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a space for youth writing on mental health & identity
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a space for youth writing on mental health & identity
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![]() 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 Comments are closed.
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Unless otherwise noted, all pictures used are open-source images in the public domain. Archives
September 2023
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