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a space for youth writing & mental health discussion
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 I hope I haunt you.
When you turn a sharp corner, I'll float in your peripheral vision. Incredulously, you’ll turn your head. It will be a nameless girl, with the same-colored hair and a similar stance. Your gut will wrench. My apparition is not shakable.  I step
Into the rain, tiptoeing Amongst the fallen leaves And flowers. The air, eager Lover, clings to me, infatuated follower Of LED suns and stars.  She’s on her way to pick me up and I think she should be here soon. Maybe she’s running late, perhaps because of Jonathan. That boy can get lost in his own little world of play sometimes, a consequence of being an only child. I do wish they would have more kids. I think that would help Jonathan get out of his shell a bit. He’s so shy and I know he has some trouble with the other boys at school.
 did you know the world revolves
around a glass lighthouse, illuminating Lost silhouettes? Did you know we live to roam within the archives of double- Sided mirrors?  [content warning: self harm, abuse, bullying]
# “Write her a note and she will hear Under her umbrella, your thoughts are safe Burn the letter and it will be clear As the paper disintegrates” #  [content warning: mentions of blood]
staring in to the dwindling twilight like an unavoidable traffic signal at the crosswalk, I feel it coming. bandaged to the side of the bed, a petty fetal semicircle with a heating pad enveloped in lumpy, pandemic ballooned- fat chunks.  She lived in her own world. It was less of a world though, and instead seemed to resemble a shadow more. She lived in a shadow. It followed her around like a puppy-eyed dog would to an owner. It lingered in the corner of every classroom she would be sitting in the back of. It would watch her as she got into the back of a car after a tiring day of school. It would question her as she got home and barged straight to her room in a clear state of distress. It would stare at her as she stared in disgust at herself in the mirror. It would judge her as she crawled into bed and slowly started her soft weeps of the night.
 Emptiness
Is an empire of spirit Her kerosene spilled on my sheets I lost my eyeglass in the ensuing flames As it melted I thought of last night’s sunset Maybe the sun will disfigure my memory  one.
the string of pearls on my wrist, moonlit, is mine. you’re counterfeit. tailored to my wrist to fit, pearls are my bloodline. the string of pearls on my wrist, moonlit,  [content warning: mentions of self harm]
Drowning. In water you couldn’t see. You took the blade to your wrist so you could breathe a new way, but please, don’t chain yourself to these strategies, eventually scars will form and you will learn to bleed differently,  Inspired by Rudy Francisco's My Honest Poem.
I was born on December 21. That makes me a Sagittarius on the cusp of Capricorn. If I was only born a few hours later, I’d maybe carry the strong, confident, practical, disciplined traits of a Capricorn. The kind of girl that’s first to raise her hand to answer every question the teacher asks in class. The kind of girl who doesn’t stare into the mirror for longer than she should.  It began at the base of your navel,
a lonesome twinge, a subtle ache for something more. But you refused to grant it nourishment, to feed the monster you dubbed a hindrance against yourself. So call it pathetic, call it unstable, turn your back and do your best to forget.  I’ve stopped trying to get out of bed, and I rest my laptop on my stomach. Water droplets form on the screen, hairline cracks creep up the sides. The glass melts into a sludge onto the keyboard, and I shut my laptop and pull the blankets over my face.
 [content warning: domestic abuse]
911 what’s your emergency? ‘he is going to kill me; he is going to kill me’ Then one-year probation, just like O.J Simpson. Daddy was my hero; I never said a word. none of the screaming and shouting I had heard, Scratches not like falling in the playground, just ones that kept her bound.  she sat at the bank of the sea, gasping like an athlete. her face, like a flour in an oven, swollen as water dripped down on her dress.
 If a portrait can sit comfy
on a pleated seat placed at the top of your heart. Drinking the pelt, by the smooching and caressing your cold lips.  I stand
in the ruck of my fault, fighting the croaks that lurks around my ears; I stand, while my shadow sits on the rustling brook by the sideways.  If your life flashed before your eyes,
What would you remember? What your first kiss felt like Sloppy and full of possibility As you stood beneath a sky of stars Open to the world You're ashamed of what you dream at night  On the table was a vase of roses. Big, fat roses with coffee cream petals, just about dripping onto cloth. They sank into baby’s breath, all of it blooming through the glass.
Beside it was a cloth-covered basket. Around this, little saucers formed a ring, each displaying a rose-shaped pat of butter. One for each of us. The whole table was a pearly, silver-studded array of about ten thousand forks. Even water goblets wore diamonds, glinting in chandelier light. Every table was the same. Only a skewed piece of parchment, ‘table eleven’ inked in calligraphy, distinguished ours from everyone else’s. So I guess I’ll introduce us now. It’s only polite.  [content warning: self harm]
Our arms bulged, grotesque muscles in just-visible chunks. Our veins danced with each push of the dumbbell, like shovelling into panting earth. We imagined snaring grey, jiggling worms in the dirt of the earth. We imagined letting them crawl up the molding handle, up our faded button ups, and down our sweat-soaked stretch marks  [content warning: eating disorders, self harm]
count your ribs, fingering the clinging meat rack by rack, selecting a prime cut for picnic lunch, still raw, bouncing with fleshy aliveness of a pig.  She saw blue.
The girl’s head was under the vast lake, her eyes tracing light that glimmered like watery rays around her. She was sinking to the bottom—her arms splayed out, reaching for the surface, as her brown hair rippled against the tides rushing around her. The bubbles of air that escaped her mouth and floated to the surface gleamed with the last ounce of sunlight—of life—before darkness suffused her vision. And she closed her eyes.  [content warning: eating disorder]
i’ve emerged into the town you might call death, of cold and austere aspect: the clapboard houses sewn in rows of needling teeth. there is no excess here except the acrid second scents of cookies, second cake returning from sojourn inside this animal of an overbalanced body, a worthless, grunting ballast. |
