"No, you see, you can't do this."

•

My trembling hand reaches

grasps

for a

     pencil.

(it is not there.)

(lines swelling like small bursts of pride, grainy sketches denoting some abstract form of a drawing that helps her hoarse throat to scream her—her words. Her words, lost in some echo of her real self that she has long cast aside.)

(and the lines disappear. Her illusion

is an illusion. Because

she is not allowed to do this.)

I glance up.

My face does not change

my eyes do not blink.

I have been given a

     pen.

(along with a sheet of lined paper.)

"Fill it in."

Not knowing any other option, I

     nod.

I did not give the command but

my hand is moving.

I had to complete this.

I try to glance up again

Because I have heard of something there.

     A

sky.

Blue and radiant.

White drowning out the black.

Freedom, much unlike

This.

This place is

I do not know what this place is.

It is dark

     cold

         lonely.

I do not want to stay here.

I look up and

a voice resounds

their voice resounds.

"You can't go there."

And I do not know why

but I listen. I

     nod.

     again.

I cannot go there.

I do not want to go there.

I do not want to go there.

I repeat it like a mantra.

they smile.

I do not know why.

But I know what

is to come

if I dare to look up again.

(an essay, neatly written and handed in with a blank expression. Each word thought and rethought at least thrice. It cannot be helped if there is a mistake.)

(yet they snarl. They scream and shout and the world is flashing and it takes all you have to keep the tears from leaking down the broken faucet of your eyes—)

"Do it again! What is this work? Ludicrous!"

(smile. Smile. Enjoy the pain.)

It has been a long time

since I have been

     here.

Hey, why don't you

come over?

You will never be happy there.

Instead, I ignore the sky

yet again.

And I stay silent

I do not reply

because

     ...because?

"Are you entitled to feel this way?"

(would you have any complaints if I mastered this smile, then? I am only entitled to smile. I like the pain.)

...no.

I am

     not.

So I look back down

momentarily distracted by the

paper crane

by my bedside.

Wouldn't it be

wonderful?

To have wings like that?

To fly like a paper crane?

A laugh.

Hollow. Empty.

Paper wings are useless.

Paper cranes cannot fly.

I complete

draft two

and they are happier this time.

"See? You can do it if you try!"

(their voice approves. but in your ears, it can only twist and warp until it is a condescending screech, because you have trusted them far too much and you cannot accept truths from them. They have pushed you too hard.)

(and when you glance in the mirror—nothing more than a piece of useless, broken glass, but still a mirror because that is the only thing you have—you do not see the former shell of your childhood, nor do you see the broken mess you felt on the inside, pierced and stitched by needles over and over again as if patching you up with lies and hatred would work as an acceptable substitute for this heart of yours.)

(you see a puppet. A smiling masochist, pale and white as a ghost that you project to society. Your smile is painful. Your eyes hold an artificial brightness, as if someone has forced a switch into their irises, but inside, your are just a puppet. You are empty.)

I glance down

at the paper.

A perfect

     100%

score.

I have solved everything.

Right? Right?

It is even written in red.

The very red that my heart lacked.

Could this red be

What it had been

before black had swallowed it?

They are happy.

They are happy.

I will remain in this

     hellhole.

Somehow, this mantra

does not work.

They push the next paper to me.

"Write an essay about yourself. Who are you? What do you think defines you? What are your dreams?"

(I...enjoy the pain. I smile. I smile.)

My pen hovers

     dangerously

above the surface.

Who am

     "I?"

Behind the smiles that

I cannot take off now,

behind the pulsing heart that

tears me to pieces

swallows me in its choppy

waves,

Who am I?

You are no one.

You cannot be anyone

if you remain there

you will never be anyone.

(Come here.)

I turn in a blank sheet.

"Hey, do you think that girl is OK?"

"I don't know. She's smiling all the time; it almost creeps me out. That isn't natural at all."

(I do not enjoy the pain.)

A laugh

     resounds

in this empty hellhole.

And then two.

     And three.

I cannot stop laughing.

I do not have a reason to laugh.

My head collapses in my hands

as I glance at the mirror again.

There is nothing.

You can't solve the problem like this.

I couldn't solve the problem.

•

...I followed the voice.

As my foot skips off the ledge

I

     smile.

It is not the smile of a

     masochist

that I have labelled myself with.

It is simply a

     smile.

And for the first time,

I

     fly.

• • •

written as vent writing when I was feeling down. based off lost one's weeping, as you can see.

quick explanation: the leftmost ones are the narrator/persona. The middle voice are those of the people who are putting pressure on the speaker to do well. And the rightmost voice seems good at first, but is actually the speaker's darker, suicidal thoughts.

:^)

it was a rewrite of the poem that I wrote for school, "little paper wings". dammit I should have entered this, maybe I would have gotten a better mark.

then again, I can't poetry. I'm honest. I'm more of a prose person :^))