This one I'm kinda eh abt but yeah

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I want to cry but I 

don’t want to ruin

my eyeliner

Yet the tears still threaten

to spill

For once,

all the attention is

On me

I don’t want it 

Not now

All other times,

I am invisible

Am I only visible when

Looked at through 

Special lenses?

How can they not

See me?

I’m sitting right there!

I wrote this one in my Tanakh class, actually in this handout that was to be collected and read through to be graded by the teacher... No idea what he thought of it (but I do know what he thought of my drawing(s) I did it in, too).

I call this one Wintery Wasteland 

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The snow piles up around me

A wintery wasteland

Nothing but a freezing blanket

As far as the eye can see

I’m

all alone

No warmth here

Like the Wintery Wasteland one, this poem I also wrote in a handout that was collected for class, but this time JS. Except this teacher does not appreciate my little doodles/writings, seeing as a I got a point off for it. Like, he wrote that I had great notes, but if I could not draw/write in the margins as much. Yes, he's told me that many times before, but I've also said that if I draw on a seperate paper like he wants me to, the drawings will be more elaborate, and I won't get the notes. Besides, there aren't even that many! and they help me focus in the boring-est class everrr. Anyways sorry abt that but here's the poem:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Help 

I’m drowning 

Salty sea water stings my eyes 

my head goes down under 

I can’t breathe 

instead of air, water fills my lungs 

Help 

the waves batter and push me down 

I can’t float 

I can’t swim 

I sink like a stone 

Help 

I’m drowning

Help 

This is my favorite poem I've ever written, I think. It took a while, too. I started writing it on a sticky note in math class (partially bc math doesn't make sense and partially bc that was the day my teacher said this [abt my math work but whatever] and I just had the idea soo... I also used an idea that I was gonna do for a seperate poem (the queen of in-between part) but I thought it'd work here so yeah. It's really fun to read out loud, bc I get to put emotion in my voice, and choose where I speed up and pause and whatever. Also, typically I write my poems with the weight(?) on the left, like in a normal English paragraph, but this one I like it centered (but it probably won't go through that way). I'd happily explain it more in depth (like, word choices and whatever) but this is getting long so yeah. Oh, and I call it 

In My Head 

The other day my math teacher told me,

“Oh, you look like you’re doing all right.”

That’s what they all think.

I want to speak, but something holds me back.

Whether my voice won’t work, or

I don’t have the words,

I do not know.

Just another thing I don’t have the answer to.

My heart hungers for touch,

a hug.

I don’t ask.

I’m so cold.

Would anyone miss me if I left?

Would anyone notice?

If I fit in more, would people like me?

If I wore the right clothes, hair?

If I liked the right things, people?

But would I be happy?

But then again, am I happy now?

My mask smiles.

Break down these walls,

And what would you find?

The mask has melded to my face.

How do you support someone

when you’re struggling yourself? 

My pain is not visible

& neither is my harm.

I am a desert.

Emotions rage inside me 

like an ocean in a storm,

But I will not shed a single tear.

I fear abandonment,

Yet I close myself off;

Don’t get too close.

Never show my true self.

My friends say I’m not good at masking,

but that’s a lie.

You don’t see my misery, do you?

Behold! The Queen of the Land of In-Between

In between friend groups, styles, emotions.

In between citizen & stranger, intelligent & idiot, normalities & stabilites.

Is there something actually wrong with me,

Or is it just attention I seek?

How do I explain what’s going on?

No one listens.

No one cares.

I’m not special.

It’s all in my head, anyway.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

(Inkling says "ufizy" NO INKLING DO NOT CALL ME FIZZY where'd you even hear of that horrible "nickname" anyways???) 

Echo

It is as if my voice

Is trapped by a curse

I cannot ever speak

My own words, I

Am completely

Consumed by you

Every glance you give

Even for a second

Is enough to make my

Day, yet it seems

My tongue has

Disappeared whenever

I try to talk to you

I can only echo

The last words I hear

“How is your day?”

“Your day?”

“Are you doing okay?”

“Okay?”

Although I know that

Your heart must lie

Elsewhere, otherwise

You would have nothing

To be busy for

I still yearn for you

Like a flower does water

In the midst of a desert

Yet with time, we both

Wither away, you

Consumed and I to stone

Is it worth spending

All this time

Only to echo

Your last few words?

Incandescent

My life has been a blur

Even though my tears

Will not fall, my feelings

Are still on dizzying

Heights, and I worry

From time to time that

One day, everyone,

Especially you, will

Find out who I truly

Am, not the perfect

Citizen contributing

To society, instead a

Hopeless, dying red

Star, wishing I could

Be blue again, yet in

My lowest moment

You brought to me

Light, so incandescent

It could rekindle the

Flame of a red star

You lit in me a silly

Yet everlasting spark

Turned my blur so

Wondrously clear

Incandescent

It was the summer she started wearing her hijab

That we stopped being friends.

She had been quiet that spring,

Less to talk about and more empty space between us,

Less furious notebook scribbling and more blank stares

As we watched the pear blossoms fall 

From our daily perch on the swings,

Kicking up sand, but no longer in search of treasure

No more talks of schoolyard crushes and codenames

And words exchanged in a language no one else here could understand.

She had grown up, while I remained a child.

We were the same age, actually, I was a month older,

But she was a teenager and I just a child.

And so we grew apart.

Fewer whispers wandered their way across the row

In maths class (we were the only two girls in advanced maths)

And the dreamy look left her eyes

And the next time I saw her

She was in a group of fellow girls

Some with hijabs and some makeup

And she passed by me like we had never met,

A high-pitched laugh in her throat

That she never used with me.

It was the winter after our last marching band show

We stopped being friends, I think.

It’s hard to believe,

After all the reverent late-night talks

And theatre and queer, neurodivergent sunset walks

And soul-bearing we’d soaked in after the party lights.

All the times I cried to you on the phone

And you came to me about relationship problems,

Still, we were a guy and a girl who were just friends

And that was great.

But after the funeral you didn’t say a word to me.

When I got out of the hospital it was like you didn’t even notice.

During our last season of theatre you hardly spoke a word to me.

Why?

Maybe you were tired of this, of what we had.

Maybe you saw the void of potential in me I see 

When I look in the mirror.

And then you started going out with her,

And we all noticed the way you ignored us.

I think you hate me now.

I really don’t know why.

But it’s like we never met, 

We never even see each other in school.

I’m lonely and alone and it happens over and over again.

please please please give feedback, I need help with the ending (actually the whole thing lol it's super disjointed)

look back across the yellow brick road;

can you help me find where i left my happiness?

maybe it simply squeezed itself out of my pocket, drop by drop--

slowly fading like the ambrosia-tiled squares of childhood

(now i live in a dingy mustard yellow, still scared to stray off the path).

i’d met the scarecrow by then, i think,

for i have a brain even if i can’t control my whispering thoughts. somewhere

near when plato became more important than play-doh, maybe,

or perhaps closer to the avalanche that broke the allegory of my cave?

(the rocks landed on my shoulders instead, and now i struggle to breathe like an oh-so-twisted modern atlas).

i’ve found the tin man since then—we are both heartless,

although i envy his ability to cry.

(rose-gold rust is more beautiful than shining silver, anyway).

i was never scared of the cowardly lion. no, i was too numb

to know anything but jealousy because, at some point, fear of mental monsters

just shows that you have yet to become one.

(i saw aslan in him sometimes, i think. but delight, turkish or not, never came).

i still walk to oz, but out of exhaustion, not hope. i expect nothing

more than smoke and mirrors and a punctured balloon filled

with the same hot air whistling around my head.

but i keep going because maybe the wizard can at least tell me why

i’m still wishing to find kansas again.