’eau me noie et mélange avec la bile en la gorge.

Il se fend les pieds sur ma cage thoracique.
Il les pousse ensemble.
Quand je marche, l’homme me bat de m’interieur.
Il me bat le corps.

Il est la raison que je me penche et tousse toutes choses.
Il est la raison que je cogne moi-même (pour je se bats.)
Il est la raison que je mords moi-même (pour je se bats.)

Parfois je fonds en larmes
quand tu me dit que
je ne sais pas que je suis.

Je suis suivi mon ombre en les rues
quand j'ai souhaité pour voir l'homme je veux etre,
et je suis suivi mon ombre sur les murs
quand j'ai souhaité pour la me couvrir.

He wished to be one,
but stronger than he, the laws
governing his body.

I'm burying my own words as best I can,
but as soon as I have set the ban,
down in a hole beneath filthy tongues
twisted from lies and sour-breathed pulling,
you make my blood boil.

You whisper about me, I can hear it,
behind the book shelf,
between the narrow isles of stories.

This place could offer me sanctuary,
but you came along,
and you are every noise, breath, sight and smell.
I cannot read, you are always over my shoulder.

I might collapse here and hope someone does not see me.
Am I overwhelmed or ******?
Am I lonely or needy?
Truly, I must ask, are things in me or are they part of this library?

I'm digging my words up out of the books,
flinging them over my shoulders like dirt
as they lift from the page and flit in and out of my eyes,
barely keeping me concious.

I try to fill up my gut
with the gritty syllables that I can't actually hear,
flung up from the holes in words,
between pages,
between worlds.

I press my fingerprints into the fine, aging paper,
knowing it will help me later
to cover up the void I'm filling with words.

Maybe if I can force my eyes to stop staring at sideways spines
and straightup people looking just fine,
I can make myself focus in the scent of the decay wafting up from between the words,
or I can make myself read between the lines,
instead of struggling to read the blurry spines
that I can't help but watch.