Step 1: Get out of bed
Step 2: Look in the mirror
Step 3: Practice your smile
Step 4: Eyedrops to hide the red eyes
Step 5: Conceal the dark circles
Step 6: Breathe
The curtains are almost up
Step 7: Lock down the pain
Step 8: Ignore the weight on your chest
Step 9: Silence the screams inside of your mind
Step 10: Choke down the sobs
Step 11: Ignore the stinging in your eyes
Step 12: Swallow past the tightness in your throat
You’ve put on this show a million times
Step 13: Don’t let them see
Times up. Curtains up. Camera rolling

Comes in Jars
Comes in little **** baggies
Comes in Wrapped up clear wraps
Comes in capsules
Comes in bottles
Comes in a "100% organic" jars from the smoke shop
Comes in a friends hand
Comes in a pouch
Comes in eyedrops
Comes in as the best gift

I will keep pushing myself.
Keep going.
I will read Edmund Spenser,
Shakespeare, Wilde,
Shelley, Doyle, and CS Lewis
By the end of the summer.
You laugh.
Two weeks, one book a day, it isn't hard.
I only have four chapters of chemistry to finish,
Two chapters of AP Physics,
Four chapters of AP US history,
My personal reading list,
Four debate cases,
And a little light reading
(Judith Butler and Ayn Rand).
I WILL finish everything I have to do.
Refill the coffee ***.
I'll use more eyedrops.
Two weeks.
I will finish my summer homework.

Blistering honeydew pouring down
Hitting the ground like priceless china
Why do people even hold onto china
Crickets screeching and the mattress underneath me
And suddenly I am so aware of mortality
I want to bleed out the soft cushions
Let the insides rot away to the bone
All the lights and hands and people
Angels swirling around asking for directions
Even the mist is unbearable at times
O, god, I can't even hate you
I'll have to settle for abjuration
Home is where the cold hollow trees are
Home is where I wish I was

Steps for Life:
1. Wake up and brush your teeth twice and use mouthwash.
    Make sure your teeth are pearly white.
    Floss so your teeth don't rot with grim.
2. Drop in some eyedrops,
    so no one can see that you cried.
3. Choose your clothes.
    Don't choose something that isn't name brand.
    Don't choose something that's ugly or unflattering.
    Wear your waist trainer so that your waist can be thin and your
    stomach is flat.
4. Get your makeup together.
    Wear the right color eyeshadow, make sure your lashes long enough,
    make sure you choose the right color to match your outfit.
5. Pick the right shoes.
    Choose the heels that are in season.
    It doesn't matter if they aren't comfortable you have to wear them to
    be cool.
6. Go to school
    Go to school and suffer.
    Hang out with the popular kids.
    Be rude to other girls and criticize them for not having the money to
    afford clothes like yours.
7. Come home.
    Lift a few weights to keep your arms thin.
    Swallow a nasty concoction and have dinner so you can rid of it.
8. Repeat for the rest of your life because you won't ever be good enough.

To a girl, why is life about the size of your thighs?
The thinness of your waist.
The color of your eyes,
The color of your skin.
The flatness of your stomach
The shape of your jaw.
The length of your legs.
The way you walk and whether or not you fall.

They hid the pain.
Because pain is beauty.
And beauty was all that matters.
The biggest goal is to be popular but to be popular you have to be liked.
No one likes an unattractive girl.
No one likes a girl who isn't pretty.

To be popular, to awesome to other people, to be cool,
You have to make yourself suffer from the pain that is beauty.
You can't eat anything you want if you do you'll gain weight and you'll be fat.
You can't eat all 3 meals because you'll get fat. Instead, you have to eat a bit for some energy but then force it all back up because too much food will ruin your flat stomach and no one likes a girl who's fat.

You can't eat certain foods because it's messy and people see your face being a mess than say goodbye to your popularity because no one likes a messy girl.
You can't join certain clubs and you can't get straight A's. This is because no one likes a brainiac girl or all the other fantastic words.
You can't wear sweatpants if you aren't required too. Sweatpants aren't flattering and if no one likes you then neither should you.

You will suffer in silence
Because everyone thinks that you're fine.
You have to follow a strict diet or else your popularity will die.
No will see the cuts on your thighs because that's the only place they won't show.
You can cut your shoulders, your wrist or stomach but people will see and think of you as a depressed emo and no one wants to be seen with that freak.

Society has girls be trapped in a box where they follow the same horrible routine.
Inspirational people say that the box is paper and you can just break it to be free.
If the box is paper why am I so weak?
Why can't I break it?
Those inspirational people are wrong.
The box isn't paper.
It's stone.

Was I scared?
--Well, when she was coughing her lungs out and had to run to the sink to spit in order to breathe again, I kind of got scared. And when I took a hit and the smoke filled my lungs, pulled the bowl out, breathed in more smoke, held it in, finally let it out and passed it to my uncles girlfriend, I was scared; yes. I could feel my lungs blackening and my chest burning, eyes watering, and nothing but coughing. I just remember thinking "it's Christmas. Why am I doing this? It's Christmas." But that didn't stop me from grabbing the **** again. Eyedrops were a life saver, so was my uncle's water. With my knees trembling and my heart racing I got in the car and headed back. My cousin made a joke claiming it to only be funny when we were high, then apologized for it being so stupid. We drove back to the house -- yes we had a designated driver, and stumbled out of the car and went back into my Nanny's house like nothing had happened. Talking to my family was not the easiest, but no one suspected a thing. Eyes droopy, room turning in circles, cotton mouth, slow speech, all things that happened while trying to keep cool.

I guess you could say I had a high and mighty Christmas this year.

i scrape by with poems and songs and each of them says "there is purpose, there is love," and I hoard them as my senses ring and touch turns intangible and the music sings "you are something, God
i don't know what,
but you're something."

rows of torn laces
love that never exited
eyedrops that blur my vision
love. or is it evol ?

Absolutely awful
Neon and indigo
I bought
A crouton for my niece she sits in the cellar,
And my bucket is full.

About time now, and clacking, clacking
Eyedrops with red dye, pick up your mouse you swine.
Merely dreaming all the time,

Tuesdays at the park and never crying

Again