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a space for youth writing on mental health & identity
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 that winter night, your voice sent the sky into flames
when you asked about the smears of dirt on my arm city lights, acid rain, wishing you didn’t believe a word when i told you it was to feel alive now that it’s all gone  my scraped knees are tinted with the primary colored paint
of the schoolyard. the memories have cheapened but they hurt still, sepia-toned yet somehow fresher than morning dew. i scrubbed at them with the bristles of dollar-store toothbrushes dipped in rubbing alcohol, secretly relishing the burn. the scratches on my palm disappear in the daylight, simple wounds of self-protection.  time glided through us quickly
and the memory of you began to vanish like a coffee stain i kept rubbing away for years. i’ve changed enough for you to not recognize me, but i imagine you are still the same.  I. growth
when i met you, you were a garden of bounty where nature reigns superior and, around you, i could lose myself in the skies kissed golden and trees intermingled with the stars above, i could melt into a tornado of rose petals and stars divine; i could sink into the throes of savage passion.  He is a knotted mess of nerves
limping under the full moon. Plans have bloomed behind his eyes for him to fall back with the tide.  for the longest time, the years after i left us
things changed: the sweets jar was always empty. hollow. it was a curse--every candy i tried would taste like headlights that evening  it’s been six years since my
parents have read my writing. my mother doesn’t mention my poetry anymore; she hates my selective memory. she says that i  Why can't I see you? My vision is clear.
You're standing in the distance, close yet far. The grand door that leads to you is ajar, But the road that leads to you is obscure. I must blindly footslog to your frontier.  What is it to be human?
Is it flesh and bones, And the blood that courses through your veins? Is it the process of thoughts and emotions?  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. |
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