young and unsightly

what am I afraid of?

boys and speeches

bees and leeches

rotting knees and hairy peaches

if I'm an anomaly for dreading high school

then I must be an Oompa Loompa in Oompaland

and the clouds must be raining skittles

what have I learned?

no one teaches you how to cope with yourself

the years in my years teared at sixteen

the sound was obnoxious

I've always cringed at loud noises

so I ignored the ripping

oblivious that small doses of arsenic

will kill a person slowly

sixteen just held such better days?

days when I still felt alive?

I'm a cliche of a vessel

and the nothingness inside of it

fluttering wingless in hours of wasted time

I'm a cliche of a forlorn teen

and the angst that rages inside like a misunderstood bull in a bullfight

yet it's not the red that's aggravating

it's the staged movements

I'm a cliche of a hypocrite

pushing for things I've never done, not likely to do

with my collection of inspirational quotes

a desire, and no willpower to change


and it's hard to remind myself

that I can be happy

Jimmy Ruffin makes me smile

but he tells me that happiness is just an illusion

everything good seems to be these days

I fell in love with Hate at sixteen

we flirted with each other for years

dancing around the inevitably in what was bound to happen

dancing around pretty flames hungry for more

"enough" a foreign word lingering on an itchy tongue


I fell hard

he quenched the lights so appealing before

made darkness my home and my refuge

kept me unmoving on a cold hard floor

licked my insides clean of sense

kicked the stomach I was sucking in

and told me I deserved it


I told him I hated people

I told him I hated school

I told him I hated life

I told him I hated the world

but he nudged me to tell the truth

so I told him I hated myself

that I loved him

and that's all he wanted to hear


everyone's always said

there's beauty to be found in pain of destruction

what an implicative black and white perspective


I was the record on repeat

and I listened to my self-deprecation all the time

the music was bloody and raw

I swear it tasted sweet

but it wasn't funny

it never was


my heart

my soul

that's what he wanted

it's what I wanted too

he left when he found out they were both missing

what have I learned?

no one teaches you how to cope with yourself

what am I?

still sixteen

falling out of love with hate for myself