Teenage

Every day, I look forward to seeing the blue-eyed face
of the one person who makes me more awkward
and shy than I already am.
First thought: my life hasn’t started yet.

University in Liverpool. Fashion journalist in New York.
My silhouette, perhaps even in a clipping of my own.
If only there were instructions for how to get there.

Today I received a U (ungraded) in an English essay
and my teacher wants to see me next week.
It made me feel stupid.
I don’t study as hard as I should for my A-levels.

I’m wondering how I could be more assertive and confident.
How to stop speaking from my throat when I’m nervous.
I need to learn how to talk from my diaphragm instead.

Today one of the girls in my Sociology class inspired me
to buy a pair of white linen trousers after I saw her wearing some.
I got the Beatles question right on the morning quiz.
My form tutor was really quite impressed with that.

I am a sham because I say I want to work hard and then
spend far too much time thinking and wasting time.
My anxiety has been very prevalent recently, I’ve noticed.

I have to pretend to be unaffected when they kiss
each other constantly at lunch.
There are other people here too, you know.
I feel like he’s making fun of me.

Now, I don’t know when I’ll write next
but I’ll tell you if anything happens, which it won’t.
Life hasn’t begun yet. Love, Lucy.

I feel.
The sensations that fill my soul.
The burning passion which leads me into the path
That I will take.
Emotions cloud my senses.
Gas me up like a bomb.

I must feel.
In whatever I do, whatever I say,
I must seek.
The feeling of modesty and justice.
In what I do
The feelings are too much.
Quite a burden, maybe not.

I contradict and I conflict,
The azure pain of being in my sleeve.
I feel –
Oh! How I long to feel.
How I’ve never felt before.
I feel.
Oh! How I long to feel.
The way I think about my deep conversations with myself.

The feeling
Of complicated art.
In the mystery of love,
In the misery of pain.
And in the madness of the brain.
And I
Promise not to be vile.
So, I
Can be a person in life.
Not an emotionless monster.
I feel – oh! I must feel.

Tells the king of the jungle
The tigers roar and the bison rumble
Looking at the big black beast
Tigers fantasise a hefty feast
Tigers attack it with a bang
The bison uses its horns to ram

History reveals the bison’s regime
Belonging to the lineage of bovines
Their food is what we had been encroaching
We killed, slaughtered and started poaching

That social bison who loves to graze
Lacked behind in the jungle’s race
From gangs of beasts with a glorious fame
To merely thousands left in the game

She’s watching me
Over my shoulder
I can feel her fingers clasped around mine
Feel the cold scent of her breath on my neck
Watching
Always watching
Even now
As my fingers move from key to key
Typing, typing until my hands bleed
She’s here
‘Why can’t you let me go?’
But I can’t let her go
I could never let her go
She’s not really here is she?
She’s playing with my mind again…
She’s at the bottom of the lake
She has been for 10 years…
And I was the one who killed her.

This is really weird I guess
Why am I writing with such a mess?
I want to write a poem to have some fun
And right now I am writing a ton!
I just wanted to say
I love all your poems
They make the day bright!
Oh, what light!

Thank you for reading my poem

Snakes are cool
Snakes are fun
Snakes are great for everyone!

Dear archer,

when all is wounded yet shielded
by shards of silver rain,
when one cannot distinguish
between sight and golden stain,

will you take aim?
and strike
upon strike
upon strike?

when time frowns upon itself
and pleas for its failing health,

when an artist masters their stroke
to mix crime with casualty
to blur our reality
to pollute the tint of morality,

I plead that you still take aim

and strike
upon strike
upon strike

Gunfire rattles the windows on the houses
Glass splinters against the cobbles by our feet
I lie back, numb all across me
As the shards claw at broken skin and khaki clothes
Yet I feel none of it.

The air above my face shudders black with bullets
Soldiers snarl in a desperate cry
As they all fall to join me
Fear sparking, sharp, electric
Yet I hear none of it.

The sky burns with light as shapes descend
Every face I’ve ever lost staring back with honest eyes
A hand holds itself out, and as I reach up and stumble forth
Nothing can touch my broken body, broken soul
I feel none of it.

The light opens wide and I stare into its gaping mouth
Nerves like ice freezing in each cell to see
The heavens’ gates open wide but still I won’t move
Won’t step towards their light
Will know none of it.

“The sky’s too big,” I cry out to their cold impossible faces
“I’m scared,” I tell them, stare back at my fellow fallen
Have they gone up too?
I cannot follow, will not, I’m scared despite all I have felt before
I will learn none of it.

They speak to me then
The power of many condensed into one solitary sound
“Young man,” they say. “Don’t you know
That there is more to life than this one you have led?”
And I want to know all of it.

I wander up to that distant perfect light
Its secrets calling like a gentle cry of a lover
The world’s torment falls on deaf ears and still
I will forget none of it.
But I will leave behind all of it.

No, I can’t find her,
not in the books she used to read—the fantasies, the dystopian mysteries, the crime records.
Not in the sleep she was once deprived of,
not in her bewildering dreams,
not in her go-to food,
not in the studies she used to ace.

She is lost, if only I knew where.
Nothing that intrigued her before can save her.
She searches in the shadows of her mind, only to hear a hindered silence.
Once a buoy of light, now hunts for her luminescence,
like a ship, astray from its route in the sea.
Will she be found again?
Will I ever be found again?

I must tell myself I am okay I’m fine cuts on my wrist blood on the line wiping the tear’s from my face and pillow am I really okay or is this a shadow is my reality fake my sexuality fake medication everything so fake this pain it eats me up one step at a time until I’m dead until I’m blind caught in a dream can I find light I’m screaming is anyone there in this nightmare does anyone care pieces of myself scattered missed placed searching for a truth in this endless space I am screaming is anyone there this nightmare turned into reality