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a space for youth writing on mental health & identity
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 Pursing around the bite of berries.
Staining them a new bruise. The wholeness of a shower song. How it swells from my mouth like a steamed balloon. Swallowing all that hot air, hollowing me through.  When mother birthed an ocean,
It knelt at her knees like a name. Letters aching for salvation, reaching like a syllable misunderstood. Were you a hymn to be spoken for? Like how yesterday, a boy dented his identity in denial.  everyday my body morphs into the emotions that run inside my veins. one day i’m the sun, everyone’s talking about me, everything revolves around me. my brightness is a force that’s overflowing. other days, i’m a messily arranged chocolate cake, designed to be looked at/picked at/sneered at. the feelings are temporary, however. the sun inevitably bursts and the cake is swallowed up, evaporating into nothingness.
 Then it would my laughter merging with my best friend's,
causing a dent in space, a permanent mark saying "we were here, and this is how"  i am so drained
from the static. A tide incessant cannot tell another to collapse. but / when / i drown / in pools of ebony / you watch the girl who taught herself to shatter in unfeeling, the girl who split herself open into halves when staring at the belly of a fruit bowl.  Trigger Warning: Suicidal Ideation
i look up at the stars and i look and i think and keep searching, why are those little lights in the sky  Please read poem from top to bottom, then from bottom to top.
Your skin color defines you Don’t ever think You’re good enough  It’s quiet here
& the birds have stopped their call, probably to sleep for a few hours, which i carve into my mind in the luminous red numbers on the clock which read too late, too late, too late  Same old sorrow,
I tire of you. You smell like stale bread; You’re brittle as war-torn porcelain dolls. I wash you for days, But you linger on my sleeve like an oil stain.  [Content warning: themes of abuse]
I used to have trouble understanding what secrets were. What the term meant. Why people felt the need to keep things locked away from one another. What was the purpose of hushed voices, or solemn head shakes from my mother, signifying that this was not the place to discuss things like that? It seemed that there were many things that I didn’t understand.  Dirt piled as you buried me with lies.
Behind our school, surrounded by bright flowers and trees, you dug my grave. I lay there, starry-eyed, as my lungs filled with fertilizer.  It’s a traditional house, because every morning when the sun rises, when sweet yellow rays reach to kiss our bronze skin through the hand-sewn curtains and double-paneled windows, they only find mine. Habit. A syrupy morning dew floods my eyes, its own brand. Through the glass panes of the kitchen window I see an image of Grandmother and her shriveled pink lips that stretch and shrink and tell me the sun must always find the females first. Her buck teeth are bared, and her tongue spits house myths. I scrape cucumber seeds from their wet pockets over the marble island. And that’s only because Grandmother likes when I am at sacred work, upholding the rituals of a good Muslim girl. Habits and legends
 How to grapple with this spewing
Dialectical thought. Out of the airport We drove past concrete lilypads Man’s calloused hands pressed against stone Shoulders stung with saltwater.  The dried white roses that planted their seeds in your stomach nally begin to bloom. They rise up and through your liver, leaving you blinded by the orange light,
 Trigger Warning : depression, panic disorder, childhood trauma (verbal abuse), therapy
This is going to sound like a sob story. It’s tragic, it’s dramatic. Perhaps she is overreacting because it sounds like something that came out of a movie. And she was the main character.  slow slow slow slow slow slow
why don’t the words come out when i want? why don’t the words come out as i want?  Trigger Warning: Mentions of rape, violence, objectification of women.
I hope for the flowers of my language to intrigue the Reader enough for this piece to warrant publication, for I offer no unfamiliar thoughts: only reminders. I surmise that, upon consuming my chronicle, the Reader will remember that She had identified Herself in it once; amendments will abound. I see no medium for this other than through publication; a voice unheard is rendered voiceless. So begins the Tale of the Ideal Woman. ~~~  [Content warning: self-harm and suicidal ideation]
this morning my dad caught me beating on myself  When you’re seven, you have trouble writing your name in the box. Your hands are too cramped around the pencil and it scratches on the paper, flying out of your control. Worries are out of your comprehension, and you only live day to day.
 he never doubted it for a second. she always knew that she was capable of greatness. one day, they sat her down and told her  With each touch of yours, you turned me into a glacier
And the glacier flows in me-, sings in my head- like a linnet’s songDon't turn back this time, I won't ask My bones, my mind, and my soul are freezing  i.
In my sophomore year of high school, I was elected as the President of the Debate Club. I was already very popular by then: tall for my age, top of my class, proficient in off-beat languages like Hawaiian and Lemerig that I had learned on Duolingo over Christmas break, when my parents were fighting over who was having an affair and who would pay the bills and who would fix the washing machine.  TW: eating disorders & suicidal ideation
screams echo through the walls of the house and ricochet off cold blue bones landing in our laps with the fire ants that our shaky legs landed in running outside, begging Death to leave our hearts alone |
