Becca is quiet.
Becca speaks poetry through her hands. She paints with her eyes.
She knows how to shrink into herself and she knows how to breathe without making the air move.
She knows how to hide behind school work and her boyfriend.
Aeran is hurting.
Aeran writes poetry that burns.
She knows how it feels to be twenty-five at fifteen and she knows how to push people away before they have the chance to hurt her.
She knows how it feels to have her best friends be in college while she’s stuck in ninth grade.
Lia is soft.
Lia is a mother at seventeen: she makes sure her boyfriend doesn’t choke on the liquor he swallows and her cousin doesn’t kill herself sneaking out.
She knows how to forget her own needs while caring for the needs of others.
She knows how to bite her tongue to quiet her mind and she knows how to ignore her anxiety until she can’t breathe and her mind is constricting.
Rose is a storm stuck on earth.
Rose is desperate; she is searching for something she only finds when she’s staring at the bottom of bottles or sitting in a circle, passing around a blunt.
She knows how to look at her father and see alcohol painting his eyes glazed and gone -
she knows the best places to hide beer and whiskey and weed -
she knows what death tastes like.
YOU ARE READING
What I Don't Say
РазноеIn a series of poems, an unnamed narrator examines her best friend's addiction, her depression and sense of self, and what it is like to grow up when it seems like everyone she is surrounded by is falling apart. Containing elements of fiction and po...
