willa ivy

willa ivy Sep 2015

NEXT*  YEAR

next year is a whisper
on the horizon;
out of reach, out of earshot,
too surreal to imagine

but it's written all in
uppercase, bold, and it screams
from the paper, punctuated by
a string of invisible question marks

no longer secured in the safety net
of adolescence, set loose into the world
with basic knowledge: how to ride a bike,
howto drive a car, how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide,

but what does it help?
what does it help when there's a largely uncharted
world waiting to be explored? when there's anxiety,
and fear, and a lack of confidence to hold one back from exploring it?

when there are so many options, but none of them appeal?
it does not help, and that's the thing;
we're unleashed into adulthood, equipped with nothing more than a
flimsy sword, swinging blindly but making no contact

soldiers fighting with no cause, burning embers that never
grow into flames, caterpillars that have not completely
broken free from their cocoons; we are foolish, and naive,
frightened of a world we know little about

what i am to do, they ask,
but how do i answer a question i can't even comprehend?
NEXT  YEAR*  is not real, it can't be, not when it makes my
head spin and my stomach twist and my brain explode

it cannot be
it cannot be
it cannot be
but*  it  *is

willa ivy May 2015

cotard delusion

i was 12
and sitting in the passenger's seat
next to my mother
when we collided
with someone else;

my world became a blur
of shattered glass and screams
and sirens and flashing lights
and ****** hands reaching for
****** faces.

"you should've died that day,"
they always tell me.
but i did.
why can't they see that i'm dead?

i was 14
when i jumped from our second
story apartment window, and my
body hit the ground with enough force
to make the earth shake;

my world became a blur
of shattered bones and screams
and sirens and my mother's tears
trailing down her face as she wept by
my hospital bed;

"you should've died yesterday,"
the doctor told me,
and i wanted to ask him why
he couldn't tell that i was already dead.

i am 17,
and wondering why i am still here
if i am dead

i am 17,
and asking my mother when
my funeral will be, and if she
could please have tiger lilies
at the service.

"visiting hours are over,"
the nurse tells her, and
she smiles at me with teary eyes,
and i smile back, because she says
we'll have a funeral when i get home
from the hospital.

i am 17,
and i am dead,
and wondering how everyone can
see me if i'm only a ghost

i am 17,
and all i want is to be in the ground,
six feet deep

i am 17,
and realizing that my mother lied
to me, we're never going to have a funeral,
and i am angry

i am 17,
and i am not sick, stop telling me i'm sick,
i'm dead

i'm dead

cotard delusion is a mental illness where a person believes they are dead, either literally or figuratively

willa ivy Apr 2015

12am

i like that he makes me happy,
even when he's making me sad

i like that i'm able to sit with him,
to talk with him, to laugh with him,
even though his heart is tied to
someone else's

i like when he smiles at me, and
i like when he doesn't

i like when he turns his head at the
sound of my quiet laughter, and
acknowledges it with his own

i like when he laughs, and that it
always reaches my ears from
across the room

i like that he knows me, knows i
exist, and calls me his friend

i like when he says my name, or
says hello, or says goodbye

i like that he doesn't know how i
feel, and that he never will

i like that in a number of months,
we'll be going our separate ways,
and that i won't have to see him
with her anymore

i like that eventually, i'll move on
and find someone else, and someday
he won't matter to me so much

i like that one day i'll know someone
who'll like it when i smile, when i laugh,
when i turn my head at the sound of his voice

i like that one day i'll know someone
who'll like when i say their name, or
say hello, or say goodbye

i like that one day i'll know someone
who'll like that i know they exist, and that
one day, i'll like knowing that they exist

i like that one day he'll simply be the
face next to mine in the yearbook, nothing
more than a memory

and i like that maybe, just maybe,
one day it won't hurt as much

willa ivy May 2014

always pt. 2

is it always going to be like this?

am i always going to feel so invisible? so unnoticeable?
it always comes back to you, doesn't it?
i wish it didn't, but it does.

your eyes, your smile, your laugh;
they're not meant for me, and they never were.
they're meant for her.

i spend so much time
trying to talk myself out of these feelings,
but they just won't go away.

though when i really sit down and think about it,
about you and i together,
it frightens me, and i feel silly for imagining such things in the first place.

we wouldn't work,
i know we wouldn't.
but i still get this feeling sometimes...

this feeling that we would be great together,
better than you and her--but i know that's foolish.
and it's a thought i shouldn't even entertain.

and so i ask: is it always going to be like this?

willa ivy May 2014

always pt. 1

is it always going to be like this?

am i always going to feel so distant? so lethargic?
when i was younger, i envisioned myself
as a smiling girl, a laughing girl, a happy girl;

not as a girl who feels
like she could spontaneously burst into tears
at any given moment.

not as a girl who feels
so tired she can't move herself from her bed,
and feels low low low.

not as a girl who feels
so weak that she can't talk herself into any kind of productivity,
though lying still makes her feel restless.

not as girl who feels
endless frustration because she can't even think of
what to do with herself.

and so i ask: is it always going to be like this?

willa ivy Dec 2013

contradiction

how is it possible
to feel so minuscule and insignificant
that it would be impossible
for people to see me,
even through the strongest
magnifying glass,

but at the same time,

feel so large and overbearing,
as if i take up entirely too much space
and cannot stay out of
anyone's way?

willa ivy Dec 2013

misconception

we call the sadness 'beautiful'
and we do not try to stop it.

maybe that is worse
than the sadness itself.