No matter what I do, I'm always being told what I'm doing wrong.
"Just stop! You can't do anything right!"
"Why do you do the things you do?!"
"Can't you do anything right?"
As I sit in this lonely bed tonight, all I can think of is how I'm the screwup of my life.
How I will never achieve the statuses my elders have.
How I keep letting those around me down.
I am the screwup.
Nothing more and nothing less.

Crawl crawl
Burning through
Obsessions
Rotten stew
Crawl crawl
Through the pain
Remission
Is a joke
And life was a game
But is a remainder
of screwups and screwdowns

Crawl Crawl
Burning through
Possessions
Deadbeat crew
Crawl crawl
Forgotten stains
Permission
Is always denied
And rebuttals dumped
In trash cans full
of screwups and screwdowns

Drilling a hole
Finding geodes where a core was
Cold and dark and empty
Drilling a hole
Finding loneliness inside
It is who you are

Extinguished supernovae
Could have contained
And still the darkness would have stayed
Crawl crawl
burning through
your house of cards
melting all definitions
You're a screwup
Still alive

I was raised on ridicule
Scorn and blaming.
Belittling laughter
Jokes and shaming.
Though nobody who knew
Seems to doubt it
They sure as hell wish I
Would shut up about it.

That’s just the way it is today.
Abused children, it seems
Upset people; therefore they
Are best not heard, just seen.

Four Eyes, Toothpick and Brat
These are a few of the names.
You might as well call them freaks
And creeps. It amounts to the same.
Screwup, ******, fumblefingers,
Bones, Spazz and Stumblebum.
Pantywaist, wussy, ditz and then
Plenty more where those came from.

From birth to death it seems
Sometimes, throughout all of life
Some people just don’t care
That scorn can cut like a knife.

It makes people question
Every move they might make
When somebody keeps on
Calling them things like flake.
The condemnation and rebuke
Aren’t covered up by the laughter.
People should question deeply
The effect they think they are after.

So cut the kids a break
It won’t turn out wrong
And the ridicule of a child
Can last their whole life long.

Are you okay?
Are you feeling alright?
What is wrong?
Why don't you talk to me anymore?
You changed
Are you better now?

Yes I'm okay
I want to die still but I'm okay.
My head is wrong I'm wrong the scale is wrong the mirror is wrong.
I get anxiety when I talk to people now,
It's not just you.
I changed because my head tried to **** me.
I am so much better.
I'm good.
I just want to cut tonight
I just want to die tonight
I just want to puke tonight
But I can't
Cause I promised my parents I wouldn't.
I want to self destruct.
"Try coping skills"
Coloring a picture is not getting rid of my head.
I can't deal with you. My head is my head and you don't understand it. No one does. Im a screwup.
I'm so sorry. Okay.
I am broken.
Okay I'm sorry
I need to grow up but I can't and I want to die
I don't want to try and grow up.
Mom I'm tired so tired and I need a break.
I need to breathe.
Death isn't beautiful, but neither is living.
I don't know what I'm doing.
I have to keep trying
Keep living.
This is really hard.

There once was this girl
Who represented a black pearl
At first glance she was a screwup
At second glance a mistake
But in 6 months this girl grew up
And became the one girl I, let my heart, take
I realize this rare, black pearl
Is one very special special girl

Am I healthy?
Me, the girl who stays up
Until 5:00 in the morning every day
Eats one square meal a day
The girl who can't help but feel
Like she was a mistake
Like she is alone
Like she isn't worth it
Like she was a mistake
A screwup
The girl who is plagued with anxiety
Every second of every day
Resulting in a stomach upset
And a head aching
The girl who had a panic attack
over nothing
but just the thought of existing

Am I healthy?
Yes
Say the people who gave me life
telling me I'm just overreacting
"you're fine" they say

I am so tired, every single day
I just want to live again

Three
And
"Me"
Rhyme fairly easily

But what doesn't
Is years and life

Three years of my life
Cover my adult experience

Three careers (as if) of mine
Cover my financial experience

Three relationships of mine
Cover my romantic experience

Three years ago
Was my junior year of school.
My first job, my first heartbreak, my first license. So many firsts

Three years ago
Was my first screwup
All the heartbreak i encountered
Was my own fault
All the friends I didnt have anymore
Was my own fault
Oops

Two years ago
Was my second relationship
She hardly existed for anyone but me
And that was okay
And that
Was my own fault
My second job and second license followed suit

One year ago
Was my third job
My third relationship
A bit bigger than the last ones
But thats how it works isnt it

Life is in threes. Third times the charm. A trinity.

Three years,
Three jobs,
Three lives,

Two heartbreaks and a relationship

Three

It’s unusual for strong expressions to transform contextually in common usage.  “I’m *******.” is one great example. “I’m *******.” is, in origin and essence, a toned-down version of “I’m ******.” Whichever form you choose, both are self-proclaimed damnation. Unlike “I’m ******.” though, “I’m *******” has lost all coarseness and is seldom eschewed no matter how young or prim the lips that form the words. We hear it at work, on elementary school playgrounds, at church, on the news. It has become in the English language the universal acknowledgement of hapless circumstance, foregone conclusion and frustrated failure. And it translates easily from self to others to groups of any size and may be past, present or future tense. So next time you hear, “I/we/you/she/he/they are/we’re/will be *******.” pause ever so slightly and exchange “******” for “*******” and see if the transformation is as subtle but startling for you as it is for me.

In a similar vein, being a screwup is unfortunate but not nearly as bad as being a ******. Here again, two totally identical connotations of identical origin. One you hear everywhere, the other primarily in bars, the street, sporting events and among close friends and closer enemies talking or not talking politics.

George Carlin’s hilarious “Usage of the Word ****” routine gave numerous examples of how versatile is the word “****.” Some, but not all, could use “*****” but few of the interchangeable examples use the word ***** nearly as ******* effectively as the word ****. And some are not interchangeable at all: we don’t talk about things being “nearly as ******* effective.... It just doesn’t work. Similarly, “I’d like to ******* *****.” makes perfect sense but “I’d like to ******* ****.” makes no sense at all. So the words are not interchangeable.

But, for some reason, over time, the English language evolved, letting ******* mean ****** in a socially acceptable way while also letting ******* mean ****** in a ****** way or in a ******* way. And I have a theory how it happened.

Have you ever had to put a ***** in something directly over your head and maybe a bit out of reach? Of course you have. And like many a normal person you found the task embarrassingly difficult. After once or twice there’s yet again. You say, Ah ****! I have to ***** up.” And you knew you were ******. And you’d inevitably **** it up even if ever so slightly dropping the *****, or worse, falling off the ******* ladder. Then you’d really be ******! But you didn’t say that. No, that wouldn’t be polite. So you’d say you were ******* because you had to ***** up and would likely ***** it up and die trying falling off the ladder. And with so many people over and over again not so proficient with a ***** driver the language simply evolved.

Now I know you find this whole discussion a bit screwy. That’s okay. Even George found no reason to say something was “a bit fucky.”

Thank you.

2020 All screwy rights reserved

for the millionth number i can’t count of times you’ve made my heart want to spout out profanities and send a flood a ‘rushing your way
i hate to say
but i will with my entire chest cavity
i do not owe you.
i am not your pretty princess ready to bend to your wind or your will
i am starting these words with “i” because even that you didn’t allow
my opinions didn’t matter, my music taste didn’t matter
for the meaningless songs of yours i just smiled along to and tried to humor you about them so you wouldn’t feel slighted were awful
you can’t treat people like objects who are only supposed to serve you and expect me to love you back
and the audacity for your mind to be so clogged and to think that you will make mine too
i can forgive your crimes, i will forgive your crimes,
don’t you even dare think that i won’t.
you’re pathetic and that’s honestly incredibly sad
that your parents never loved you and all the experiences with awful people is the only love you’ve ever had.
tearing people’s skin off and expecting them to kneel at your feet,
you thief,
you merciless useless shell of a woman
what mercy do you think you will receive when you give me nothing when i have done absolutely nothing to hurt you
and trust me, i’d be the first one to know.
where’s that conscience of yours?
not in that heart of steel, nor in those dying robotic eyes
you are nothing to me
after how you play me like a toy
like a mendable device,
i will still be so nice, so smiley, so personable, so favorable to you
and my brain tells me that you don’t have an empathetic bone in your body,
and it would be a million trillion times right.
it makes sense when your parents haven’t taught you a single moral in your almost eighteen years of living, although you act like you’re three years old with a problem with sharing.
sorry, i’m using correct grammar, something you don’t know.
how many times can someone make excuses to just avoid you?
why will i haul you around this town just for you to call me the b word and act like it’s some kind of silly goofy joke.
i am not laughing.
are you?
oh, of course you are, you plotting sinister smarty
and i feel remorseful for saying those things about you when you say way worse and never move your tongue to apologize.
it’s just one word girl.
oh wait, it might be too hard for you to pronounce.
“i’m sorry” takes too much effort.
you never loved me
and i always knew that, but admitting that to myself would make me feel more alone, but now i don’t care at all
i am completely apathetic to you.
completely indifferent to you.
i never loved you.
come on, it was obvious.
it is obvious.
get a grip.
treating your friends like trash on a dirt road is not how kindhearted people act.
you are childish, childless, erratic, insane, a literal crisis in and of itself.
you are not my friend.
you are not my support system.
you are no one to me except a brutal dictator, picking and choosing what i can and can’t do with my life.
heck, i treat the ground i walk on with muddy shoes better than you treat me.
must be nice to feel so high up, but know deep down that you are just so low.
so low i can’t even see you from here;
i don’t want to.
you are utterly awful and i forgive you for that,
some people just can’t help their insufferableness
i think i just made up a new word,
but it defines you perfectly so i will devote it to you,
you slimy intolerably unempathetic (another word) angsty teenager.
get a grip and be nicer.
it really is not that hard to treat me like a human being.
i’ve been doing it to you this whole time
and you’re lucky i haven’t complained once.
so for now;
leave me alone.

Sometimes I walk through the halls in the dark and remember
Sometimes I look down into the toilet and see the pills and poison I threw up that night
Sometimes I wake up and do not remember falling asleep and I am terrified to think:

What if I did it again? I know I didn’t want to

Sometimes I want to leave the house again in the dead of night and walk back down that road
Just to see if I could find that place again
To feel the presence of God
And the cold in the air
And know that I am going to be okay.

I know there is a crumpled suicide note somewhere in the walls of this room
I have not read it
I am afraid to.
I am more afraid someone else will find it first
That they will think it recent
Because
Because maybe I didn’t date it

But maybe I did.

I don’t remember why I came back
I don’t remember the final thud of the hammer of reasons against the nail of decisions.
I remember crying
The cold seeping to the bones
The streams of messages
All from one person
Lingering by the road sign for one last goodbye
Back and forth
Back and forth.

Please let me go.

I come to the crossroads
I linger
Think about turning around
Don’t be a screwup, boy
Not any more than you already are.
Mama’s gonna **** me
But isn’t that what I wanted?

What do I want?

Mama’s gonna **** me
When I come home
How am I gonna break this
I talked to myself all the way back
“I’ll explain on the way there
Just take me to the hospital.”
I lost my courage after hurling what looked like ******* orange crush
I can taste death in the soda pop.

Driving 90 on the highway curve
I’ve lost my way
I’ve lost all sense of time and space

I’ve lost me.

08:05
Geometry
12:34
History

I have to tell them what you did
They have to know
Poor boys
Housing a freak show.

“I heard you walking around. but I just went back to sleep.”

"Girlie"
Get better soon
The flinch in my tired heart
Her teardrops and a lost embrace
Mama’s in the backseat

“My baby tried to **** herself”

I still have those clothes
I could have died in
I think I'm wearing the pants
As I write this past one in the morning
I know exactly where the shirt is
Crumpled in the drawer.
Just a stomachache. Back to school tomorrow. Then someday I’ll come clean.

Sometimes I wish I’d said yes
I wish they would have known to coddle me
To treat me like a broken vase
A tortured child who’s seen to much
That’s all I was.

But now I’ve superglue.
And I'm healing.
In order to see the truth within
Sometimes I have to turn around.