nothin' wrong with you by Elizabeth Hsu (15, Texas)

at fifteen I feel like I’m barely a human. I’m
fourteen pages of tests and charts, stuck all
together with thumbtacks and flesh and a
broken signature for feet. 

I waddle around some pale liminal space with my
‘poor eye contact’, show off all the tables that
scream AVERAGE until I scream about my
charming yet controlled presentation— ​

---

oh 
god, 
I know I should be glad. 

“sit down at a chair, darling, 
just settle down, now will ya’?” 

I howl in pain as pushpins pierce my
skin, stab my thighs, oh I supp’se 
I do have a 
vivid imagination, 
explaining it never helped. 

“I used to think they were creatures 
These little insects burrowed in my eyes And
their flesh would roll out to a thin screen, and
I could be anywhere else but here” 

but besides, screens are too solid, 
too firm and restricting 
what I see feels like wisps 
vapors of visions 
of possible pasts, of presents and futures
so cool to the touch, like wash-over-me clouds I
wave them away and it’s gone. 

a thousand hours I toil away at my desk,
dark car rides home from amama’s
house,
mornings out in the humid patio, 
mosquitos buzzing at my face, 
and they’re clouding up the air around me
‘til I’m breathing in somewhere else 

if there’s nothing wrong with me, 
then there’s nothing to fix! 
and if there’s nothing to fix, then that means, I--

. 

know I should be glad when they say
there’s nothin’ wrong with you 

but I just let the fantasies pile up, 
all over again