I Am Not Afraid to Disappear by Katherine Dyal (16, Texas)

[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 never wanted to do something wrong so badly.  
I’d lose my entire future and everyone’s trust for an hour alone in a room with you. 
For a taste of your mouth and a touch of your skin, 
For your winter sky eyes to lock on mine like a gunman lining up his sights. 
For your smile made of gold to be mine, all mine. 
For a chance to sit in your lap and touch the crinkles around your eyes  
              and listen to your voice whisper to me  
              as though I were the only one in the world who could hear it. 
But please believe me, I would never in real life. 
The girl who wants to ruin you is the smallest doll in my matryoshka, 
              and you will never get to meet her. 
I wish I were a doll, with ceramic cheeks that never stop smiling, 
Because glass eyes don’t cry, and I am tired of the failure of living beings. 
I want you to dress me up and brush my hair and hold me in your arms, 
But eventually you’ll pack me away in the boxes in the garage, 
              and I’ll miss you, but I’ll never show it, 
Because you don’t deserve the smallest droplet of my pain. 
I am not afraid to disappear. 
 
It’s too bright, and I’m speeding down the highway. 
What if this is the time I don't come home?  
Would you even miss me?  
Probably not, but God, I'd miss you. 
Since I can never be happy, I might as well be wrapped up in bandages, 
Stuck in with needles and splints and stitches and drugs, 
Bleeding internally because no one can see how badly I’m hurting. 
I might as well be draped in a sheet and wheeled down to the basement 
              and become nothing more than a pair of cold feet  
              with a nametag looped around the toe, 
And that’s all I’ll ever be, just a half-forgotten name and a draft of wasted potential, 
Until eventually, even that goes away 
Because you won’t remember me forever, 
        and I have no right to expect that of you. 
I am not afraid to disappear. 
 
I am not afraid to disappear. 
I am not afraid, but I am—oh God, I am. 
I don’t want to hurt you, so I will stay silent. 
It’s okay for me to hurt myself—everybody does it. 
It’s okay for me to rip out my dreams one by one, 
And leave the torn nerve endings dripping with blood on the linoleum floor. 
It’s okay for me to dig around with a scalpel  
              until every conversation with you I never had, 
              every single kiss I never got or gave, 
              ​everything I’ve ever wanted but never, ever had 
Is pooling up on a metal tray— 
Doctor, pass the preservation fluid. 
I don’t want to live with what I can’t have, but I have to. 
I don’t want to live at all, but I have to, 
Because I am made of ashes, and you are a gust of wind, 
And I am afraid to disappear.