I'm going to tell you a story, from a place where my head isn't out of balance and where I don't believe things I know aren't true. It starts, not with once upon a time but with

There is a place we all know. It is a tree house of sorts, a shelter for the imagination.
If you were to climb it's ladder, you would find yourself alongside the clouds.
It's planks are made of swirling light and it's rope a sliding pattern of touch.
You will not truly see this place. When you look for it, you will find yourself shielding your eyes from harsh white light. But you will be there.
It's glow will infuse you and from its inhabitants you will receive a formal written invitation.
Stay here, they'll say.
Stay there long enough and you will see the stars begin to breathe, feel the planets reverse their collide, catch the beat of a butterfly's wing.
And they will come to you in a parade of characters, black raindrops in a white sea.
You are home here now, they'll say.
They'll send you on your journeys, far from the refuge, the deluge,
But you will know the way back better than you know your own heartbeat.
Take the weight off your weary walking feet.
With one click, you have entered to the place.

And your fingers will start their dance.

Isn't it funny
how she didn't even flinch
when that block of wood
came crashing down right next to her head?
They laugh
All I did was blink

*Yes, isn't that funny?

You know those dystopian stories that became popular a few years ago?
Where there's the one government that controls all the people
and they're well past the pitiful divisions of before,
because otherwise the whole Earth's going to be destroyed?
Or it already is and they need each other's cooperation to survive
in the lifeless vacuum we call space?
And yeah, it's dystopian because something's going wrong-
the government is ******* away people's individuality,
it's taking advantage of the people who can't fight back, or something like that-
but I look around at the world I live in today
with all it's death and sadness and sand-drawn lines
and I can't help but think I'd like to be a citizen of those stories instead

An age-old warning haunts me from a fairy tale
*Be careful what you wish for

Someday in the future, I want to see my best friend and I working side by side
I hope to have adventures, fall in love, make people happy

So why am I here again?
Instead of chasing those dreams
Trapped by thoughts I would disagree with
But am too apathetic to dispel

Imagine me trying to reassure someone
Well yes, I've been thinking of falling out windows, and am so emotionally cold that it would be possible, but don't worry. I don't actually want to. I've only been thinking about it.
Yes comforting, isn't it?

At least with other people, from what I've read, it makes sense
They say they feel soulless
Better off away from here than making the effort it will take to stay
But I'm not like that
I'm 100% positive I want to live
Certain in my love of the sun
Yet, here I am again

*If you just leaned back a little more, it wouldn't take very long to fall...

I give great advice.

Your health and happiness are more important than your commitments. Your problems are valid even if they're not as bad as what is going on in the rest of the world. Let's look at this rationally. It's okay to show that you're grieving, hurt, upset. You can only do so much. You need help. At some point, you have to put yourself before others.

But I'm really just a liar.

While I know these things to be true,
I don't believe any of them.

It's so much easier to tell others how to be
than to change what my own head believes.

You need help.
I know.

But I won't do anything about it.

It's not that I can't get things done
I can, clearly- I'm not failing school, I paste a smile on my face and have chatter with mom, I write poems-
It's just that the only things getting done are things with deadlines,
with fear of people knowing pushing me from behind

And when I can take charge of myself and
Do things I care about- learn about physics in the brain, stretch my muscles, prepare my future, be happy, write thousands of words of a story-
It takes such grit, such determined effort that
**** it, I'm going to make my own choices today

That I know it's only a matter of time before I once again begin to fade.

Twinkle twinkle little soul
Why are you so hard to hold?
Up away from life so far
Like this world you are so scarred
Twinkle twinkle little soul
Since when did you become so cold?