Old soul

Young bones

Turmoil and pure insanity-

This time last year I was really feeling the shit hit the fan, man

And I mean, really

Some of it I don’t remember because I was high and the other parts I think I just block out because they hurt so bad

Cigarettes to spite my parents

Screwing men twice my age to quell the need for validation

“You’re gonna get murdered”

My friends said

I used to shrug about those things because I half-hoped they’d come true

Skipping school because I was taking all college classes as a junior in high school and I figured that if I couldn’t be perfect, I couldn’t be

A N Y T H I N G

In and out of therapy

She was a middle-aged woman who didn’t know how to help me anymore

I hated her because she didn’t understand

(But at the time I didn’t think that anyone did)

Sixteen and not very sweet

Not very good but fine enough to get by

Or so I thought back then

Popping Prozacs and whatever else when that didn’t work

Eventually it all got so meaningless because

6

Years is a long time to fake it because if you think of yourself as a burden, you live as though you are a walking mistake

Sure, call me cliché,

But

These things don’t happen to every damn kid out there

This isn’t just some John Green b.s., nah- this is like Salinger, only more direct

I ended up on the Metro platform by my school last January because I couldn’t handle how it all felt

Flashbacks to crazy ex girlfriends and identity crises and nutrition facts

and blood, a lack of consent, a psych ward with nurses who couldn’t even pretend to like their jobs, yelling at the dinner table,,,,,,,,,

And everything in between

Is how I spent about half of my life

Put ya mask on, kiddo

It’s time for a gr8 day!

Ya gotta keep it up, kid, ya gotta keep pretendin

None of this other shit matters inside your head

Just keep gettin good grades and youll slipp thru da cracks

And if ya pretty enuf, yull make somethin of yaself later on maybe

This is besides the point

But when all of this crap finally got too far,

I went backpacking in the middle of winter

Depression to confessions

Nothing but trees and my mind for miles

I got better, yeah, but it wasn’t easy

Hiking constantly,

Bloody fingers from fucking up on the quartz and steel striking fires to stay warm carrying trees across rivers to fuel the fire realizing that the fire wasn’t just outside but inside too and

Maybebeginningotlovemyselfalittlebit

I left after two months and went to therapeutic boarding school

This wasn’t a part of the deal, but at the time, it wasn’t up to me

Damn, kid, don’t lose ya cool, now

(Any place that deals with long-term mental health of teenagers is destined to be in buttfuck nowhere so the runners won’t make it past the state border)

West Virginia.

WEST Virginia.

WESTVIRGINIA!!!!

Home of meth labs and hick accents and unironic Trump signs and constant waves of nicotine breathing all around

It is okay now, though

I help people

That’s my purpose

I like getting to know people, making connections

I’m pretty sure “virtue” comes from the Latin word meaning “man”

Otherwise there wouldn’t be much of a point to life

Therapy means something more than a hole in my parents’ bank account now

They say the building’s haunted

I’m skeptical but

I let my ghosts go within these walls and now I know that

Itsawll gonna be okay

Not just this time-

Yahr enuf, kid

Yahr enuf.