I used to look at the world and wonder how people managed to not forgive. How they could bear the burden of questioning and guilt and grudge and "maybe it wasn't them, it was me". How could they cling so desperately to that anger, it becomes part of them. It dominates most parts. It takes over.

I used to watch all the fights and yells and screams that were so spiteful they sounded like an "I hate you" but really, they were just a "please don't leave me". I used to observe how hands flew in the air, wanting to pull away but also needing to hold onto something. How lips turned into a kiss goodbye that looked like a "*******" from afar. How features twisted and turned and gave in to the rage or maybe it was the loss. I don't really know.

All I know is that I find myself fighting with bitterness that isn't my own, it's theirs. I find myself yelling out words that mean nothing to me, that break my own heart on their way out, that I could have sworn I once spoke to myself in the mirror. I find myself clawing out my eyes that had seen too much and throwing them at their feet because they don't feel like they're mine anymore.

I wasn't always this angry. I swear I had a heart once. And there's still something there in my chest where it should have been. But it's a bit harsher, a bit more taunted, colored in black and navy and dark red instead of rainbows and whites and light beiges. I think it might be my soul but that too, looks like the blanket we covered my father's body with. Torn. Filthy. Irrevocably stained. And yeah, maybe it wasn't my soul after all.

It's the thing that reminds me to feel that pain everyday like my own dosage of medicine because if I don't feel the pain then I feel nothing at all and that's not good. That's not normal. But I can't be normal anymore and they don't understand that maybe I had never been and maybe the thing that's cut me open had done a **** job at stitching me back together. And maybe all the wounds are contaminated and the disease is slowly spreading through me and there's no way to stop it. Maybe that's why I get it now.

I get how you don't forgive because you can't. Because you're still having trouble forgiving your own self let alone anyone else. How you yell and kick and push people away because leaving has become another loose thread of your soul that's breaking away. Breaking apart. How you judge because you've always been your worst critic and something is always wrong and if it isn't with someone else then it's with you and you just can't afford having another thing being wrong with you. So maybe that burden of grudge isn't as heavy as your heart. Maybe that tear of goodbye is better done by your own shaky hands than theirs. Maybe you were never meant to forgive, only fault. Maybe you should have stopped wondering about the world because now you can't even solve the mystery of your being. You can't make sense of your own self, how did you expect to make sense of the world?

Too familiar with the unhealthy coping mechanism of numbing emptiness with mindlessness
Your hands are too tired of the math review you’re desperately trying to finish.
You find yourself
Tapping through Snapchat stories, barely paying attention to
The group selfies, of bright, well-lit rooms decked with Christmas decorations
Of red ribbons and green pine and mistletoe
Of the white glints of friends’ toothy smiles
Sometimes the snaps would be videos
With deafening, muffled sounds of cheers, people’s faces recognizable
Even when turned away, laughing, looking at the star, the subject of the snap
All the cameras point to her face as she dances
It’s a party, and the late realization makes you feel dumb
I wasn’t invited. But why would I be?
I’m the asocial one, the one who always has to politely decline with
“Sorry, I have to do homework, have to do this, have to do that”
They’re IB kids. You’re in AP. What’s your excuse?
You think as you sit in front of your fluorescent LED screen
The phone’s luminosity searing through your eyes
But you can’t tear them away from the festive scene playing in front of you.
They’re having fun. It’s nighttime, 11:04, 5 seconds in, but
The environment in your house versus theirs
Seem 12 hours apart, night and day,
You squint, because wow, everyone is there. The close ones, the acquaintances,
That one guy you had to sit next to once in homeroom.
It’s almost Christmas.
You glance around your room.
No cat in sight, mother upstairs, conked out.
Your phone isn’t even alive. The snap has long been over. No vibrations of incoming texts.
You sigh.
Only a semester left.
And your fingers wearily
Pick up the pencil
And you resume
Alone.

here i bleed colours
of insanity,
what i see, of what i hear
what i think, what i wear
and when i'm not wearing
any skin.

wearily my eyes catch
glimpses of universe,
and of much beyond-
in those colours dancing
on the walls of my keep-
just as i fall asleep,
never wanting to wake again.

there's pain, and then
there's nothing,
absolute in its chaos-
so true, loyal to its creed,
it never bleeds an ounce
of anything, no matter
how much you scream at it.

there's nothing true,
not even the light
even the moon-light
splits in seven
on day, and past eleven
if you hold a prism
up close.

and yet here,
in this tiny room
with no doors-
the colours dance for me,
and i'm not even blinking.

thinking about all those
curses, that still plague me-
ghosts and evil and friends,
and laughing my head off-
as i put my head in the ***.

maybe i'll finally lose it
before the night ends.

it’s 9:30pm on a
chilly autumn night
i step into the
passengers seat
of your car as you
start the engine

music blaring from
the speakers as the
thundering bass
vibrates through
the entire car
i couldn’t get a word
out because it was so loud

we stop at a red light
I turn to look at you
as the red light
hits your face
i wanted to take a picture
it looked so aesthetically
pleasing with your side profile
as the red light shined in your face
making your face bright red like
the blush on my face when people
ask me about you

your grip on the steering
is so strong that i can see
your veins popping out
you look so focused
when you drive
it’s ****
with only one hand
on the wheel
the other i wish
was gripping my thigh

late night drives
with you are
my favorite

- night drives

i use social media as an outlet for my emotions
the only problem is that
most of my mixed feelings develop because
of subtweets and
photos of girls who are not me
isnt it funny?
how the apps on our phones are
both the sickness and the cure
no
you will not go to heaven,
you will eternally reside in
your saved drafts on twitter
i dare you to post your most embarrassing
mine?
"do you ever look at the man you used to love
and wonder why on earth he doesnt cut his hair
and why he started wearing bermuda jorts"
its more embarrassing for him
my love life is now at my finger tips
do you know how many guys want to love
the girl they met on tinder who
hides behind her poetry
and uses harry potter as an escape mechanism?
none
i dared one to text me at midnght
between mispelled words and shots
he completed the phrase
i love .... euphamisms
like when your former self dies you call it
growing up instead of suicide
not my type
i cant stand when people cough in class
it reminds me of choking on
words
my words - the ones i say when i'm not supposed to
or the ones i should've said but never did
all of my pictures are captioned with
phrases and song lyrics that
i read in your voice
i wish that record wasn't broken
i wish i was a wizard
truly i do
with spells like
impedimenta (to slow down your attackers)
i wonder if it would slow down the voices in my head
i wonder if it could slow down you leaving
or my breathing (or lack thereof)
this wasn't meant to be emotional,
but with the world like this
how could you NOT cry
ive spent more nights in the bar bathroom
than i have in my own bed
its true how they say big events are
the most intimate
madi hahn - party of 1
or party of 761
if you count the followers who favorite my
tweets about dying
no one relates to happy poetry
why?
because no one is happy
because. no. one. is. happy.
its a facade - a mask, we hide behind
but then the clock strikes midnight
we're back daring stupid guys
to tell us **** about ourselves that we already know
we burn holes into screens trying to be relatable
we lose the best versions of ourselves
and
we are fine with it as long as
we recieve our fair share of attention

we deserve it

Sept 24th, 2017

In the midnight hours, my neighbour is hosting a party. And I... was in my bedroom watching "The Walking Dead" on Netflix.

In the room next to mine, I hear shouting in the streets and out my window I see the flashing of lights.

2 cop cars on my block.

The night is not young, but look at all these young people in it.

I analyze the voices outside my window, as I watch 3 young boys gather in my driveway.

Wearing dark clothing, CHECK.
Group movement, CHECK.
Overuse of the word "****", CHECK.

And I am praying for them to leave my driveway and they do.

And I migrate to the next room, slightly open the window and listen for more of these people. It's too dark outside for me to see much but the colour of their hair, and the backpacks or purses the brought with them.

They are all gathering at one house, the cops are further down the street, so that all moved.

I used to hang out with the kid who lives at this house. My how things have changed.

Relax.

Go back to your show. And I did.

Later into the night, I hear through my headphones the shouting of a girl and I stop.

She and her what I assumed was her boyfriend just turned the corner and I slowly open my window.

I begin to analyze the situation.

Fighting teenage couple, Check
Probably intoxicated Check

She starts talking about some other guy.
He starts accusing her of cheating.
She gets in his face.
He gets in her face.

She says "I wouldn't do that because I ******* love you!" "And you're gonna make me walk home in the dark?!"

She gets in his face, he gets in her face....

BAM

She's on the ground.

He had forcefully shoved her into the pavement and she just...

Sits there.

In disbelief.

He says, "Yeah? HOW BOUT THAT!"

I don't know why it took so long to act, but I did.

Bolting into my kitchen, with my father up playing backgammon I tell him I just watched a guy shoe his supposed girlfriend in the road and he doesn't miss a beat.

He is out there in the middle of the night and he gets to that boy and I just stand in my living room, watching.

The windows on the first floor were closed so I couldn't hear a thing. But I could only pray that this boy did not carry a blade, or a gun, or the wrong words to my father's throat.

I ran up to my bedroom, grabbed my old cap gun and heard the boy say, "Hey man I don't hit my ******* woman!"

And I went downstair thinking to myself I don't know if my dad is sure to return to this house alive.

I just watched a girl suffer battery, I did not need to see my father die today.

And nobody can tell cap guns are fake when you're buzzed at 2 in the morning so yeah, I was scared.

But wait....

I see my father shake the boy's hand, give him a bro hug...

And send him off.

And when he came back into the house I hugged him and I wasn't exactly keen on letting go.

He told me that he had sent the boy in the opposite direction of his girlfriend.

It turns out she had already walked down the block by the time he had gotten outside.

It is 2:25 AM

After a talk about what happened, I went back to watching "The Walking Dead on Netflix".

And I can only hope that girl was not also walking dead.

My father is a good man.
Even after all that.

He still went back to play more backgammon.