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a space for youth writing on mental health & identity
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 The interior appears oddly bright, and so blue -- a
perfect color for the innocent fish circling, blissful, along the walls, unaware that they’re already trapped. Directly across from the entrance rests a bed. Firm foam padding for easy sanitation, rubber straps along the sides, a pull-out stool at the base -- the sort tiny legs can never resist, climbing high onto the bed.  I wasn’t always this way
I don’t know when things changed, but I know in elementary school I didn’t throw up because someone dragged me to a party I didn’t stay in bed because the thought of talking to people drove me to tears
 I remember purgatory
psychiatric central steaming painted car vents, driveway, crowded kids Brother One, Brother Two, and me-- long and boring road to the Ben Gordon Center with a pointless blue dog statue  Bones of the rain
Wind shrieks, whistles And I remember All the world was bones Dry, hollow, shaking Icicles, like bones, hanging from the rooftops Sky like a gray glass eye And all the world was bones.
 The flames curled around the papery, inky tales of time, turning them to dead ash. The smoky smell of thousands of burned pages and tonnes of melted leather wafted through the air in a hazy vapour that shot up to hide the stars. A girl stood before the fire, which lit up the deep night, whilst casting dark shadows, like long knives, and sent them flickering across her face. Many such fires have been started – the particulars of which this one was, do not matter. And many such girls have stood before them in a likewise fashion: too young not to have sparkly eyes and furrowed brows, but old enough for their fists to be clenched, and feet unmoving long after they are left alone with the dark, once-starry night, burning forest their only warmth.
 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.  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. |
