I know what's best for me

I.
Do you ever feel like
For every step forward, it's two back?
Self-betrayal tastes sour and parched
On my tongue, my values stamped out like a flame.
The faded yellow parchment never crossed my path,
My signature never sprawled in swooping calligraphy.
I didn't agree to this. Oh, but
I'm too young to know what I'm talking about.
That must be why my cries and pleas are shoved
To the hardwood floor
Just like my fragile figure last night.
Too young to speak.

II.
I loathe every girl who rises to the impossible
Masses of rigidity, grounds herself into the earth
With her own two feet, pierces straight into the eyes
Of the serpents, and succesfully convinces herself
She's not afraid of being met with deaf ears
At a for-once-authentic tale.
Within the four sage walls I call House (not
Home), the lines between parenting and ageism blur,
Foggy and cloudy and gone, and
I'd be no more than a naïve wonderclout
To try n' foster a chance at being heard. 

III.
I'm wearing sunglasses.
The world revolves in slow motion.
The present moment is something far distant from my mind.
Reality is painted in some lens of black and white,
Every gorgeous counterpart in the great union of things
Is only half. Half-happy. Half-beautiful. Half-silly. Half-real.
Tainted by mourning and
Unfamiliar with this sudden sheen of misery clouding the sun,
I curl into myself; I fold into the darkness once more.

IV.
I try to be better.
I while away the tedious hours on multi-colored flow charts and
Check-box lists, laden in the margins with
Tension-taming strategies. Calming-down strategies.
Clear-communication strategies. Be-a-good-person strategies.
Don't-f*ck-up-your-whole-family-even-more-than-you-already-have strategies.
But how do you expect me to nod my head and grin
When the people I love the most
Shove their fingers in my face despite my desperate attempts
To meet their insatisiable demands----I say---I did it, I did it, I'm better now---
No, not good enough---what about that time when---you're wrong---you
don't know what's best for you. I say,
Yes, I do. They say,
No, you don't.

V.
I can't do this anymore.
I let myself become
Some wretched ghost of everything I stand for
Crimson paints my mind, reaching for a way out.
Crimson paints my mind, reaching for a way
​Crimson paints my mind, reaching for a
​Crimson paints my mind, reaching for
​Crimson paints my mind, reaching
​Crimson paints my mind,
​Crimson paints my
​Crimson paints
​Crimson
Out, out out---

VI.
My mum gives me a hug, so
I wash off my torso and my arms
When she's not looking.
The guilt of it tears me apart in itself,
But it's better than the revulsion and hatred
That strikes me like lightning whenever our eyes meet.
I sit quietly in my guilt, in my stubbornness, in my stifling,
In my anger, so thick I might as well drown.
I am drowning already.