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a space for youth writing on mental health & identity
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 The world, for some unexplained reason, was plunged into another Ice Age. Hundreds of blankets of snow wrapped every corner of the world. The once bright sunlight grew weak as it tried to pierce through the never-ending clouds. Snowstorms were frequent, keeping any living creature from staying out too long. The winds howled constantly, singing in agony at the state of the world.
 look. psychedelic perspective. I am euphoric
scrap metal, acrylic plastic, resin, glass. Melt me. mold me into your perfection. Knead bubbles from my skin and lumps from my breasts. let slip. a mistake. Retinas for pimples, toenails for eyes, lines for curves, listen to doo-wop with iron fists clamped in belly fat. Chew me like tobacco, spit to the ground.  As I sit in the lap
of today’s expectations, I begin to melt My limbs turn from flesh, blood, and bone to something I could’ve sucked through a milkshake straw on my fifth birthday  [Content warning: eating disorders]
“See the world in green and blue See China right in front of you See the canyons broken by cloud See the tuna fleets clearing the sea out See the Bedouin fires at night See the oil fields at first light And see the bird with a leaf in her mouth After the flood all the colors came out” Beautiful Day, U2 [Content warning: drinking, mentions of suicide]  numbers to numbers to darling faces—
the union of i and μ. as if a term could rouse its whisper and whittle a heart to binary. I know you’re not a button, hun because pushing won’t bring you back to life.  [Content warning: implications of sexual assault]
Jiejie presses my lips, morganite to ruby quills. Damp nibs sew asphalt skin into freshly fallen snow: a column of peach glissandos  Your name is very pretty.
Mama, what does it mean? Beauty. You are lucky to be born so beautiful. [Content warning: wildfire, mention of death] I saw her pray to the burning trees & hungry frogs  throats open. Licking leaves. Ashing the sparkle.
Don't you remember what starless night smelt like? Ten thousand crisp knuckles packaged under broiling critters the children of petroleum & lighting fever.  Preserved in caramel sugar, memories of my sister melt like candy on my tongue. She vanishes into a sharp sliver in my mouth, cuts and draws blood, disappears before I can carve her into my flesh.
I remember meeting a baby as a child, a heavy head supported in the crook of my elbow. I remember the way her eyes opened wide and searching, perfect and ready to find the word ‘gullible’ on the ceiling. Her tiny baby’s fist curled tight around my finger, grasping. I remember my lips shaping her name—something pretty, melodious and ringing—even as it fades away. Two syllables, sharp consonants softened and made sweet by round vowels. Something with an A sound. It started with a K, or maybe a D.  Yuxuan, when I was young,
there was a cavern in the Sierra Nevada Where my brother was crushed by constellations of burning dynamite. I escaped only to return next spring, to find his body under slabs of snow.  [Content warning: eating disorders, body image]
“It’s really not that bad, Nia. You own far less flattering dresses.” Gee, thanks Maddison, for your incredibly helpful feedback. I’ll make a point to write it down. “I don’t know, I hate the way it fits around my hips.”  but what have i got to do with living,
being alive is often a death sentence & a condensed cloud of unfulfilled dreams. shrouded in a divorce between soul & body, i have vacated this cave of chaos you call  three sixty five days ago _ was when death sneaked into our home
and wrapped a towel around your knee dragging you far into a night that ceased to become day. the night you were christened by death, i mean the night you turned an undertaker's item stuffed down the belly of earth you became a new name stached in history. the air reeked of the aura of tongues sore with grieving songs. when i say  today marks the first of many dawns i will stand
and glare from my kitchen window coffee in hand & watch dew-eyed as day tears open to light the sun is merely a bleach-mark and mist still rests  "Hi...? I’m sorry, I’ve never been here before. Is this the Cranium?”
The secretary didn’t raise her head. I cleared my throat and tried again. “I’m here about the Abyss. Is the boss here?” The secretary finally looked up. She looked me up and down. “Oh. Are you... the representative from the Frontal Lobe Department?” I nodded. “Yes. That’s me.”  [Content warning: mentions of grief, mentions of death]
I. I thought my life had ended in the same breath as yours, pulling my words like milk teeth; A plier yesterday, bare hands today. I recycle my spit, preach to unholy, unknown gods and sink into a seedy cavity in prayer.  The two boots go side by side,
dry as the rations of yesternight, devoid of the promised rain. They step over and around the ones who got too close, empty shells now barely breaking the surface of the Imjin River.  When darkness settles thickly o’er the sea
And rests upon the waves like blackened silk When water’s pulse does swirl in secrecy Within the nighttime cover of its ilk, |
