Clothing
There are so many dresses I have bought for events I will never
be invited to, but I do not give them away just in case I am.
I will bring home new hoodies knowing I will wear the same
pullover and jeans every other day so no one suspects the unusual.
All of the shirts I’ve worn get placed back in drawers and closets
so I don’t have to see my laundry bin filled to the brim
like my amalgamation of missing assignments and unwritten
college essays about my labors and my devotion to school.
Numbers
On the 3rd day of the week, my mother cried for the 1st time in years
kneeling over my bed at maybe 9 PM at night telling me
“you will be okay,” but then this graduated to a pleading,
“Please make it for me” and I realized that if the 10th month lasted
for 31 days instead of my estimated 28 then maybe 17 wouldn’t
sound so bad to read on a birthday card as opposed to 16.
Cosmos
The cold pinches your nose like a grandmother to a cheek
and every morning you’re reminded by the shivering Sun how
life won’t be perpetually miserable; the seasons and orbits change.
Everyone is chanting about football and homecoming court
and how Mercury will again be in retrograde soon but it won’t
end this depression I’ve been in since summer’s end. I wish it did.
Time feels more like a foreign memory than the future and I’m
stuck accepting not even the Moon, saltines, or driving can save me.
Genetics
When I look in the mirror at my crinkled face I see flashes
of my mother-- the notch between my medusa eyes, my nose
bump perfectly set for my cloudy glasses, my hollowing cheeks,
even in her stern mouth-- she is there gently gazing back at me.
Her words echo through my brain, and I even cry like her; silently
accepting tears to stream and barely choking a sound or breath.
November
I hope it goes faster and is less insufferable than October.
My birthday lies around the corner beside the winter depression,
maybe the snow won’t be as cold, as my blankets have holes.
I hope I can make it to thanksgiving, for the turkey I will never
eat and the annual drunken singing during the after-after party.
I hope I can make it to see myself smile with full teeth,
eyes squinting, and a laugh that echoes deep into memories.
I hope I can make it to see myself become a happy person.
There are so many dresses I have bought for events I will never
be invited to, but I do not give them away just in case I am.
I will bring home new hoodies knowing I will wear the same
pullover and jeans every other day so no one suspects the unusual.
All of the shirts I’ve worn get placed back in drawers and closets
so I don’t have to see my laundry bin filled to the brim
like my amalgamation of missing assignments and unwritten
college essays about my labors and my devotion to school.
Numbers
On the 3rd day of the week, my mother cried for the 1st time in years
kneeling over my bed at maybe 9 PM at night telling me
“you will be okay,” but then this graduated to a pleading,
“Please make it for me” and I realized that if the 10th month lasted
for 31 days instead of my estimated 28 then maybe 17 wouldn’t
sound so bad to read on a birthday card as opposed to 16.
Cosmos
The cold pinches your nose like a grandmother to a cheek
and every morning you’re reminded by the shivering Sun how
life won’t be perpetually miserable; the seasons and orbits change.
Everyone is chanting about football and homecoming court
and how Mercury will again be in retrograde soon but it won’t
end this depression I’ve been in since summer’s end. I wish it did.
Time feels more like a foreign memory than the future and I’m
stuck accepting not even the Moon, saltines, or driving can save me.
Genetics
When I look in the mirror at my crinkled face I see flashes
of my mother-- the notch between my medusa eyes, my nose
bump perfectly set for my cloudy glasses, my hollowing cheeks,
even in her stern mouth-- she is there gently gazing back at me.
Her words echo through my brain, and I even cry like her; silently
accepting tears to stream and barely choking a sound or breath.
November
I hope it goes faster and is less insufferable than October.
My birthday lies around the corner beside the winter depression,
maybe the snow won’t be as cold, as my blankets have holes.
I hope I can make it to thanksgiving, for the turkey I will never
eat and the annual drunken singing during the after-after party.
I hope I can make it to see myself smile with full teeth,
eyes squinting, and a laugh that echoes deep into memories.
I hope I can make it to see myself become a happy person.
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