PILLOW THOUGHTS

when they answer

blood in the sink and metal
on the bathroom tiles, glinting
like false silver. the dark pressing
against the windowpane and no
knock on the closed door. all she
sees are dancing shadows and
phantom demons. test scores
written in the same bright shade
as the liquid that runs through
her veins; that she'd spilled the
night before, a sacrifice on the
temple that is her body — a plea
for answers to questions she
doesn't dare ask aloud.

nails bitten to the quick and ghosts
around the corners. every flaw
parroted back and hip divots
pressed into the mattress, soaked
through with cold sweat; a fossil
to call his own. the monster under
his bed creeping onto the walls,
wearing the faces of those he knows,
taunting with barbed words; pulling
his fears out from the metaphorical
closet and parading them like new
clothes. conversations slipping into
white noise and too many eyes when
he crouches. noise like a roiling sea,
waves beating against the shores
of his mind, already trying to retreat
from the rising tide.

lies on her tongue and bread she
will not eat. (some days when she
feels braver she takes a bite and
forces it up again by the sink later.)
hunger like a twisting knife and
searching for reasons to condemn
herself for looking the way she does.
an invitation to lunch but she has
piano lessons, or a sibling to babysit.
a pond and she feeds the fishes.
looking at sizes and she thinks:
almost there. girls immortalized on
sleek magazine covers and she
thinks: not enough.

the one who never meets your
eyes, who walks with their
shoulders hunched like they're
trying to hide. the ones who move
like a loose bag of bones shuffling,
a semblance of a skeleton. the
ones who carry themselves carefully
like the ground they tread is a
slippery tightrope of blurred lines
between too much and not enough.

you see them and it breaks your
heart that they don't see you. they
don't see the hand you extend
blindly into the dark or the way you
eye them when their smile dims.
it stings and it's tiring but don't stop.
keep hoping for a brush of fingers,
because most times there isn't
anyone else who notices. shout their
name and maybe one day they'll
answer.

to the girls and the boys who don't
see: look past the caving walls
of your mind. see the one who
reaches out to you like no one else
has before. they're calling for you
and it doesn't have to be the version
of you that they know: these are
people who are willing to watch you
shatter so that they can help you
put the pieces back together the
way they fit best. so take their
hand. answer them with your
honest tears. break and scatter
your puzzle pieces over their hands.
then let them stand you up again
and teach you how to take the
first step forward.

• • •

so this was a thing i wrote for a school publication (i don't know if it'll be chosen yet though sighs) and i published it once in astrophilia too i think

anywho i kinda like how this turned out, so here it is again :))