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a space for youth writing on mental health & identity
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 and here you are, walking on your tightrope
asking yourself why there isn’t a net; the higher you are the quieter the audience— and so you keep walking and we’ll keep clapping and dancing and juggling around you while you promise to stay in line  The truth is,
If I could, I’d ask Atlas for his weight So that I could finally be free of mine. I would carry the weight of the sky on my back With the cry of the hawk, and the wisp of the dream, And I would be able to nod and wave, And live like the passing breeze.  [Content warning: implications of intimacy, medical procedures, self-harm, and suicide ideation]
I am not afraid to disappear. Strike me with the back of your hand, and I will crumble like pencil lead and scorched paper. I was already made of ashes, and now I'm falling apart. I want your fingers pressing into the back of my spine, Leaving fingerprint-shaped bruises on my skin until I shrivel up like a flower. I want your hands, with their knobbed knuckles, dark veins, and creaky bones, To scoop me up and cradle me like I'm about to die... and then let me slip through your fingers and onto the ground. Trying to hold on to me is like trying to keep water cupped in your palms, But God, I wouldn't mind being held against your skin. You can take and take and take until every last drop of me is wrung dry. I am not afraid to disappear.  I am a watcher,
through four panes and silver screens. The bad days are not like in the movies. I still rise from bed and drift to and fro, like a middle-class phantom. I call them my "sad days."  [Content warning: domestic abuse]
i wish i had remembered how it felt to fly. red tape wrapping. tenuous hands clutching. gritty plates shoving. he focused through, placid by the resonating light and haunting model dreams. while chasing in all lucidity, feeling gravity beneath, and exceptionally bound by the unwanted. nothing is more dignified than a textbook contradiction.  [Content warning: self-destruction and suicidal thoughts]
Cells multiply Cells die Skin spreads Elongated, warped Tear out my eardrums and it would still be there Pounding pounding pounding Every second reverberating through my mind I grow into the mold I can never break A timer just waiting until it goes dead The gears broken and pounding foreve  I killed her one night, when nobody else was around. I cannot remember if the moon and stars were gleaming above our heads, maybe, maybe not. I did not look at the sky when I killed her. I was so focused on my task that the world became a blur.
The only clear thing I can remember is that it was dark and that except for her tears it was silent. A thick, pasty silence that enveloped us like a blanket. I was scared. I knew what I had to do, but I was scared. It was my first killing, my first murder. I didn’t know what it would do to me.  Plane Trajectory (or, my mind, before):
Before was a plane that never landed never broke the gray-on-gray – neat straight lines, parallel, barbed grid – carpet of clouds  He stands, back to the wall
as the automobiles drag themselves through the rain (he's always wanted to ride in one, hear the rain click and bounce off the metal roof rather than soaking silently through his father's hat) headlights scaring the fog away billowing smoke that follows them like hounds on the trail.  diamond studded days
white sky swelling through windows of december frost sudden-bright of snow solar flares behind my eyes early years hidden  [Content warning: violence and body horror]
Rhynn gasped for breath, the water cupped in her hands above the bathroom sink drowning her. Trembling hands pushed the water to her face, attempting to put out the fire behind her eyes. God, she couldn’t breathe. Could not think. Could not make it stop. Her frail, shaking hands smeared the water across her sharp cheekbones, up toward the freckled bridge of her nose, and painted war marks on the plane of her forehead. It felt like blood. Quaking hands scrubbed harshly at the delicate skin of her face. Another gasp crested the threshold of her lips like a rope slipping from desperate hands and leaving burns in its wake. Her next swallow was of fire.  Every time I call Mother, I envision flashes
of the garbage bag she wears tied around her neck, how it crinkles each time she brushes against the floors of Langone. She tries to catch a wink of sleep each night.  I am inside a forest, walking on a path. I’m not sure how I got here, or if this is even real. There’s something mystical about it. I can’t quite grasp what it is, but I’m drawn to its spell. My feet move, whether I want them to or not. I have no choice but to move forward with them.
The path is gray. I don’t know where I’m going. I can only hope that my feet do. It’s chilly here and I don’t have a coat or a sweater. I can feel the breeze hitting my bare skin, sending a shiver through my body. I cross my arms tightly, trying to bring some heat into them as I continue to move forward.  There are instances in this life that continue to grasp at objects or ideas that I have failed to comprehend. What was so special about my days that required this longing solemn and inconsistent series of what others refer to as “ups” and “downs”?
 I gaze at the goldfish
in his luminous glass tank, watching him swirl through his bone-made castle, up and around like a waltz.  As a parent, you have the authority to instruct and control your children and, specifically, what they read. And the actions taken by other parents regarding what their children have access to read are their choice. Moms for Liberty is a group of Moms based in Brevard County who were the ultimate cause and support of the banned book list in the public school system of Brevard. While this does not restrict the buying of such books from bookstores and public libraries, it does limit the options of children who for any reason are unable to purchase said books, or do not have access to a public library. The specific topics of the books banned project the group's discrimination towards LGBTQIA+ representation, as well as their distaste for the criticism of conservative Christianity found in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The group’s addition of Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnegut Jr.) to their blacklist concerned many within Brevard, and Moms for Liberty has yet to respond to their inquiries about the removal of the classically assigned AP English novel. Inclusions of certain aspects of critical race theory in The Bluest Eye (Toni Morrison) qualified it to be added to the ever-growing list likely for reasons of interpretation and sensitivity. Whether certain themes should be off-limits to ‘protect’ children is the choice of the parents of those children and should not dictate accessibility for the whole public school student population.
 [Content warning: allusions to sexual assault]
and by july, i grew tired of beautiful boys. hearing their delicate sonnets and toying with their maple hair. so it was no surprise when i caught myself grinning at the girl who dove into lake erie, beaming as i pulled the soaked sweater over the top of her head, and laughing when i cut my finger wringing it.  The woods are bare
cleaved of tangerine, apricot, clementine, pomegranate leaves falling on already fallen leaves versicolor in the dirt  No need for pursed lips,
A bubbled throat, And eyelids held wide. Break down the dam, And let your tears flow. No need for feigned smiles, And years of practiced guiles.  Is there no strength in the art of delicacy? No shame when we walked away from my home, earth, foundation, and core with our bags packed and hands held so closely that our hope transpired. They say summer’s cruel compared to winter’s brutality, so spring must have been mercy and autumn erratic. All that is left is to fall from the chains of grace and honor. Screams that speak of and yet conceal cries and wallow at how love drove us to our ends. Did it? Your words. My heart. My words. Your heart. Crack. Layered crack. Combust. We know so little of it.
 I went to see the winter sky at night.
I was in the hills, and the wind blew ferociously. The stars looked so bright, my eyes- They could almost see me in that light. I was so dead when I was in the hills that night, I couldn’t feel anything except for cold numbness in January. I slithered out lies When they asked if I was doing alright.  The bitter aftertaste burns my tongue
Empty cups line the sides of my prison Eyes burn with rejection, As the dirty red scars into The page of my worth “You aren’t doing enough” I’m trying my best  for the Philippines
Mother lies awake in the shallows, hair of sea foam whispering around her limbs of islands and thinning streams. The coasts of her figure grow a glut of green on every mountainside, out of sight from the capital buried in her left lung; entombed in the tessellation of her highway skeleton.  In July, the pool overflows & the tree loses
its limbs. the garden gathering a glut of dragonflies & freesias. floodwater staining the asphalt all black. With the summer light fading, we chase shooting stars in the last quarter of the highway. the sky burning shade of tongues running over teeth. the route winding every way south. Highway winds spin me ‘round |
