Honey, So Sweet - 01/09/11

They voted and they said
that I was the
sweetest
person on our team.
They said that I was the
most reliable,
so kind,
so friendly,
just a perfect
angel.
When I rejected their claim,
I became
humble,
sincere,
adorable,
sweet
sweet
sweet!

But the thing about sweets
is that if you eat
and eat
and eat them
you get sick.

And you die.

Because underneath the sweetness
is poison.  And it isn’t even hidden
very well,
look at the label
and you can tell
how much it really only wants
to sink pink nails
into your skin
for misjudging it,
pressuring it
to live up to your expectation.
Every time you say
“So sweet”
it’s an annihilation
of any true sweetness
that may have survived
and now it’s buried alive
because death is too good for it,
the failure,
and its dark thoughts
of pushing people who text and walk
down stairs,
of punching people whose voices annoy me
in the face;
of riding through a tunnel
with my friends,
my beloved,
and the most encouraging teacher
I’ve ever had

of riding through that tunnel,
holding my breath,
and wishing
for death.

And two hours later,
curled under soft layers of caramel bedding,
eyes bleeding salt,
body sweating shivers,
thoughts SCREAMING at me:

“Sweet?  No!
Kind?  No!
Adorable?  No!”

Those who ignore the morals of fables
and the kicks under tables
could see the dark thoughts
I’m capable of thinking
and think often
always
so much
too much
You hit me I will knock you to the ground.
Such is my
anger
that my teeth sink
into my skin
so that I don’t snap and hurt something
beautiful,
like the soft face of the TV screen
or the cups hanging form the ceiling
or my kin
or my friends
or anything that matters to me.

And, yes, I see what that means:
that I don’t matter to me,
that I don’t care,
that I don’t give a damn,
that I can hold my breath
and wish for my death,
that I can see a car crash
and understand that pain,
want it,
because I deserve it.

They say I’m sweet.
And I try to be:
I hold my tongue,
I bite my skin,
I listen and listen,
and don’t understand a thing.
But I smile.
I smile through pain,
through fear,
through anger enough to want to hurt another.
I smile.

They say I’m sweet
and I try to be
but I can’t
I can’t
I can’t be.
I don’t know if I even should be,
if I want to be.

All I know is they tell me I’m sweet.
And that makes me feel
like I have to be.

And that is killing me.