Red Pen - 11/19/11

So I think I’ll write this poem in red pen
because today
I am feeling like the
stereotypical emo kid
and I feel as though my hair
should be in my face
but I have it clipped back neatly in its place
the same way I confine all my emotions
to one tiny space
and force my cheeks to stretch and crease
into a giddy smile.

Let me tell you about this day.
It has technically been great.
Speech tournament,
a dozen finals,
a guarantee to the top three.
And even I:
timidly doubtful,
nervously condescending,
truthfully falsifying praise;
have managed to honor my team
and hopefully be in the top three
in Poetry.
Because Poetry is my thing.
My calling.  My purpose.
My soul’s freeing.
And it would be rather insulting if I wasn’t good
at my thing.

Now, tell me,
if everything is going so great,
why do I feel the need to run away,
hide in a window ledge,
and write poetry in red
like the stereotypical emo kid
my soul thinks it would be so great to be?
Tell me why my thighs
have once again been mutilated,
degraded,
and consistently contemplated
to be worthless,
except as a cutting board
to prepare my soul to be eaten?
First you have to slice it out,
open your skin and draw your soul out of your blood.
Now beat it,
with skipped meals and minimal sleep,
and cruel thoughts, and hateful, self-directed speech.
Now eat it.
Eat your soul,
tears dripping from your lips,
hopes churning in your stomach,
dreams caught in your esophagus.
Wipe the corners of your mouth with blood-stained nylons.

You see,
now that I can talk to my ex without wanting to die,
I wonder what he would do
if he saw my thighs,
splintered by poly-carbons crystallized
and then fractured,
brought to the skin like rapture,
spilling hot lava on cold, pale streets.

I tried,
oh I tried,
to take ten minutes for myself
to gently kill myself
with words that maim myself to write.
I tried to take ten minutes,
just ten little minutes on my own,
to unload a long day of pain,
but two sweet young ladies
came my way
and asked to sit with me and chat.

They wanted to chat.

I sat in a corner
writing suicidal verse in red pen,
trying to free myself from
whatever curse
fate had bestowed upon the
chemicals in my brain
and they wanted to chat

about boys.
about their events.
about their parents.
about their siblings.
about their friends.

They wanted to chat
and they wanted me to listen
and I could have done that
but it wasn’t just that.

They wanted me to speak.

I sat in a corner,
writing masochistic verse in red pen,
contemplating scars and sex,
and they had no idea,
so they thought my thoughts
might be as the always were:
clean.
kind.
contained.
restrained.
It took quite and effort
to lock my verse away
and spend my ten minutes of freedom
sweetly listening,
appropriately nodding,
and sincerely responding
to those sweet young girls.

So now I take a few rushed seconds
to lock myself in a bathroom stall
and, in the most cliché way possible,
unload this poem,
unlock my madness,
unhinge my sadness,
before returning to the world
and my façade.