Driving my car down the street

Eyes follow me. 

My brow beads with heat

Eyes on me, over me, around me, please leave me be

I’m surrounded by the intense pressure

Of always being perfect. 

I walk into school, ready to measure

My life to others’, so forward I stepped

I can do this

Greeted by friends, 

Mia, Sam, and Bree

Blonde, straight, and perfect trends

Just like me. 

I stumble through my classes, 

Barricaded by my clan,

But I just can’t seem to meet the masses

I just can’t do what they can

All I do is miss

I try and I try and I try

And it just doesn’t WORK

My life is a mess

I can’t see through the murk

Why is it so easy for them;

Yet so hard for me?

What’d everyone get on the test in chem?

A text rings through, and in reply to it I see:

‘It was hard not to ace this’

One hundred, Ninety-Four, Ninety-Three

I answer “Ninety Seven”

Staring down at my bright red C

Lying is an obsession

No one can know, I think as I sink to the floor

I lock my  emotions inside

I’m screaming and pounding on the door

Begging to let anything out. But no- I hide

Content in my fake bliss

Behind smart brown-and-white clothes,

Glasses, bangs, and lipstick,

As long as the outside glows, 

No one knows the insides are ugly and sick

I pinch at my sides, 

Snub my nose at the mirror

1:34 my alarm clock chides,

But no matter. My next grade will be clearer

My stomach growls “Ah!” I hiss

Study more.

Sleep less.

Work more.

Eat less.

Who have I become?

A withered plant stares back at me

A queen of a solitary kingdom

I’ve reached my peak- It’s time to flee

Sink into the internal abyss.

Pill one, two, eight, twelve

Letting go of reality

The numbness is a cool salve

Juxtaposing the pain of mortality

A hand reaches for me

It grabs me from the light

It smacks me around and helps me see

Why would you sink when you could take flight?

One day I’ll have my first kiss. 

In finding you, I found my joy

A new sense to the word life

The rest of it was just a ploy

I was a pig under a butcher’s knife

You and I dance, I’m haloed in white

A new beginning for me

With you, I don’t have to fight

I can exist peacefully

You are my bliss