“it feels so relatable” 

I walk past her every day and I see her sometimes alone, but most days people are crowding her. Can she even breathe? I see her alone; she stands in a bubble trapped like she’s waiting for someone to open it to open the door for her. I can talk to her but it’s mysterious because no one knows who we really are when we’re online. She doesn’t know me, but I know her. I see her alone sometimes. I want to go up and talk to her. But I don’t want to hurt her by coming up. I don’t want to scare her.  

Because we’re both different. Each of us coming from different worlds. We’re both different, different in a way no one can understand. Because I’m different compared to the other people she talks to. When she’s around people, I see her suffocating while struggling to breathe. I see her. But I’m not watching her. What I see is overwhelming. I can’t even begin to imagine what she could be feeling right now.  

It’s as if she’s being strangled by everyone around her. Their hands are grasping onto her neck. And you can see how she’s gasping for air, but there is no air because there’s water filling in her lungs. They are gripping tighter and tighter so tight that they are literally twisting and clawing their nails into her neck. It’s enough to make her bleed. I look around from a distance and to my horror I see no one helping her.  

She’s bleeding but no one comes to help her. They all turned their backs on her. Their eyes 

fill with hatred. 

Her head spins with thoughts. The water is filling up. Her body is slowly drowning. Starting from her chest and down to her stomach and legs. Even her bubble is filled up. Everything is filled up. There’s poison and acid, she can’t see the pathway which was once clear to her. The acid and toxicity are sickening. Every day when I pass her, I watch silently as they claw at her hands, ripping her skin like paper.  

As the days go by, she gets worse. People are talking behind her back. They shame her when she’s not watching. She used to try and get out; she’d claw at the walls only to find her being closed in tighter. Her mind is like a maze, except there is no escape. People tell her that she should have gotten out when she had the chance. But the thing is she didn’t get a chance. Because you see things start off slow and they gradually build up with the pressure. And by the time she figured it out, she was too late.  Another day passes. Days turning into weeks. Weeks turning into months. Months turning into years. By now I’m long gone, but you can still see her sitting there in her bubble. With everything bottled up. She still waits for someone till this day. Hugging her legs while drowning in her own thoughts.

Teenage Angst

I’m afraid I’m gaining sentience, and

losing the innocence that sprinkled the world in color.

I’m afraid I’m being swept away by current news and arguing adults and 

I’m afraid that they are younger than me, even more unaware and even more stubborn–

At what age did I wake up, thrown out of the comforting pillows of childhood, and

asked to be swallowed by a tempest, and

expected to build Rome out of the experience?

I want to climb back into the crib, steal a few more hours of dreamy nostalgia, but

I’m afraid to leave the world in somebody else’s hands. 

I am the future, and 

I am afraid of what we’ve done to Earth, and I am afraid of what we’ve done to my homeland and to my parents and to my friends and to my neighbors and 

I am afraid,

But I will not allow the present to pass me down a bad copy of a good life as I indulge in the softness of being young again.

Sculptor

teach me how to build a human being 

from the ground up.

guide me to where the bones line up, 

the direction in which the blood flows.

tell me how to carve a hand that can fit another, 

a shoulder that acts as a bed for one’s jaw,

a finger that sinks along a ravined spine, and palms to unravel tense shoulders.

mold a chest that can hold this bleeding heart, 

and a new head, free of dust and ghosts. 

make me believe that love can be pure. 

that these crude lumps of clay can be held, too.

let us play as gods for a moment 

and grant the opportunity to start again.