trigger warning: discussion of mental health stigma, implied self-harm/thoughts of suicide. please be safe while reading, and if you feel like you’re a danger to yourself, please reach out for help. you’re not alone. find a crisis line in your area here.

well, it’s passive, right? so they probably shouldn’t worry about it, at least not tonight. because you’d never actually do anything, and as long as you continue to fake a smile everything should be fine.

you don’t have mental illness. you’re not even a writer. just a dramatic, angsty teenager. and i mean, who are you kidding? this is just a phase, and i’m sure you’ll grow out of it eventually. 

so stuff cotton balls down your throat. ignore the gag reflex. because things are the way they are for a reason, you know. even if they’re stigmatized, and stupid, and horrible. and you’re just a kid. it’s not your job to interfere in the world like this. it’d do you some good to just learn to let go.

because you’re making them uncomfortable. you know?

Sometimes it helps to just… dump out all the self-hatred onto a page. I don’t know. Sometimes, I really beat up on myself for being honest about my mental health issues. For speaking up about how I feel, even when I’m scared to. This poem was my way of dumping out those feelings onto a page and trying to understand them; see them from a different angle. But I just want to say that the things I talk about in this poem are lies. Every single one of them are lies. They’re also things my brain likes to make me believe are true. Your voice matters, and you deserve to be heard in the world when you have a story to tell, provided that story isn’t about silencing anyone else’s. Always. Even when not everyone is receptive to it. ❤

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