PILLOW THOUGHTS

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for DalvieCurtis; thanks for being an absolute ray of sunshine even when you're feeling down (you can always come to me if you needa talk :)) it inspires me a lot :)))

• • •

i like it when you smile, the boy says;
and he thinks it's cute but it's not when
all i can think about is the way
my pillow smells of salt; there's a
perpetual flood in my room, a high tide
of grief exhaustion dread
that recedes but always returns, (higher
than before); these feelings are heavy
but i am heavier still — it must be
the weight of my soul; exhaustion
embodied in heavy limbs too tired
to do anything but sink
as the currents tug me apart; i am
quartered. but this boy is not
looking for a hurricane so i smile
and blush and tell myself: this boy
does not want tears; i lock away
the part of myself that wishes
for comfort in someone who knows
the ugly things
the ugly thoughts
the ugly truths
that i am made out of.

it's better to let loose, my friends say,
we are young and will never be
again. they don't know that i have
already lived centuries in
the space of a single night and
i am weary more than anything;
i am old in a way that does not show
on the surface; tired eyes are nothing
because everyone has them, and
so i hide my demons and keep my
skeletons in the closet, where they
rattle at night to remind me
they are still there; my friends laugh
when i say i want to die because
they don't know this empty mass
eating me up inside and i am tired
of trying to tell them when
all they ever do is smile and
say, so do we; but death is not a joke
and it is not a friend, it is the whisper
of my thoughts when the years pass
between each tick of the clock;
it is not my companion nor my muse;
death is
a prayer to gods (who i do not believe
exist) and a ticket away (anywhere
but with myself is all i want); death is
not kind and it is not cruel, it simply is,
and i wish that people would
stop romanticizing death
brushing it off
treating it like an old friend
when it is in fact a stranger;
because for me, death is
the shadow on my wall that
grows longer that
creeps closer
as the hours pass;
but my friends are not looking
for a corpse or a ghost, so i leave
my shadows in my room where
they fester beneath my bed; the hours
of day is when i bask in the sunlight
of my friends and wish i could carry
even some of it back home with me.

(i lose a bit of myself every
day but still i will force
myself into the mold that
others want to see, if it
means i won't be alone
for as long as i could be.)

• • •

i had a japanese exam today

it was disastrous

how does one finish a compo, one listening comprehension, two reading comprehensions, and the actual written paper in 2 hours??

and it's in a third language

which is admittedly better than my mother tongue but eh

i sincerely hope i somehow still get an A because if not my grades are doomed