Step One: Dress for Success
Dawn yourself in armor each morning
Spikes and studs
Headbands and helmets
Strike fear into every man’s heart
And look good while doing it

Step Two: Be a Lotus Flower
A rose, a lily
Be a venus fly trap
Deadly nightshade
Lady Macbeth said it best
“Look like the innocent flower
But be the serpent under it.”

Step Three: Always Have a Perfect Manicure
Sharpen your nails into knives
Slit your attackers throat
With just one swift movement
Of the wrist
Walk away with the blood working as polish
They won’t be able to tell the difference

Step Four: Smile
Never let them see you crumble
Never let them see you for what you are
Human.
Put up the walls
Man the cannons
You’re no longer a girl
You are a castle
And they want to storm you

Step Five: Be Polite
Swallow the bad words that want so badly
To sting that *******
Who cut in line at 7 Eleven
Suppress the rage that makes the blood
Under your pretty skin
Rise to your cheeks.
Instead, when he’s not looking,
Slash his tires in the parking lot.

Step Six: Stay In Shape
How else are you going to be able to survive
When the apocalypse comes
And its only you left

Step Seven: Focus on Your Education
So when the boys at school
Groan because they have to work with you on the English project
You can spit out verses of Shakespeare
And Frost
And Plath
And make them shake in their
Khaki shorts

Step Eight: Don’t Forget Where You Cme From
Don’t forget the hours
Your mother spent in labor
Pushing you through heaven’s doors
Don’t forget the women who came before you
The women who have tried so hard
To be the perfect girl
To collapse themselves into paper
To roll themselves like dough
Don’t forget those women,
Those girls.
Don’t forget to kiss your wrists each night
And say thank you to the stars.

I didn’t realise I was a blaze until I was twelve and the blood boiled beneath skin until I cut it open—(free free free free free free)—and my best friend asked me what is this before saying I love you over and over until she cried. I didn’t cry. I haven’t cried in a long time.

I have been hating my pulse for so long I do not remember how it felt to be grateful for the thud of my heart—I wish there was a wikihow on how to ruin your body in the most satisfying way possible. I would read that until it was burned into my eyelids, I would whisper it until my mother still hears it years after I’m gone, words poured into the walls of my childhood bedroom.

step one* // live in denial for most of your life. tuck yourself into closets and cupboards and slow-cooking pots of rice until all you have left to offer her is your warming breath

step two // warm her hands with your breath. tell her she's worth more than *that guy, than the number on the scale, than her grades, than anything in the world

step three // don't think about kissing her when her lips are bitten with worry. don't think about kissing her when you're tired and it's two a.m. and god, she looks so beautiful today. don't kiss her. don't kiss her

step four // let your breaths fill the closets again. you are eternal, you are infinite, you are alone, but you still have her

step five // write her a poem. metaphorize your heart of glass. verbally trace her hipbones. tell her she is a constellation.

step six // "accidentally" give her the poem. laugh it off when she says that poetry's not her thing, anyway.

step seven // only cry when you are alone.

step eight // bare your skeletons to her unflinching mouth. it's cold and dark where she comes from, too

step nine // when she tells you she loves you, let her. hold onto her tight enough to shatter your ribcage.

step ten // let her tear the breath from your lungs-it's all you had left, anyway.

I skipped the second half of school,
went home and grabbed a shovel.
As I was digging a hole big enough to bury my problems,
my friend texted me, said
Just watch two episodes of a show on Netflix,
then see how you feel afterwards.
Let me know if you feel any better.

I didn't text her back,
didn't tell her that 81 minutes of Beavis and Butthead
didn't quite do the job.
I didn't tell her that I googled "How to Love Yourself"
and I definitely didn't tell her that out of the 24 steps on WikiHow,
only one could save me.
Step number 5 was "Forgive yourself."
My first thought was,
How are you going to make that number 5?
23 other steps to being a passionate person who is truly grateful
do not compare to
forgiving yourself.
That's the hardest part.
My second thought was how.
How can I forgive myself,
when my dog greets me every morning
with bright eyes and puppy kisses
and I tell him to go away
and I push him off my lap
because he's taking up too much time?
How can I forgive myself
when step number 3 suggests keeping a diary,
and my first reaction is to look down at my legs because
my thighs are enough of a diary as it is.
These scars tell people more sad stories about me than they’d ever need to know.

Beavis and Butthead didn't do the job because there is no job
there's only volunteer work and benefits to claim.

It is hard to tell sugar and salt mixture apart by merely glancing or touching. I wish I could master the art of segregating them without any arduous chemical process.

According to wikiHow, one may assess the grain sizes of salt and sugar. But they too, acknowledge that table salt and granulated sugar do look very similar; the differences in these 2 is minute.

Option 2: Acquire a sieve sized in between the 2 grain sizes so as to let the salt through. However, this method is clearly not fool proof since not all salt and sugar grain is of the same size. A salt granule could mask itself.

The best way to separate salt and sugar is by adding absolute alcohol to the mixture as only the sugar will dissolve, salt is insoluble in alcohol. Then after, proceed to evaporate or boil off the sugar and alcohol solution and you will be left with salt.

Much like in life, it requires more than looking or tactility to tell between genuine and the pseudo. It takes time, takes processes and occurrences. I once more wish I could distinguish them easily.

Then again, as much as I am grateful for the sugars in my life, excessive amount of sugar isn't all that good for the health. Salt heightens the sweetness of sugar; it teaches me to appreciate sugar better. More importantly, salt, to a moderate amount, does good to the body too.

As such, I am grateful for both the sugar and salt in my life. Sugar provides a sense of joy, while salt is vital for personal growth.

Go anywhere.
Do anything that makes you happy.
Love proudly.
Say it profoundly.

She turned her home into a brothel,
and killed god in the process,
because he was an untrained craigslist hire
and struck a nail straight through a wire
hidden in the wall,
and died
foaming at the mouth.
She,
in turn googled a WikiHow
and did the work herself.

no pretty language please
i would like to combust

how does one recover from failure?
how does one not let it consume them?

wikihow then.

[Part 1 - Undone]
I got in the shower with my headphones on, listened to my favorite singer sing about getting naked and I haven’t related to a song as much since the time she sang about being born to be the other woman, cause I was born to be the other man and I made my peace with that.
Maybe we’ll meet in another life.
Maybe then I’d be happy by his side.
Anyway, I’m gone now.
I had no reason to stay.
Call me up if you want me to do something for you
like run an errand
or ****.
Ima set this as my voicemail, so all the men who things haven’t worked out with will hear it.
I could still give you something.
I’m not over you as much as I wish I was.

[Part 2 - Bitchslap]
My baby is the biggest sadist under the moon
You create mayhem but I can’t stop loving you
You make me sad like the ******* sky’s blue
You inflict pain and sweetness and I can’t break loose
It’s just circles, it’s just dead ends for you.
I could be a god, but still not good enough for you.
My baby is the biggest sadist under the moon
You paint me blue but I can’t stop liking you
I’m suffocating when we’re in the same room
You don’t give a ****, but I’m so obsessed with you.
I need a distraction
I need to take action
He’s sweet, but I’m auto-destructive with my fantasies.
I’m so not over any of them,
but I’m choosing to forget that I can’t have them.
I could still give them something.
Am I the only one who feels this way?
Do they ever think of me?

[Part 3 - Candy Crush]
Takes me to the Hamptons, I’m the apple of his eye.
Sings Dylan up real close, I’m his groupie for life.
Sweet like coca cola, I get high off him at night.
Chews me up and spits me up like I’m cherry bubble gum.
Takes me to festivals, I’m his vintage money.
Drives me to the vistas, I’m his bitter honey.
Without him I’m nothing, I’m the light of his life.
I’m his little baby, every day and night.
Sweet like sugar baby,
Only ride or die.
Nothing to lose baby,
Like Bonnie and Clyde.
I got nothing to lose now,
I’m his baby for life.
I learned to flirt from TV,
Decipher me from WikiHow.

[Part 4 - Errands]
Pick me up from school, we can run some errands.
Drive me to your place, choose the fastest highway.
Handle me with care, I go ahead like a Ferrari.
I speedrun relationships, ***** I’m motopapi.
Let me run my hands up your thighs, hang on your shoulders.
Let me caress your hip bones, gently collide our foreheads.
I can sleep on his hips, I ain’t going anywhere.
Follow me on socials and then to the shower.
Once you go bad, there’s no going back.
There’s no going back.
He can play some hip hop, so his neighbors won’t hear.
Crash me into the ocean, LAPD in the rear.
Once you go brave, you won’t ever give a ****.
You won’t ever give a ****.
I can undress him slowly, I can drive him like a Lambo.
Run my hands upwards like I’m doing a glissando.
Once you go to town, you’re a local there.
You’re a local there.
My consciousness is calling, Ima call you back in two weeks.
My senses are calling, Ima call you back in never.
“What the hell are you doing?” they keep asking me.
Running errands, that’s what I am doing.
I never had a boyfriend, but I’ve had fun in spite of that, that’s the least I could have so why’re they surprised I did?
Now I want the bare minimum and I wanna get it daily like I’m buying groceries, meet somebody new, write his number down on a Walmart receipt, call him up and get my hopes up, get hooked up and give him up.
I’ll see him in another life.
I might love him in two.
He might love me back in ten.
You’re hella cute, hella cute when you stutter, I like your face but you’re also hella outta reach, nowhere close to my dominion.
Hell, at least run an errand with me, it’s the bare minimum.
Pick me up from the gardens, we can waste our time.
Drive me to the riverbed just to break my heart.
Don’t ask me for money, hit me up to chat.
I got nothing to do, nobody here to love.
So it’s no wonder why I want all the things above.
Treat me like a ghost,
I’m gone as we’re speaking.
At least give me a call,
I’m not gone entirely.
I don’t regret what I do, even if it winds up fruitless.
It’s the minimum of it, both its grandeur and crudeness.
It’s a crazy thing.
You and I both know this won’t work, but it’s the best we’ve ever had.
It’s the best we’ve ever had.
The hardest thing is knowing when to give up and I made my peace with that.
I made my peace with that.
Run errands with me, take me to your place, give me what others have.
Get naked in the shower.
Get drunk on hope.
Give up, repeat, crash into the ocean.
Let’s do something together.
Just to stop feeling lonely.
Get high on the minimum of what we’ve never had.
Even if it’s for the night.
Drive me to your house.
Don’t blame me for being this way.
I gave up on the good life long ago and I made my peace with that.

So show, no soul
I’m cool, so cool
A tool, a fool
Highschool, cesspool

Like A B C, 1 2 3
Like way he be, wan’ to be

Better than me, than me, than you

No slowen, leave me be

Me, myself, and I
I shot me, myself
Catch myself when I hang me
Me, me, me
By myself

I
Wikihow noose knots
Not a cry for help
How do you cry out

A note loose leaf
With a noose knot

**** out my way, **** out my way
Im in my way, Im in my way

Luck run thin, eat a buck
Shot, blood all over Bathory ****
Blood pumpin, heart open, veins open
Open heart, open artery, deep cut

Surgical precision
Practical decision
Painful incision
Vertical division

I have depression