I. Choke up the depression Feel it shape-shift to mania in your larynx You’re drinking bottled happiness now II. Find someone that scares you more than you scare yourself Rip your own heart out of your chest and put it in her hands You’ll only feel real when it hurts III. You’ll be a mirror The girl that dropped out of physics– Bend her light through your focal point Show her what she wants but does not need Your friends will say nothing about the bruises They all know reflected images are not real IV. Sink deep into your own body Search For the soul you convinced yourself was never really there to begin with Sickness eats at your brain and shreds the lining of your stomach Self diagnose, self medicate, self destruct V. Tell the boy in gym class about the pills you pop on the weekend Two years later he’ll crash his car rolling on the same prescription Shatters his ulna on the driver’s side window Quit those and started abusing his adderall Another casualty left in your wake VI. Continue to avoid yourself Internal monologue is canceled today Drown out any remnants of thought with music louder than your lungs when they scream for nicotine VII. Today you’re the cool girl in all black Tomorrow you’ll wear tie dye and soften your voice Spending the day wondering if your bisexuality is an excuse to ignore the burning need to find your identity VII. Music can’t drown out the intrusive thoughts Stay up all night waiting for the floor to fall out from underneath you Justify three days without sleep as a forced shift to mania Realize you’re still wallowing in crippling depression VIII. Switch to uppers IX. Get clean under a microscope when she gets sick of carrying around your arhythmic heart Detox in front of an audience Spend March sweating and shivering Dry heaving in the back corner of the girl’s bathroom between AP literature and AP psychology There’s no time to talk about it X. Spend a year learning to trust again Make progress through regression Hurt your friends See a doctor Keep an untouched bottle of pills on your nightstand Let them pile up month after month Is addiction okay if your name is on the prescription? XI. Become enchanted by the boy in your ceramics class Let him shatter the mirror you hide behind Force yourself to face the tough questions He’ll hold your hand as you navigate the shattered glass Lead him to safety–he doesn’t wear shoes XII. 2 a.m. on a school night and you’re sitting in his car looking up at the stars Wrapped in the blanket he keeps just for you Laughing at nothing and feeling everything This is it This is you And you are enough