I could almost look normal
If every 5-20 minutes
I go to the bathroom to
Cry
Breathe
And take a break

A question
I get a kick out of asking people is
What would you do, if you found out that this is all a simulation?
Most people answer
That they would do whatever they want,
Go crazy!
Honestly
Id just keep going along
Maybe with some more experiments
But that's it
Because repercussions are still a thing
And I'm stuck there anyway
Everything remains the same
There is nothing I would know as real
Except what is fake

Row
Row
Row your boat
Gently
Down the stream
Sadly
Angry
Unsurely
Merely
Life
Is but a dream

I see a girl at the party
She's just sitting there alone
Staring into nothing
So I feel the intense urge to go up
And ask her
"Are you okay?"
To which she responds
"Yeah, this is just me"

I go back
And start dancing again
Waving my hands the way everyone else does
But I know it's not me

I dance alone
In the shower, in my bedroom or in my backyard in the rain
While listening to old music
And genuinely smiling

Nose clogged
Like my brain

Throat hurting
Like my heart

Body weak
Like my social skills

Head aching
Kind of like me

No one listened to her
When it was her turn to talk
So I look her in the eyes and say
"I'm listening"
And I wasn't kidding

Walking in the snow
Cold and wet
Lugging your broken suitcase up hill
Can really get you out of your head

I love him
Because I have known him forever
And because I can't help it
He's my father

But don't get me wrong
I don't like him
Not as a person
Or as a parent
Or as a human

There is something about bathroom stalls
That is just so comforting
No one can see me
No one can hear me cry
I can finally breathe
And sit there
Tears rolling down my cheeks
And hands over my ears
Trying to block out all incoming sound
Making patterns in my head with the tiles

Every place has one
Bathroom stalls are my consistent safe space
And I know it sounds stupid
But I don't know what I would do without them

Shove those feelings
Deep inside you
Dance
Remember to smile
Is it okay to look down?

Fear? Anxiety? Doubt?
Save it for later
Can't let it out now

Just so what she does
She seems to know
Hands up then
Hands low now

Shove it all down
Save it for later
Now it's just bubbling
But I know soon
It will boil over

Loud music
The bass shaking the ground and my mind
Loads of people dancing around
Shouting "ay, ay, ay!"
Bright lights spinning
Dizziness

The music is too loud
Too many people crowded around
Lights moving too fast
Everything seems like it is closing in on me
And collapsing

My picked thumbs
Bleeding
In such throbbing pain
But I'm sorry I missed a detail in your funny story
When you wanted to speak
Anyhow
You didn't notice

Cold and tired
But I'm covered and can't sleep
Sad and angry
But I won't let myself scream or weep

Pen
To paper
Words flooding out
Ones I could never be able
To say outloud

Don't cry
Just breathe
In----out
Relax
Everything's okay
So what if you don't sleep?
You'll be okay
You've done it before
Just don't cry
Don't run
And only scream silently
Because no one has to know

They don't understand
The reason I'm not crying
Not sobbing
And not yelling
Is because I am writing
"Liana, go to sleep!"
They tell me harshly
But it's what keeps me sane
Let me write
It doesn't hurt anyone
It's the only thing
That can calm me down

There's this kid I know
Associated with making trouble
But quite wrongly so
Because before he even moves
They tell him to stop
As if they know squat

For the next two days
I'll be off and away
In the middle of nowhere
Where no one wants to be

For the next two days
I'll have no electronics
And that means no phone
And that means, I won't be on here

For the next two days
I hope you all can forgive me
For I will be forced to take a break

I refuse to be nonchalant
I will be that person who's smile gets wider when they see you
Starts jumping up and down
I will be that person who cries every time a dog in a movie died
If something funny happens
Why wouldn't I let myself laugh?
If I see that the sunset looks especially pretty one night
I'll say it randomly in conversation
And I'll dance with my friends while listening to music on our way to buy random things from Walgreens at 11:00pm
If the sounds are too overwhelming
I'll go to hide in the bathroom
And yeah, if I see you cry
I'll probably cry too

When I'm not escaping
In my social media, walks, books, art, music, or poetry
I am thinking
But thoughts are dangerous and scary
So I'll stick to escaping
And when I'm forced to look up
Into the scary world
I will use it as inspiration
And I will try to make it less scary for those who haven't found their best escape yet
And for those like me
Reluctantly looking up

Whenever I walk across the street
The person in the car has to stop
I think about how
In just a slight movement of their foot
The person in that car
Could end my life
And all that I know would be effected
And everyone who knows them will be effected
And it may or may not
Go on and on

We trust eachother so much
And so little

I know that you see things
As the remix
Or maybe the movie version
That instead of all the good parts getting left out
It's the bad ones
You don't remember any of it
And you caused it
And I remember all of it
It's engraved in my head
I can't pick it off
Like I pick off my skin
I can't ignore it
Like I can't sleep
And I can't pretend it's okay
Like it wasn't abuse
Yes
You didn't beat me
But you still bruised me
And whenever I move
I ache

To call someone autistic
Is to call someone stupid

To be unique
Is to be weird

To talk a lot
Is to yap

To not talk at all
Is to be emo
As is to wear anything black

To get good grades
Is to be a teachers pet and nerd

To get bad grades
Is to be "special" and slow

To like to read
Is a crime

To like to write
Is a felony

To hate your teachers
Is to be a trouble maker

To like your teachers
Is too be one's pet

To eat lunch
Is to be big

To not eat lunch
Is to be to be flesh and bone

To have OCD
Is to like to keep things neat

To be bipolar
Is the occasional mood swing

Bad
Means good

And Gay
Means bad

These days
Everything's ****** up
It's 2024
Things should be like this anymore

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Trying to figure out
How people
Are underlining
Bolding
And putting italics
On here
My Google search
Has done me no good

In class
When someone spots my bleeding thumb
Before saying anything to me
Thinking anything
They raise their hand
And say
"Mrs. S! Mrs. S! She's bleeding!

My head screams
"No no no no no"
As I walk to the nurse
What will she say?
What will she do?
Will she ask me questions?
Luckily she didn't
She barely glanced at me
And told me where the bandaids were
Phew!

I wonder what would happen if she saw how bad it looked though...

I fear you
Everyday
Every moment
You're a silent scream
always taunting me
You're unpredictable
Will I see tomorrow?
Will they see a tomorrow?
Why am I still in bed worrying
When there's a whole world?
I fear the last times
The last times I don’t even know are last times
My head takes me to places no one wants to go
You take them away from us
Anyone has the power to use you
We have to trust each other
But not too much
to avoid you

Dear death,
How dare you?

When I'm asked
"Are you an introvert of an extrovert?"
I respond
"It depends who I'm with"

If only everyone
Was a little bit more
Like my cat

Because he sees someone crying
And sits with them to comfort

When I arrive home
He comes to welcome me

No matter how many times
We kick him off the dinner table
He always comes back trying to take
What he believes he deserves
And he eventually he succeeds

He loves
Unconditionally

he's there
Always

And he's absolutely bonkers
But he doesn't care

A prompt in ELA
"Perfect Day"
While everyone started their paragraphs about what their perfect days would look like
With watching TV
And going to the mall
I wrote a poem about how they don't exist
Because she didn't say not to

It went something kind of like this:


There is no such thing as a perfect day
Even if everything goes your way
And you get to sleep in
You eat your favorite food
The sky is blue
Not it's usual gray
And all of your morbid thoughts
Put away

Even if you
Spend the day alone in solitude and peace
Or with your friends
And loved ones
And if you buy a pony
Or win the lottery
Or just smile the whole day
It will never be a perfect day

Because as you lie in bed that night
Or maybe you think about it the whole day
Tomorrow will not be the same
And the sky will return to its gray
And the thoughts flooding back in
And the peace--gone

All my life
I had strived to be normal

Once I finally move to this new school
I will be normal
...I wasn't

Once I style my hair differently
I will be normal
...I wasn't

Once I join this club
I will be normal
...I wasn't

I never was
No matter the rules I made
The clothes I wore
The school I went to

No matter how many how many YouTube videos on how to make friends I watched
The techniques I tried
And the books I read

Now
Only now
Do I finally accept
And take pride in
The fact that I am weird


Now
I try to find
Other weirdos like me
And make them my friends
Instead of the copy pasted people

I am weird
But I am weird
In a good way

He's a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all these nowhere promises
To somebody

He's as blind as he can be
Just sees what he wants to see
Nowhere man
Can you see me at all?

You shouldn't wait for someone to lend you a hand
You awful
Awful
Nowhere man

He is the kind of manipulative
That makes question yourself
And your memory
So I found a loophole
I record everything
On my phone
So I can check to make sure

It's sad that I have to do this
With my own father
But I need to
For me mentally

I don't know much about death
Except that it takes your loved ones
It is a big question mark
Taughting me
Constantly

I think
Our brains
Simply can't
Comprehend
That they one day
We won't be there

I don't know much about death
But I know
For some it might be loud
A gunshot the last sound they here
And for some it might be quiet
Alone in world with their last tear

I don't know much about death
But I know
For some it might be at age 6
A very tragic thing indeed
And for some at age 90
Holding the hands of their children
Maybe just as tragic

I don't know much about death
But with great sadness I know
That while some stay until they can't anymore
Some want to go

Death
Holds suspense, grief, and longing
In the palm of his hand
And he boasts it

We humans
We love to compare and contrast
But
We often forget
We don't all have the same denominator

If you look at me in school
You wonder
Why is she so quiet?
What is she even looking at?

If you meet me out of school you wonder
Why won't she stop talking?
Why does she not take anything seriously?

But the thing is
If you know me
The real me
I promise you
If you ask
Or sometimes don't
I'll tell you
The truth
So you won't have
To wonder
Anymore

I refuse to laugh
Just because that's what they do
I'll just observe leaves

I know I am lucky for it
These experiences people my age don't get
Traveling and performing
Playing my instrument
But they don't really know how it is
At home
Scales and metronomes
Haunting me in my sleep
Playing and practicing for my audition
All while crying
Tears rolling down my cheeks as I crescendo
A little sob escapes
During the half rest

I love music
But It shouldn't be this stressful
It's fun when I play with my band
But not alone with my mom
While she's telling me to play that measure again and again
Until I get it right
But I don't really care about that scale
I want to play for fun

I don't like winter for one reason
Because I leave for school before sunrise
And come back
When the sun has almost set
I see no light
And I can't walk
Winter has taken away my walks
They keep me sane
And now they're gone
And so is my wonder
And my joy

Walking in the crowded hallways
The teens yelling
Banging
Talking
Shouting
All of these sounds
Coming from all directions
Making me feel small
And claustrophobic
Suddenly my clothes are too tight and too loose
And my hair is itchy on my neck
Overwhelming urge to scream and run away
To be alone in my bedroom
Where its quiet at least
But no
I need to go to my next class
That I'll forget about as soon as the test is finished
Or maybe before
I don't know

Once when I was around 6 years old
I was ******
At my teacher
So I went and sat under the slide
And I wouldn't move
Even after the whistle was blown
And after my teacher yelled at me some more
And my friend joined me
And then left
And until they say they would call my mom
And that they were disappointed in me
I still sat
That was all I could do at my age to protest
And I did until I felt I had made my impact
Then I got up silently
And went in line
With a smile of satisfaction
And the reminisce of tears on my cheeks

Now
When I'm ******
I sit there
Clenching my fists
And do nothing else
(Outside of my head)

I wish I would be more like 6 year old me
Honestly

A sticky note
Where I'm supposed
to write what I learned today
But the thing is
I learned nothing

One of my friends asked me
"Do you think I'm a good person"
My first instinct was to tell her
"Yes, of course!"
But then I remembered
There's no such thing
I explained to her that I believed
In bad actions
Bad intentions
But not bad people
Because who knows who they would have been if raised even slightly differently
And if it's not because of that
And they're simply born that way
It isn't their fault they are like that
Just bad luck

I say that her intentions are usually good
And so because of that
She should feel that way too

How can a world of
Hugging good books
Walking and listening to music
Dancing in the rain
Collecting shells at the beach and leaves in autumn
Helping someone get through an anxiety attack
Just smiling when there's nothing to say

Also have

Crying yourself to sleep at night
Sitting alone at lunch
Parents who aren't supportive of who their kids are
Parents that mentally insane and not good to be around
Ones that aren't even there
Homelessness
poverty
And war

The dread for tomorrow
Is almost
As bad as tomorrow itself

That fact that you don't feel like it
Or are too scared to do it
Just shows
How much more you need to

Go for a walk?
You should
Take  a shower?
You should
Text your friend?
You should
Get out of bed?
You should
Create.... anything?
You absolutely should

It means almost nothing to me when it is said someone loves my curly hair
It means almost nothing to me when people say they love my green eyes or anything else


The best compliment I have ever received is
"Liana, you're so weird, but in the very best way!"

I feel betrayed
I thought we were a group
We would stick together
Forever
And we would see eachother every week
As long as we wanted to
How dare you leave
I didn't agree
I feel betrayed
I heard it from my mother
You didn't even bother to tell me