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an open space for youth writing & mental health discussion
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 My trembling hands pick up the phone,
A game of roulette in her tone, Will her sour grapes distress me? Or will her sweet nothings caress me?  Her mind is an enigmatic flame.
What starts as dark quickly evolves into sparks, induced by the submergence of her true feelings.  The waves knock against my back leaving a slight sense of burning
It becomes a rhythm of pain and a burden against my consciousness The clouds start to spread until the sky turns an ominous gray Waves get larger and their foamy white tops turn into sharp daggers stabbing the water  I forget the last time
I set foot in a park I forget my old friends Their laughs and smiles and mannerisms I forget what my grandfather looked like He exists solely in sepia tone portraits  [Content warning: self-harm/suicide attempt. Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255]
“Get out of our way, weirdo!” they shouted. I felt like I was being crushed under a mountain, My heart pounded in my chest, tears came next, I felt lonely, fallen and devastated.  [Content warning: depressive/anxious thoughts]
no one wants someone so broken they can’t pick up the pieces of the wreckage everyone wants someone who’s made it through the dark has harrowing stories about how they faded until there was nothing left then found a miracle hidden in shadow  I see myself abandoned in infinity.
there'll be glass there, glass where the raindrops will race. an unending, ethereal solitude an abandoned existence.  one: lessons
i remember my father talking in the kitchen about the chinese dragon as he prepared his lunch. “it’s a symbol of power,” he told me, “strength, and luck.”  orange skin between my teeth,
the smoke-sweet flavor still remains; on my shirt are orange stains, the table holds a citrus wreath: drops of juice wet underneath while I sit with a rotting brain.  the tree splits open
and I see every pair of open arms I’ve ever known some innocent most decapitated and decaying, they skulk towards the version of me that asked for a glass of water. opaqueness  [Content warning: mentions of self-harm, depression]
i. there is a mermaid in the bathroom, and her alabaster heart splays moondust on the tiles. i find iridescent tears clogging the drain / unconsciously, my fingers reach out to clutch / beauty in its final moments, reveries / fluttering like decaying butterflies to a sky / with opened arms.  In the photo my father took last year,
my grandmother and I stand on the shaved grass in the front yard of her house in Gonjiam. The sweet and fruity aroma of Mugunghwa flowers wafts across the garden. I see the watercolor sky free of clouds and pigeons graze over  i wonder why girls have to be broken to be beautiful
and why boys wait to be fixed by hands that can barely hold their own weight he calls me at night and i can hear the candied, the crushed, the syrup dripping from his lips slurred words that shouldn’t feel this soft but they do, and there will be time to repent when the sun comes up  One day
Ah, one day I will look deep into your eyes In the depths of your black pupils And I will say that you planted sunflowers on me. They grow and curl up in my guts, The long green stems go up to my throat, They blur my vision, Steal the air from my poor lungs.  if only these chipped bones would feel
something bigger than breath chafing broken-elevator lungs, the thistles prickling in wait under my skin. cast a fishing line into sullied consciousness and you’ll find shards of sea glass, ennui eroded until it shines like something beautiful.  Jesus
my prayers chant before dawn cross shine pure like morning sun my deep piety prompts hands to grip like mussels scorching breathing floating above stubborn clavicle weep within my wonder Your Bible of my profanity  taps on the door and other clichés,
sometimes i wonder if i cry too much. now i didn’t know there was an upper limit to salted tears and wilted water, a quota on how much redness could take over a face until i felt myself cold on the ground, having hit the ceiling and ricocheted back--  Manuel’s neck fried under the cruel Texas sun. His favorite long-brimmed Toquilla hat would have protected him. Instead, a baseball cap was a scant substitute. Carlos, his boss, demanded, “Look like you belong here. Not a lawn monkey.”
Manuel picked up a heavy saw and climbed the first of five large oak trees. His usual partner had called in sick. The two were the only Ecuadorians on the landscape crew. Hours later, Manuel’s t-shirts and pants dripped with sweat. The saw frequently slipped from his grip. I am going to finish cutting the last branch and come down for a short siesta, thought Manuel. He was perched on a thick tree limb when it snapped. For an instant, Manuel felt the cool breeze on his wet skin as his small body plummeted to the ground. The bliss was snatched away by the agony of the saw landing on him. The world around the boy faded black.  There are days
I have wondered if I am truly a poet, If I will ever belong. There are days when I know That I should hear the people telling me to take my time And to love deeply and To hurt incredibly Because the ending will be all the more worth it.  [Content warning: strong language, drug use, sexual reference]
It’s always winter there, but it feels like autumn, because it’s all slightly dead and slightly broken. It’s 2013 and you’re still young and skinny and your family can afford the trip. They use pounds there but the pounds look like big stamps and you forget it’s money and you start buying stuff only a teen would. It’s 7:30 not 4:20 but you’re smoking all the same. You don’t care, you have long, silver cigarettes (the cheapest, still too expensive) for breakfast. You drink Monster before classes, not coffee, because you know you’ll need it and because you pretend to care but don’t and that’s okay because you’re 16 and in love and there’s parks everywhere and people say hi and no one steals a thing because you’re in Europe and South America is far away.  I was on the rooftop when this happened. It was New Year’s Eve – this last one. Up there, looking up, the sky was poorly lit. The stars hid for the most part, faintly winking, coming back every now and again only to dissolve again, and everything, for a moment, wasn’t so bad. I don’t know why I was up there. I only ever go up when the net is gone, and it must have been so on that black, little night. It was quiet, simple, but it wasn’t quiet for long. I heard a whisper, another whisper, more whispers until I could hear music – music faint and at the back. It was the whispers that sounded and what made me, as I did without my realizing so, walk to the edge of my roof, where, looking down, I could see a group, lined up in a circle, half of them smiling and half of them nervous. I rested my elbows on the railing and leaned as far as I could. I watched and listened.
 Father plays hide and seek with us every night before we go lie on the petals,
He hides in the corner that leads him out of the house/ he will come back/ he will come back/ he will not/ I'm grateful that he does come back every time I dip my feet in the warm water he brings home every night, Guilty of doing so  I. The Goldcutter
Most people remember my mother for one thing: her golden hair. Everyone used to treat it like it was something to behold, but I’ve always thought hair was hair and that was it. Then again I wasn’t blessed with Mother’s blondeness, or her beauty for that matter, as both Mother and the other neighborhood matrons have been keen to point out.  In the slender branches of an oak tree, a small songbird alighted gracefully, the branch trembling slightly under its tiny feet. The wind whispered as the bird’s eyes darted around, scanning its surroundings. Suddenly, the bird lifted its head, letting a melody pour from its throat: four short, gentle notes, followed by a rapid trill. The bird paused, looked around, and then repeated the melody.
 [Content warning: panic attack, depression]
mental illness: the musical off-broadway run/lights go down/slowly/then all at once/then the theatre becomes unsettling/begins to vibrate/slowly warms itself/darkens/nervously sweats/end of act one/they call that number panic attack/critics say it’s an immersive experience/you feel like you’re having a panic attack/maybe you do have a panic attack/this is the first act/conveniently placed so the cast can have their panic attack before stepping on stage/but they do/ |
