here it is: the big pond.
and I start feeling like I might want to hurt myself
or hide myself
or I don’t know.
everywhere everyone is telling me I should be afraid.
everywhere everyone is telling me who I am.
everywhere everyone looks right through me.
it’s like I’m a ghost
or just an obstacle in the road.
I was someone once,
but no one is anyone here.

it’s my own fault.
it’s my own guts on the floor,
red appearing on my drunken hands
like I’m Macbeth, and I panic
trying to remember what I most recently did wrong.
god you’re so kind to me. it’s going to hurt so much when it runs out.
it’s going to hurt, I’m going to hurt.
I’m going to fuck it up.

I am the desperate one again.
this is familiar territory at least.
I eat alone at the dining hall
stating straight ahead at nothing.
I feel sick.
I keep eating.
I remember me in elementary school
always eating alone
and think some things never change.
30,000 people and here I am:
staring into space.

it starts to get cold.
my favorite season is summer
but I always say fall because
I don’t think I seem like a summer person.
it starts to get cold and I start to remember
too much. the sun falls earlier
and it reminds me of the first time everything went wrong.
it’s hard to hate. it’s work. it’s hard to stay angry. maybe instead I’ll just go to sleep.
maybe instead I’ll roll over,
curl up and die.
spend the rest of my natural life
waiting to feel better.
waiting for myself to make sense.
I am rotting inside myself
like layers of leaves on the ground.