#300 poems a year or whatever that challenge I utterly failed at was called

[sylvanshiner]

prepare yourself for

the possibility of

love being real

[sylvanshiner]

sometimes, lately, I can see her in the mirror,

the woman my mother wants me to be.

she wears her hair at shoulder-length,

and she got blonde highlights done cause they look good with her hair, make it look more lively

she’s very lively, actually,

happy and down-to-earth and pragmatic

doesn’t have her head in the clouds

she didn’t go to university, cause she knows that formal education isn’t everything these days and most profs are self-important eggheads anyway

they don’t know what real life is like

but she does, and she’s good at living it

that’s why she decided to become a social worker, or maybe a nurse, or a kindergarden teacher,

something practical that lets her use her nurturing, motherly side

(she has one, so unlike me,

who might as well be a solid block of ice by the way my mom describes me

a solid block of ice and a sad girl frozen inside, maybe.

that doesn’t seem so far off)

~~~

I squint and look closer, and the woman in the mirror smiles back at me

she needs to get to work on time

she’s working part-time

she spends the rest of the day looking after her children,

and cleaning the house,

she’s very cleanly

(so unlike me, who would happily sit down in a pig sty and read a book,

according to my mom

it was never meant as a compliment, but I always took it as one.)

~~~

I keep looking at the mirror and she keeps smiling

her husband is American

a good, decent young man who repairs things around the house and plays with the children

they can spend their holidays in the US whenever they like,

they often go to New York

but ultimately their place is here,

in my mom’s hometown,

my hometown that never felt like home to me

but boy does it feel like home to her, so she and her well-off American husband settled down here,

built a nice house and produced healthy children

the children wear the baby clothes my mother used to keep in the garage for all these years

and isn’t that practical? after all they were never worn before,

and now they have a use

(I never asked my mother if I would’ve had a sister or a brother

if things had gone differently

I don’t think I want to know.)

~~~

She’s fading back into the mirror now,

this happy, down-to-earth married woman

I know she was about to tell me how she plans to stay in this town her entire life, just like my mom did,

I know everything

I see her so clearly

there are fighting planes flying overhead, and I’m late, so I leave the room

I never liked mirrors anyway

(but it’s alright, my hair looks alright

I cut it myself.)

[sylvanshiner]

study hard and you’ll be successful, they say

they say it like it’s the truth but

it’s a lie but

they don’t know that

because they don’t know shit about anything

related to university, because they have never been to university in their life

and never will be

university used to be for rich people, you see

not for people like us

but those who make the rules changed them before I was born (how nice of them)

and so here I am, inside a big university building, armed with

nothing but lies

but I don’t know that yet, so I’ll pick a seat in the first row (surely sitting in the first row will prove to everyone that I am a good student),

and I listen, and I take notes, and I study hard

and afterwards I go straight to the library to study some more

and I don’t sleep for more than four hours a night

and when things don’t go well I just study harder, and resolve to sleep less

cause surely that is gonna fix it

so I study, and write notes, and read, and study, and have nightmares for four hours, and get up, and go back to studying,

and sit in the first row, and take notes, and study, and study harder,

and at the end of the lesson the professor calls a girl to the front to have a word with her,

and he offers her a job, and she smiles brightly and accepts,

cause this job is gonna set her up for a career in academia if she wants it,

and that girl is not me

she has long wavy light blond hair and she’s way prettier than me

she got a B+ in the exam, I remember that,

I got an A, but that doesn’t matter

cause noone gives a fuck whether or not I study hard

whether or not I sleep at night

whether or not I wish her ill

whether or not I got told lies and believed them

like all good students do

[sylvanshiner]

dirty, tentative

first, the musky smell of hope

on sticky fingers

[sylvanshiner]

since I became my

own therapist, therapy

is a lot more fun

[sylvanshiner]

your funeral is tomorrow

I keep thinking you’ll be there

and then I have to remind myself all over again

my mom has bought white roses at the supermarket

they smell chemical but they’re

very real

if I had started ten years ago, I could write you poems now

something for you to

not read

but now all I can do is pluck hairs out of my face

small black things, hard and brittle, and pulling them out feels like the opposite of writing

I know they’ll grow back before monday

maybe they’re growing on my heart as well

maybe that’s why I can’t feel a damn thing

maybe that’s why I don’t even feel I miss you

[sylvanshiner]

Don’t say we’ll be brave

I am sick of bravery

Want LOVE, not courage

[sylvanshiner]

the birds don’t miss you.

I wear black when running,

read late into the night,

and haven’t cried in weeks.

you’ve been dead for less than a month.

[sylvanshiner]

I know it won’t last

this feeling okay, feeling fine, feeling whole and happy

focused on my tasks

I know it’s fake

a breather before the storm will start, inevitably

that brief brief interval between hearing about your death

and realizing this has really happened

but maybe if I just keep going

if I just don’t rest

just one more page, one more chapter, one more essay to write

one more extracurricular zoom meeting

one more hour of cleaning my room

maybe I can stretch it out

infinitely

and maybe I’ll never have to stop, catch my breath,

and realize this really happened after all

cause if it sinks in I’ll sink too,

and fast.

[sylvanshiner]

funny huh how

when you were alive, I never went to see you

didn’t have the time

uni stuff, you know,

crying over grades, the usual

now that you’re gone I see you in everything everywhere

every hour of the day

you’re in every anecdote, every book I read

I’ve spent more time with you this past week than when you were alive

and it makes me want to bash my head in with a book

[sylvanshiner]

I remember visiting you

I remember how the room smelled of disinfectant and pus

I remember how your face had changed

I remember how I thought, with sudden clarity, I am scared of many things, but I’m not scared of you

and that still holds now

I’m not scared

I’m not scared of what I’m feeling

I’m not scared of what is coming

I’m not scared of what happened to you

I miss you, yes, but I’m not scared

I don’t need to pull myself together, and I don’t need to try to be okay

Because I already am

And I never told you, but I don’t want to be tough, I want to be soft,

like water.